Official Report 392KB pdf
Good afternoon, everybody. I welcome everyone to the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee's sixth meeting this year. I remind members and everybody else that all mobile devices should be switched off. I record apologies from Rob Gibson, for whom we hope Alasdair Allan will attend as a substitute, and from Alex Johnstone.
Would you like a few words by way of background or an opening statement?
If you would like to introduce your organisation briefly, that would be fine.
The Association of Train Operating Companies represents franchised passenger train operators throughout Britain. We are a trade association and we provide the facilities to support members through national rail inquiries and the rail settlement plan process, which allocates revenue among companies. We also take the lead on fare and ticketing issues and on other passenger-related issues for passenger train services throughout Britain.
Thank you for the opportunity to come to the meeting. Members know what the CPT does, so I will skip describing that. The contributions that we feel bus transport can make and the assistance that we need can be delivered without further legislation, so we have limited our written response, to which I have nothing to add at this stage.
The agenda says that I am here as the director of a consultancy, but a large part of the reason why I am here, rather than somebody else, is that I chair Scotland's transport think-tank, the Scottish Transport Studies Group. We have, in the past couple of years, held three debates on climate change and transport that covered a wide range of views and which have been written up. As the chair of those debates, I hope that I can give the committee an overview of the views that are out there.
Thank you for that clarification.
The bill is welcome and CPT supports the proposals. Something has to be done and, as we have shown in our submission, transport has already started—in our premises and our fleets—to try to reduce emissions and make our contribution.
ATOC is in the same position. Rail has a major contribution to make to tackling climate change, by reducing the impacts of carbon emissions. Rail is inherently efficient in terms of emissions per passenger kilometre.
I have quite a few points to make, but I will just make a couple as an introduction and then perhaps come back to the others when we go into more detail.
Has the transport sector been given sufficient opportunity, through formal consultation or through informal dialogue with the Government, to influence the development and shaping of the bill before its introduction?
CPT has certainly been consulted. We responded back in September or October, and have since responded again.
I echo those views. ATOC has had the opportunity to make representations, both directly to the Government and through this committee. As Marjory suggests, the devil will be in the detail and it will be important to continue the consultation when we reach that stage.
Some of the wording could be tweaked—at the moment, it is a bit processy. The bill states that people must demonstrate action, rather than that they must ensure delivery, so I would like to tighten up the wording throughout. We will never be able to measure everything, so let us measure what we can change. If we can secure and deliver something, the bill should be used as a trigger for that.
I have a question specifically for the CPT. You cited examples of best practice in depots and offices. How are they rolled out in the rest of the industry? How are those lessons learned?
We gave the committee examples from the two biggest groups—First and Stagecoach—because between them they cover about 70 per cent of bus services. We also gave one example from Lothian Buses, although not in relation to depots. We did not provide examples for all operators, but all of them are developing best practice in their own ways. If you have been to a lot of bus garages and depots, you will know that they are big, cold and draughty places, so there is a big incentive to run them more efficiently. We have been discussing the issue—I could have cited examples from Arriva and others. All the knowledge that is gained from the money that the industry spends on research and development of vehicles and new technologies is shared.
Is there scope to include in the bill engagement targets to encourage the use of public transport?
That is an attractive thought, but it could be difficult to measure engagement. Modal shift and use of public transport can best be encouraged outwith the bill, provided that we get real buy-in from local authorities under the concordat with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I am speaking for bus, coach and light-rail operators and there is a lot that we could do in working with single outcome agreements to improve access to health care and encourage modal shift. There is an onus on the industry to come up with information and other incentives to make public transport attractive.
Are you saying that the industry does not think that the bill is necessary?
Not at all—but the bill covers an awful lot more than transport.
The same is true of rail use. There is every reason to encourage its use, and the track record over the past 10 years demonstrates that that is entirely achievable. Throughout Great Britain, the number of rail passenger journeys has grown by about 50 per cent. It is now at the highest-ever recorded peacetime level, despite the fact that the network is a lot smaller than it used to be. Over the past 10 years, our members have demonstrated that there is an appetite for people to shift to rail, and that they have done so in large numbers. Over the same period, we have been able to reduce CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre by around 25 per cent. Continued reductions of that order will be needed if the targets that the bill will set are to be met. That makes encouraging a shift to public transport very important.
I am slightly concerned about talking about individual modes. There have been various reviews, the most high-profile of which was Sir Rod Eddington's review of transport systems, which have led to major reorganisations of the transport sector, such that we should stop thinking about modes and start thinking about end-to-end journeys. Divisions in the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland have not been reorganised in the same way as those in London departments have been. Down south there is now no such thing as a rail department; it is all about regions and localities—it is about who plans end-to-end journeys.
I am interested in whether you think the bill is sufficient to change people's habits. The whole idea is that to bring people on board in relation to climate change it is necessary to win hearts and minds. A good start is to encourage people to consider their transport options. Can the bill do that? Are there issues to do with winning hearts and minds?
The bill is a valuable tool and it can make a valuable contribution to winning hearts and minds, but it cannot do it on its own; it is up to the operators of all modes of transport to come to the table and make the product more attractive. We must make viable and attractive choices available to everyone if we are going to win hearts and minds.
That finding echoes research that my firm did for the Scottish Government back in 2003, so there is nothing new about that.
Our experience in rail has focused particularly on business travel. The themes of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill and the UK bill before it have been reflected in the approaches that businesses have taken to corporate travel plans and corporate social responsibility.
Is there evidence to back up the assertion that that is what has caused modal shift—if it is happening—rather than its being caused by other aspects of what makes air travel convenient or inconvenient? For example, security changes will have had an impact on aviation.
That is absolutely right. I cannot point to research that pins that change to environmental issues, but it appears to be one factor that is clearly marked in Eurostar's marketing campaign and in the results that it has achieved.
Perhaps we will also explore that question with a future panel.
I will start by answering for rail, which is, as you know, less contentious. It is important to recognise that more than 60 per cent of passengers are already travelling on a regulated fare and that about 80 per cent of them are travelling on some form of discounted ticket. As is the case for air fares, the range of rail fares is broad. As I mentioned, the proof of the pudding is in the success of rail having grown its market by 50 per cent over 10 years. That would not have happened if we had got the pricing hopelessly wrong. It might not be perfect, but it has certainly generated a lot of growth in business and that seems to be a major success criterion.
It has not been enough to stop road traffic growing at the same time.
Yes, but road traffic has not grown as fast. Rail growth has outstripped growth in road traffic and domestic air travel for some time now, which is good if you work for the railway. That is partly reflected in the pricing policy and the amazing degree of very low, advance-purchase fares that are available for long-distance journeys—I have been talking principally about long-distance journeys. That pricing policy has been successful and offers fares that would have been unimaginable five years ago—for example, £16.50 and, I believe, £12 on one offer for travel to London. We are talking about very cheap fares as against much more expensive business fares.
Are there any other views?
Yes. Eighty per cent of the bus industry is still totally commercial and in the cities the figure rises to 98 and 99 per cent. We are going through a three-year review on one of the major sources of public funding—concessionary travel. The review is reaching its conclusions, however, and I do not want to pre-empt them.
We need to start thinking about end-to-end journeys and people getting to places rather than about individual modes of transport. If we want to offer a tariff that is appropriate for an elderly person who is going to hospital, whether by bus or taxi, for example, the Government must ask whether it is regulating a system of fares that ensures that all the options are available. For example, is it possible to buy those fares? The bus industry is probably right to say that most of the time, the public would not buy the regulated fare, and that it can provide a more competitive fare. Individual bus and rail companies would be the same. The Government should make sure that people have the option to buy those fares. That links closely to what I said about the tradable credits that we envisage being used under climate change legislation. There are new ways of funding the bus and rail industries for the trips that are particularly efficient.
Let us move on to examine some of the specifics of the bill.
At the beginning of the session, Mr Halden said that we cannot measure everything. I have a couple of questions to explore that a bit further, and I would welcome comments from other members of the panel.
Public transport figures are probably okay. I envisage that the biggest problem will be with the car fleet, which is the biggest consumer of energy. As we move through the next 10 years, a substantial proportion of cars—15 or 30 per cent; the figures are disputed—will be plug-in. Section 29(4)(a) of the bill refers to "gross electricity consumption", which is clearly inappropriate. We want to encourage people to move towards zero carbon, which will involve their plugging in their cars at night. At the moment we waste electricity, which is why we have night storage radiators—they use largely free electricity that we could use to charge up our cars. If we want to encourage that, it seems counterintuitive to discriminate against it by counting the amount of electricity that we burn.
Those vehicles will come to Glasgow, but there is another problem as well as the initial outlay. As is the case with the biodiesel vehicles, there are questions about the lifetime of the vehicles—we do not know what problems we might encounter after even just one year. Issues with biodiesel vehicles have already arisen. For example, in summer they get fungus if you do not keep the tank cool and in winter they wax. There are things to learn with any new system. For example, we had to learn to add Adblue to diesel to enable it to cope with changes in temperature.
As my two colleagues have said, it would be useful to keep some flexibility in the legislation to take account of technical changes. In rail, there is a move away from measuring electricity consumption through the supply points and towards train metering. That will allow a much more accurate assessment to be made within a geographical area, a company or group of services. The legislation probably needs to reflect the fact that, as the technology changes, we will be able to be much more specific about electricity consumption.
That is helpful.
Julia King's review of low-carbon vehicles envisages that, by 2050, land-based transport will produce zero emissions. That seems like a sensible view, which means that the increase in emissions from transport that we are looking at will arise largely from aviation.
I offer a slight caveat. Much of the research was done in a healthier economic climate. I worry about the impact that the depth and length of the recession will have on the cost of the changes.
To some extent, the variation will depend on how many miles are run by electric traction and how many are run by diesel, as electric traction is more efficient in terms of carbon usage. However, everything depends on generating policy—the proportion of electricity that comes from renewables and the proportion that comes from fossil fuels. Rail can offer carbon-neutral travel, as Eurostar does, but that depends on the source of the electricity.
I would like to ask a general question before handing back to the convener. Do you have a view on the 2050 and interim targets?
I contributed to the Scottish Council for Development and Industry response, which said that we can achieve the targets, even with renewables, but that we had better get our skates on if we want to do so. We could have moved faster in the past few years.
If we need to be encouraged to get a move on, do you think that the interim target is set at the wrong date?
I do not have a view on that.
In our view, the dates are far enough away to enable us to make the significant changes that are needed. I come back to my original point: targets need to be set for the transport sector or more broadly. If they are set for rail, growth and transfer from less friendly modes to rail will be inhibited.
I assume that there is broad comfort with the long-term target; that gives us some confidence that you regard the target as achievable, rather than just necessary.
There is a lot of freight and air transport, but 85 per cent of personal travel is by car or on foot—and one of those modes is effectively zero carbon.
Should Government be willing to consider not just technology change but demand management? We have said little about the role that demand management could play in reducing emissions.
Demand management is something that we do all the time—for example, by choosing not to have a road between one place and another. It is in our decisions about the infrastructure that we build; it is inherent in everything that we do. In my view, we need to determine our management criteria.
I invite the other witnesses to comment on whether the annual target should be 3 per cent up to 2020 or less than that.
According to current figures, buses are responsible for about 3 per cent of emissions, and I am confident that the 3 per cent target can be achieved in the short term. Under disability discrimination legislation, all single-decker buses must have low-floor access by 2015; for double-deckers and coaches, the target dates are 2017 and 2020 respectively. That means that buses will have to be replaced. When they are, we will move from having vehicles with Euro 1 engines to having vehicles with engines that comply with the Euro 3 or Euro 6 engine emission standard, which are a lot cleaner.
I would not like the timescale to be any tighter, partly because of the point that Marjory Rodger just made. That is accentuated in the rail industry, given the long lead time for investment in new technology.
Taking account of the point that you made earlier, I make it clear that we are talking not about a specific target of 3 per cent for rail but about a target for transport. Do you believe that the transport sector as a whole can achieve annual reductions of 1 per cent up to 2020? Could it achieve reductions of closer to 3 per cent?
I do not think that it can do better than that because of the lead time for replacing vehicles and equipment, whether bus or rail, and for the changeover to electric cars that Derek Halden described.
Patrick Harvie's question was about improving efficiency in the transport sector. I will put the reverse question. Should we ensure that new housing and retail developments are transport accessible—in other words, that there is a rail or bus connection within walking distance? One of the big problems that we face is that a great deal of development is permitted in places where people's access to services—places of work, schools and hospitals—is entirely dependent on cars. Do you have a view on that aspect of the issue, as well as on the reductions that you can deliver through your operations? If we organised ourselves in a different way, we could make much greater use of public transport and avoid putting people in a position where their only option is to use the car.
My strong view is that I would love to see that happen. Planning is essential, and it is a huge mistake that transport has, historically, been involved far too late in planning decisions. That still happens. The tools are available and the research and development has been done—any postcode can be put into the Traveline Scotland database. For example, if the national health service looked at three sites for relocation and decided that, as everything else was equal, it should consider the transport connections, some different decisions might have been made. I agree with any proposal that leads to transport being included in planning decisions, because you do not change habits retrospectively. The industry would offer incentives for all modes of transport—we would give free travel and lay on services—if we could get in at the start of the process. I would welcome that.
That has to be right, but it has taken a long time to reach those conclusions. There has been a lot of retrospective action in respect of rail, in that new stations have been built to serve new developments. That has helped, but I agree that that is not a substitute for planning it all from the outset.
I come back to the point that I made at the outset. It is about door-to-door journeys. We have had Sir Rod Eddington's review and Cabinet Office reviews that have come to conclusions about making the connections, joining things up and planning access rather than transport modes. All those conclusions are clear, but it worries me that we still invest the money separately by mode. Although we might talk the talk about planning access and connections, we do not walk the walk, because we still fund rail, bus and road through separate delivery mechanisms. Until we change our approach and put the money behind improving access and connections, we will not achieve those aims.
I have one more question on targets. Beyond the targets in the bill, will other European, UK or Scottish targets that the transport sector is having to meet impact on transport's ability to make greenhouse gas emission cuts? The European targets on renewables or reducing energy use might be examples. Are there others that impact on transport's ability to make the transformational change on climate change that we seek?
I am aware of one such target, which is the restriction on the sulphur content of diesel. The sulphur emissions target means that our freight colleagues in particular have to burn more diesel to achieve the same mileage, because the chemical composition of the clean fuel is different. That demonstrates that, unless you are very careful, you can set conflicting targets and solve one problem but create another. That is a practical example that stems from European Union rules.
Another practical example is that the cleaner our engines get, the heavier they get and the more fuel they burn. We are therefore producing fewer emissions but using more fuel.
In order to try to be cleaner.
Yes. We are getting there, and that trend is being slightly reversed, but that has definitely been the case.
The problem is so serious that unless the bus industry gets its loadings up or rationalises its service, it could become worse than the car in respect of emissions per passenger kilometre. I would be the last person to want to knock buses: we must increase the bus loadings dramatically so that we get the benefits. However, that has been the impact of the change that Marjory Rodger described.
They are giving it a go, certainly.
The strategic transport projects review suggests a saving of 100,000 tonnes to 150,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent if all the projects in the review are delivered, relative to business as usual. Do you think that that is an equitable contribution for the transport sector to make in pursuit of the 80 per cent emission cuts?
The strategic transport projects review has had a difficult job to do because the strategy is not clear and you cannot do a strategic review unless there is a strategy. I cannot therefore make a lot of sense of any of that. I do not think that any of its conclusions look crazy; they all look perfectly sensible. You can get to the right answer in lots of different ways. I would not want to be critical of the review, but I think that we need a strategy that does more than the national transport strategy, which says, more or less, "We need to reduce emissions somehow."
The strategic transport projects review document is a massive read, but to me it is simply 29 projects. Until they are prioritised, have funding streams attached and we have some idea of how they will move ahead, I will find it hard to comment on the figures.
I am not an expert on this but, to the extent that the review includes projects that will increase capacity for public transport, which will encourage modal shift, it must be good. Allowing the shift to rail to take place is key to the issue that we are discussing. That shift is constrained at the moment by the existence of a number of pinch points around the network. Enabling communities that are no longer rail connected to access the network is also important, which is what some of the new rail projects will do.
One quick fix would be integrated ticketing, which would not cost much to introduce. Anything that makes public transport simpler for people to use, such as better information, would make a valuable contribution.
Given the challenging targets that are proposed in the bill, do you think that there needs to be a change in the emphasis on emissions reduction in the Scottish Government's transport policy? Is so, what should that change be?
I will be parochial and talk about buses. We are already working with the Scottish Government on ways of ensuring that the BSOG grant conditions include an environmental target. What we are talking about would be pretty challenging for the industry to meet.
The same may be true of rail. There are a lot of initiatives that the operators are taking and which they have been able to justify commercially, either because the initiatives reduce energy consumption and cost or because they attract more passengers. That said, we do get to the point at which, if we are to take things further, further investment is needed. That is the point at which Government needs to come in.
I will bang on at the point that we have transport because we are trying to do economic and social activity; that is why it is there. It is not sensible to try to set targets for transport that are independent of those wider activities. We cannot carve off transport and say, "This is why it is different." One of the biggest emitters is the entire machinery of freight transport in Scotland. What to do about that is a difficult optimisation decision. Do we build more warehouses and hold stuff for longer or have fewer warehouses and run more trucks around the country? The choice is between warehouses and trucks, and only one of those is a transport decision. The idea that we can set emissions targets for only the transport sector is wrong. People will just shift sectors and we might achieve efficiency gains, or we might not. It is not sensible to try to set targets only for the transport sector.
It may not be your central interest, but what are your views on the inclusion in the bill of emissions targets for aviation and shipping?
No sector can be excluded. I am not qualified to say whether the targets are appropriate, but everything must be included.
That is right, particularly given the environmental performance of aviation. If we are to make significant change, modal shift will be involved—at least on domestic journeys. If we do not include or measure aviation, it will be difficult to achieve such change.
It is simply a question of following the issue from the European Community, to the UK and then to Scotland. The fact is that international aviation and shipping will be traded, while other modes will not. We have inherited a situation about which we can do nothing. We need to try to deliver differently for international aviation and shipping, so they must be in the bill and they have to be dealt with separately. Trying to redress the unfortunate imbalance that the EC has created by trading only some sectors is a major issue for this committee and the Scottish Government.
I will concretise things: my next question is on surface transport links to airports. Should surface transport links be improved in order to deliver maximum emissions savings? At the outset, Derek Halden made the point that this is all about end-to-end journey planning. Should aviation emissions be considered in the wider context of airport access links?
Yes.
Do you want to expand on that a bit?
Well—
The committee is about to publish the results of its inquiry into the potential benefits of high-speed rail services, as part of which we have considered high-speed rail as an alternative to aviation, particularly for journeys within the UK. Should we think about aircraft emissions in the context of planning journeys to airports? Should aircraft emissions be included in the equation for rail and air and consumer alternatives?
Yes, but I do not know what decisions consumers would make. One huge area—everyone has highlighted it—is the market's failure to get out information on the issue. We need think only of the Government's decision to put a health warning on cigarette packs, in which it said, "This could seriously damage your health." It did that for reasons of health and social care.
Can I come back on this point? I definitely did not talk about market failure in information. I said that we had to keep improving and enhancing the information. At the minute, for example, we are talking about getting comprehensive journey planning and individual travel plans from Traveline Scotland to people's mobiles via SMS texting.
I am sorry, I did not want to imply otherwise—I do not disagree with anything that Marjory said there. I agree entirely. The Government's stake in Traveline has been to fund components with social and environmental benefits, whereas it has been the bus industry that has financed information on journey planning.
A lot of action has been taken on providing information on the National Rail website, which provides local onward travel information, links to Traveline, and local maps showing where buses stop. That provision of information has been revolutionised over the past 12 to 18 months. A lot more local information is provided in order to enable people to plan their door-to-door journey.
I would like interchanges to be improved. We must spend money on making interchanges much easier and on providing better facilities. My quick fix win to pay for that would be to treble car parking charges.
BAA is coming in behind you, so to speak—we have a BAA witness on the next panel. I will put the same question to him. The airport car parks at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports seem to get ever bigger, while the airport buses seem to run empty. Is that visual impression wrong? In terms of surface transport links to airports, is bus patronage increasing relative to car usage? It seems to me that more people are using the car to get to the airport. For example, Edinburgh airport has not only the official BAA car parks but an outer ring of private car parking provision.
We do quite a bit of work with property developers. Parking is a very nice revenue earner: the developer of a typical shopping centre is making a lot of money from car parking. We have been trying hard to get shopping centre developers and operators to do partnerships with the bus industry so that public transport operators can share in the increased profits that attracting new business in that way can bring. We cannot drive up modal shift from car to bus unless the people at the destinations work with the public transport providers in business partnerships. At the moment, most trip attractors—including airports and shopping centres—are making money only from car travel. They are businesses, so of course that is what they will do. We will see no change until we find a way to unlock the potential of partnerships between public transport operators and trip attractors. Success in that regard is key to all this. If we do not get modal shift, we will see further increases in car parking at most of the key trip attractors.
Bus partnerships with airports make money. They must be carrying passengers. The Edinburgh shuttle, which was launched as an experiment, broke even and then went on to make money much more quickly than people anticipated. Park and rides are exceedingly important in this regard. They work.
Perhaps we can explore in writing the question whether we have any statistical information on what proportion of journeys are made by car and what by public transport. That would be helpful to know.
Could a secondment not be made? Perhaps two people from Scotland could be seconded to the UK committee?
I believe that the UK committee is looking at how it will take on the function.
I do not have a strong view on the matter.
As we said earlier, in the main, the devil will be in the detail. The Scottish national perspective needs to be heard. From Scotland's rail network's point of view, the detail is important. I do not have a view on how this is done—whether by way of secondment or separate committee—but the information flow needs to be there.
I agree.
This is about hearts and minds. The public needs to have an identifiable figure that they can relate to; a visible champion. I am not sure whether that could be done from London, particularly given the more ambitious targets that are being set in Scotland and the huge potential of our renewables capacity. I have looked at the two options. My view is that what is proposed may all be too top heavy. That is part of my top-down concern in terms of delivery. It does not really matter which option is taken, but we need a presence in Scotland; an identifiable person who will champion the agenda on behalf of Government. Without a key champion figure, the public will have no one to relate to. People may end up believing that nothing will happen.
We are not going to say the tsar word, are we?
If someone is called a tsar, it is a symptom of top-down failure. The tsar-type way of doing business does not work because it is so top down. The top down and the bottom up have to meet. Tsars do not work for the simple reason that they are called tsars.
Has the transport sector engaged with the UK Committee on Climate Change to date? Does another forum exist for that sector to feed in views on the climate change agenda?
I know that my London colleagues have fed in CPT views. Briefing papers have been submitted. That is all that I can say about that.
We have fed in views, too. There is also quite a dialogue through the Department for Transport, which we would regard as our sponsoring department.
But not with the UK Committee on Climate Change.
We have been involved in input to it.
I am, like many others, a consultant who works on projects. Most of the information is out there in reports that my colleagues and I have done. We have produced the evidence. I hope that those we have done those projects for—whether lobby groups such as the CPT or public authorities—submit that evidence. We would not get involved in that. I am happy to talk as the director of a consultancy, albeit one that works mainly for English clients.
The CPT does not believe that sectoral targets would be workable, but is there a case for developing a mechanism for reporting on the emissions from the surface transport sector?
If we go ahead with the scheme to replace the BSOG, we would report on a yearly basis. There would be figures. I should also say that there is a lot of driver training to make drivers more aware of the issue of fuel efficiency and to erase bad habits. We are trying things from that aspect too.
I want to move on to the bill's proposal to allow for duties to be placed on public bodies. What duties could be placed on public bodies to drive towards a lower carbon transport system?
I would go for big hits again. Even now, planning permission should not be given for new housing developments without our having clearly thought through what to do. We may need slightly off-street mini-multistorey car parks, for example, to free up streets for other uses, such as for people walking about. There could be common charging points. We need a different way of thinking.
I echo that.
Would local authorities benefit from having to report annually? Derek Halden talks about not being prescriptive. If we are not prescriptive, how can we measure local authorities' achievements? How can we give them something to work towards, now and in the future?
Earlier, I referred to international carbon trading schemes. The same sort of mechanism could be used. Why cannot there be carbon equivalent reductions? Projects could be rewarded. People could say, "Okay, if you go and do this good project, that'll be equivalent to a carbon emission reduction of X." However, it would not currently be viable to trade that CER in an international market—it is much cheaper to buy credits in India, which I have real concerns about. The right to buy cheap credits overseas should be balanced by responsibilities to buy credits at home. That is the sort of practice that I would like the Scottish Government to develop. We should say that we will put our own house in order, as well as trade in international markets. We should consider that type of certification mechanism, how to audit it and whom we should get to do the certification. Primary legislation is not needed to deal with such details; the UK Climate Change Act 2008 empowers the Scottish Parliament to pass regulations to deliver such things.
But the UK act does not place a duty on public bodies to deliver.
No, it does not—sorry.
Requiring public bodies to deal with the energy efficiency performance of public buildings would be a good start in getting the mindset focused on delivery. If they can get good practice examples and roll them out, that would be a good start.
I want to follow that up, as I am a little unsure about the general tone that is coming from the witnesses. Derek Halden argues for keeping the bill simple and not putting in too much detail. However, given some of the issues that have arisen during our discussion, such as the provision of electric charging points, the adoption of electric or highly efficient vehicles and modal shift from air to rail and eliminating the use of air within reach of the rail network, surely the bill offers an opportunity to make the public sector crack on with some of those changes rather more rapidly than would happen without specified public duties. If the public sector cracked on more rapidly, surely that would give confidence to industry to start producing and selling electric vehicles and marketing the products to use the electric charging points.
I can trade with a bus or car company and, in effect, burn oil. I can trade with many companies that offer ways to travel round in mechanised transport, but I cannot trade with anybody if I walk to Princes Street from here, so therefore nobody is making any money and there is no mechanism to deliver. However, if we set up a framework around footfall and driving up the number of walking trips that replace car trips, local authorities can deliver a carbon reduction and that will create a financial funding framework within which those sorts of things can happen. That is the type of progressive trading that I am arguing for. If we want to deliver, we need such tools because, otherwise, all the reductions will have to be delivered with a top-down approach, for example, by trying to have more and more renewable energy and making transport as clean as possible. It is probably a lot easier just to have people walking from A to B a bit more.
My keep-it-simple suggestion is that a transport plan should be in place before planning permission is given for any development of a reasonable size, residential or commercial.
I certainly agree with Marjory Rodger's point. The only other point that occurs to me is that we need to reflect the approach in the various objectives that are set for transport operators on regulated activities. I was going to say that climate change is relatively new, but I do not mean that—people have been thinking about climate change for some years. I mean that the implementation of measures to tackle climate change is relatively new and is not yet embedded in everybody's thinking, and certainly not in objective setting. That might be considered. However, as Derek Halden said, that does not have to be specified in the bill; it can be dealt with downstream in the light of advice from advisory committees and through delegated powers.
Finally, we have a question from Alison McInnes.
My question was covered in the earlier discussion about hearts and minds, so I am happy to leave it there.
Okay.
No.
No.
In that case, I thank you for giving up your time to answer our questions. I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for the changeover of witnesses.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome the second panel of witnesses. Gordon Dewar is the managing director of Edinburgh airport and represents BAA Scotland; Robert Ashdown is head of the technical division at the Chamber of Shipping; Gordon Wilmsmeier—I hope that I pronounced his name correctly—is senior research fellow at Napier University's transport research institute; and Dr Alice Bows is a researcher at the Tyndall centre for climate change research in Manchester.
It is important that we decouple aviation and shipping. There is no reason why the two industries should be treated as one, and both can be dealt with on their own merits. Historically, they have been lumped together primarily because they are both international industries—they straddle national borders—that are outwith the current Kyoto climate change protocol and do not pay tax on bunker fuels. To my mind, those are the key elements that link aviation and shipping.
I do not disagree with that. Aviation and shipping present different issues and face different challenges. It is fair to say that BAA wants aviation to be included in carbon trading but, because of the issues with international boundaries, which were well recognised in the consultation on the proposals for the bill, the best place for it to be dealt with is within the EU emission trading scheme.
I also agree with what Robert Ashdown said, but it is important to acknowledge that shipping is one of the most international industries in the world—perhaps even more international than aviation in its workings—and is hard to control. The main controlling body for anything that happens in international shipping is the International Maritime Organization. It is an important body to support because, although many countries have not signed certain agreements, they still flag ships. There is a global issue.
The bill gives the Scottish ministers the power to include aviation and shipping—I will try to put a pause between them—in the Scottish targets and they have indicated their intention to include both sectors fully in the targets from the very first batch. What is your view on that decision? Do you accept that it gives Scotland the opportunity to lead, rather than follow, the debate on how the targets on greenhouse gas emissions will be pursued?
We certainly understand and welcome the leadership and commitment that the Scottish Government has shown in pursuing this critical agenda. Our concerns are more about the practical aspects and the risk of unintended consequences from dealing with the issue at the national level, so we are waiting to see what will come out in the detail. I think that an earlier panel of witnesses expressed similar concerns.
The ambition to include shipping is good, but I would extend it to include not only international shipping but domestic shipping and ferry services.
It is not a question of desirability but of practicality. It would of course be good if the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill was entirely holistic and dealt with every aspect of every sector. The problem is how that could be done. How can Scottish shipping be defined, and how can Scotland's contribution to global international shipping emissions be taken into account? Let us be clear that we are talking about international shipping, not domestic shipping, at this stage. I make it clear, too, that the Chamber of Shipping advocates bringing shipping into a global carbon emissions reduction scheme and that we have gone out for an emission trading scheme.
From a practical point of view, if the bill aims to avoid so-called dangerous climate change—whatever that means—the science behind that means that all sectors must be included because the climate obviously does not identify which sectors you do or do not chose to include. Obviously, taking action involves practical issues and can have unintended consequences, but we must also consider the consequences of climate change. A recent paper that Kevin Anderson and I had published at the Royal Society illustrated that we have very few years left in which to start to reduce emissions globally in real terms, because we are heading for a 4° temperature increase by 2100, which is significant climate change. In the absence of a global cap, which we do not have and which is not likely to be agreed by the end of the year, any mitigation action that we take in the meantime will be positive in the context of climate change because the quicker we reduce emissions, the less challenging the situation will be in the future.
It has been suggested that one way in which we can account for emissions that are associated with international industries is to examine consumption rather than production—to measure and report on the emissions that are associated with the production of goods or services that are consumed domestically. Would you support that? Is it a reasonable way forward?
In each sector, there is a combination of producer-based and consumer-based approaches. Some sectors could argue that, essentially, double counting is taking place. The electricity power sector, for example, is in the emission trading scheme, and consumers are also being pushed to improve their energy efficiency by turning their lights off and their televisions off standby. Because the challenge is so great, I advocate the use of both consumer methods and producer methods where they are most appropriate.
Is it possible to take that approach in relation to shipping, given the complexities?
I would like to do more work on shipping. It is a more complicated issue: the travel that is involved is less of an A-to-B route, and more actors are involved. We are trying to carry out more research on that at the moment.
Are there any other views on the options for the producer and the consumer?
It is not quite clear from the terminology that you use how you define the producer and the consumer. Perhaps you could explain that further.
One aspect involves having a duty to measure and report on emissions that are created elsewhere but associated with imported goods.
There are numerous ways of measuring emissions from ships. Looking at imported goods is one way to do that, although it, like all the other ways, has its problems. To be clear, the comments that I made in the COS submission about the difficulties that the shipping sector faces in relation to national legislation for what is an international industry relate solely to actual reduction targets rather than to measurement, because measurement provides no incentive to try to avoid, in a legitimate way, additional costs or charges.
I will begin with some questions on the aviation sector. Does Gordon Dewar agree that early action is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid dangerous climate change?
I am not an expert on the science, as you can imagine, but there is certainly enough evidence, which is growing and becoming more compelling, that we need to take action. The only debate that we need to have is on the appropriate action to take. The aviation industry is viewed by many as a significant problem—it is viewed as a greater problem than is suggested by the reality of the situation, given that it currently accounts for only 1.6 per cent of global emissions.
Globally, aviation emissions are quite small, but, globally, most people do not fly. In the UK, we have a slighter higher proportion of emissions from aviation than a lot of other European nations. Our aviation emissions are about 6.4 per cent of our total emissions, but in the EU aviation emissions are closer to the 4 per cent mark. Emissions trading is okay—in aviation, emissions are likely to grow in the future, while other sectors will find it easier to reduce their emissions—but at the moment, the cap is not strong enough to be in line with the standard on avoiding dangerous climate change within the EU's emission trading scheme. I hope that it will be strengthened in the future. We are concerned that we should do something sooner rather than later.
It is not me who is saying that there are such benefits—you might think, "He would say that, wouldn't he?" The bodies that are advocating that aviation growth should continue in Scotland are the SCDI, the chambers of commerce and local authorities. Those bodies have no axe to grind for the specific benefit of the aviation industry; they are motivated only by what they believe provides added value to the Scottish economy.
Could the environmental impact of the aviation industry be better understood and reported? Aviation is the first thing that people look at when they are discussing climate change—they throw their hands up in horror about aviation.
I would really welcome our having an informed debate for a change about the impact of aviation in this sphere. If we all stopped flying tomorrow, it would not make that much difference environmentally, but it would do a huge amount of economic damage and would raise a variety of social issues. We talk glibly about improving domestic rail travel. There are still not too many options for travelling from the central belt in Scotland to London and back to do a day's business. You certainly cannot do that journey by train in a day from the Western Isles, the northern isles or even Inverness or Aberdeen. We have to consider transport in the round. Scotland is a relatively isolated nation within the EU. We are more reliant on transport than just about anybody else.
Has anybody seriously suggested that we all stop flying tomorrow?
No, nor did I suggest that they had.
BAA Scotland cites a report that concludes that technological advances, operational efficiencies and the use of low-carbon fuels could see aviation emissions fall back to 2000 levels by 2050. When could we expect to see tangible progress in those areas? Are we likely to see such developments accelerate in an era of rising energy costs? There is a lot of ambition, but when will progress be made?
The process is on-going. Engine technology has moved on significantly in the past 20 years. I think that we have seen 40 per cent reductions in emissions. People say that we should be driven by the data. When Willie Walsh addressed the business community in Scotland just before Christmas, he made the point that, in terms of passenger kilometres, his fleet was more efficient than a Prius car. That is an interesting comparison. I want to have an informed debate about the best choices available, albeit that we will have to rely on emission trading to get the balance right. Remember that we are not arguing for growth regardless; we are saying that we would grow only when we could remain within a cap and within a trading scheme.
One of the problems for the aviation industry is the maturity of the engine technology. There have been new developments lately in open-rotor engines, for example, but there are always trade-offs within the aviation sector. When you are trying to reduce noise, for example, you increase the weight of the aircraft and, therefore, increase the emissions. One of the key issues that we have considered is growth. We have efficiency improvements of the order of 1 to 2 per cent at the moment. That situation is likely to continue, given the maturity of the technology and given that there are not going to be radically different air-frame designs within the next 10 years or so. While growth rates are higher than efficiency gains, emissions will increase, so we must not think only about how we can further incentivise technology developments.
I will press Mr Dewar on his answer to Cathy Peattie's question about emissions falling back to 2000 levels by 2050. I appreciate that giving exact timeframes is difficult, but that timeframe is very long. Saying that the position will develop over time to 2050 does not take us much further forward on whether emissions will fall in 2049 or in five years' time. Can we have a bit of an idea about the cumulative emissions from aviation?
I do not pretend to be an expert in all the various developments that are behind the reduction. Could I provide information in writing?
That would help—thank you.
My plucking out arbitrary forecasts of our share of those emissions would not add an awful lot to the debate. What is important is managing sensible caps in sensible trading schemes in the round. We have argued for several years to bring the aviation industry in line with others, which has not been easy. Many in the industry saw emissions trading as a threat, but there is now almost consensus that we should not avoid, but embrace that.
In previous weeks, witnesses talked about the problems of emissions at height, which have more impact. What does the industry think about that? Will you explain a bit of the theory behind that?
Again, it would probably be better for me to write to you. Suffice it to say that we acknowledge that emissions at height contribute more, as do some different combinations of chemicals that are up there. We acknowledge that multiplier effects will need to be applied to some emissions from the aviation industry. Science must be used to best effect in ensuring that we are as close to consensus as possible when we consider trading overall. I am happy to provide references to several scientific papers that go into the matter in much more detail than I can aspire to give.
I dislike the use of multipliers, because emissions are different—for example, some are localised and last for short times. One mistake that was made in the past—I made it when I started, too—was that people often used multipliers to project into the future. They just multiplied the CO2 in the future by some multiplier, but multipliers change, because different emissions will emerge, and the CO2 does not go away, unlike some other emissions. The situation is more complicated.
We have heard that BAA is reducing emissions at its airports; that is separate from emissions from flights. What successful measures has BAA employed, or does it plan to employ, to reduce its emissions?
We have set ourselves energy consumption reduction targets for all our airports, on which I would be happy to give the committee more detail. Reducing emissions also involves behavioural aspects. Surface access is a big driver of our emissions footprint and has a wider reach.
There is a bit of scepticism because parking provides an excellent revenue stream for the airport, so perhaps it is not in your interests to discourage people from parking. Can you try to convince me that that is not an issue?
I will not try to convince you that that revenue is not important. However, we try to achieve a balance. We have a sensible structure, and people recognise the facilities that we provide. For example, we make sure that anyone who uses the bus is not exposed to having to support the costs of providing car parking. It would be a double disincentive if someone paid a bus fare and then had to meet such costs. We are trying to get the balance right.
What has been the annual increase in your parking revenue during the past three years, and how many additional vehicles does that represent on a year-by-year basis?
Having reflected on a question that was asked earlier, I think the best response would be to give you a breakdown of modal share for the past few years to show you the trends, if you would be happy with that.
I would be quite interested in that, although I am sure that you know what the figures are for the year-on-year increases in your parking revenue. I would be very surprised if you did not.
Again, I do not think that giving you an absolute number would give a lot of context. I would be happy to share some idea of the proportion of our income that parking revenue represents, and contrast that with our public transport share, which is growing strongly.
I would like Dr Bows to clarify something. You argued that, in looking at the additional damage caused by aviation emissions, the contrails issue should be considered separately. How should it be considered? In what way should it be taken into account?
If you want to avoid forming a contrail, you might want to change altitude, which might increase the fuel burn. If you were to ground an aircraft tomorrow, its CO2 emissions would still be there for the next 100 years, whereas the contrail disappears very quickly.
I come back to a more general question, which I should perhaps have asked earlier. Do any of the panel have a view on the 2050 target and the interim targets in the bill?
Focusing on 2050 and having it as something that is frequently spoken about means that people think very long term. The important thing is the emission pathway that you travel down to get to your aspiration in the future—the 2050 target. The target is likely to change depending on how much emissions increase in the short term. If they increase more now than you think they will, the 2050 target has to drop.
Would you prefer interim targets to be brought forward?
Yes.
From the shipping perspective, ships are very long-life assets. A ship will last for 20 to 25 years, so we are only two or perhaps three generations of ships away from 2050. Ironically, that makes it easier for us to meet the 2050 targets than the 2020 targets, because we are already locked into the technology that we have.
It is important to enhance technical development and evolution in shipping. Something has been done but, for a long time, shipping was neglected because it was argued that nothing could be done because it is a global industry. There have been a lot of gaps, so it is necessary to get a grip on them and start innovation. There has not been huge pressure on shipping to innovate. In certain trades, there has been innovation in paints and hull shapes. We can also improve the loading capacity for certain ships. We must introduce incentives to strengthen technical innovation within shipping. We should also transfer from certain types of fuel to marine diesel oil, which contains fewer other air pollutants. CO2 is an important issue for shipping, but we must consider all the air pollutants. It is important to find a way to incentivise that push. In shipping, it is obviously difficult to push technological development from just a Scottish perspective; there is no national flag in Scotland, so how can you push technological development? The matter needs to be discussed at international level.
I agree that the shipping industry would benefit greatly from greater investment in research and development. It is not right to say that we have had no incentive. Fuel costs are approximately 30 to 50 per cent of voyage costs, so we have always had the strongest possible commercial incentive to reduce fuel consumption. Indeed, every generation of ships has been cleaner and more efficient than the last for purely commercial reasons.
I want to explore that further; I had intended to come on to the issue later, but it is appropriate to pick it up now.
Absolutely. At the next meeting of the IMO committee that deals with such matters, we hope that a mandatory energy efficiency design index will be introduced, which will give new ships a rating, from A to G, such as one finds on white goods. That will allow owners and charterers—we must not forget the importance of charterers in the shipping industry—to choose the cleanest ship for their transport purposes. We hope that that measure will come into force quickly.
It is important to bear in mind that the IMO regulation might solve certain problems that we have in Europe, but many countries have not signed the IMO agreement, so we might just be pushing problems towards other regions of the world, which is not a solution. It is not a solution to achieve high standards in Europe by sending ships and aeroplanes to be used in other regions.
Gordon Dewar and Dr Bows mentioned that aviation is to be included in the EU emission trading scheme, which will mean that aviation emissions will have to be measured and reported on anyway, so will including aviation in the bill make any difference, or is it simply symbolic? What is your view on that?
I come back to the idea of consumer and producer-based approaches and the analogy with the power industry. Because of the challenge that we face on climate change, we need to push every button that is available. The inclusion of aviation in the emission trading scheme does not mean that other policies should not be brought on board. Most sectors are subject to a suite of policies, but the aviation sector does not appear to be subject to quite as many policies on carbon emissions and energy efficiency. Robert Ashdown mentioned the energy efficiency ratings for ships, which might come to the fore, but no such ratings exist for planes, and there are no regulations on CO2 emissions from airports, although there are regulations for other emissions. My view is that it is a good thing for aviation emissions to be included in the bill.
As I said at the outset, we are concerned that including aviation emissions in the bill might end up having unintended consequences. From the point of view of effectiveness and equitability, action on the issue should be taken at the level of the European market as a minimum.
Pursuing that a tiny bit further, I want to pick up the point that Dr Bows made about the advantage of having a suite of regulations. The different sets of regulations should not try to force or produce different kinds of behaviour. If aviation emissions are included in the bill, how do we establish a system of monitoring in Scotland that is not only consistent with the European approach but potentially adds something to that approach? I am asking not just about the principle of including aviation emissions but about the practicalities of doing so and how we might add value.
The cap on the emission trading scheme is currently so loose that the scheme is nowhere near aiming for a 2°C target. One way forward might be for Scotland to use the same method of allocating aviation emissions but with a more stringent cap. Scotland could use basically the same approach but just do things more stringently over the course of the few years before the emission trading scheme starts. If the emission trading scheme is still not in line with a 2°C target when it starts, Scotland could continue with its previous approach until we have a global cap that will avoid dangerous climate change rather than just act as a mechanism to get people used to emissions trading.
I am 100 per cent opposed to that argument. That is exactly the approach that would make a fundamental difference to us. If we impose additional costs only in Scotland, all that will happen is that aircraft will be reallocated to other airports in Europe, so we will lose the economic benefit without making a jot of difference to overall emissions.
I should add that I would give the same advice to the UK, French and Dutch Governments. In other words, all nations are considering tackling climate change through using targets. The assumption must be that, if we want to avoid dangerous climate change, everyone must eventually come on board. Some countries might move earlier than others but, at the end of the day, everyone will need to follow. Scotland will not be able to do that alone.
One point that Adair Turner makes when talking about achieving a low-carbon economy within the framework in which we must operate is that we should separate out interim targets from intended targets—I am talking about targets more generally—based on our commitments at Copenhagen and our European commitments. If we go for the idea of having a harder target rather than a weaker target, how would that translate in aviation terms? The suggestion is that the target might be for a 42 per cent reduction rather than a 34 per cent reduction, although the figure depends on which base year one starts with.
Including the aviation sector in a trading scheme will not necessarily require aviation to reduce its emissions because it will be able to purchase emissions from other sectors. If the overall cap has two different levels for the intended and interim targets, all the sectors under the cap will be affected. The only effect on aviation might be that it will need to pay a little bit more for the emission permits that it purchases. Including aviation does not necessarily mean that aviation growth will be reduced significantly, particularly at the moment when the cap is so high that the carbon price is very low.
I want to pick up what Dr Bows said about aviation needing to pay more. Who in aviation would need to pay more?
My understanding is that the costs are likely to be passed on to passengers. That is my understanding from various interviews with the aviation sector about what would happen if the airlines had to pay an additional charge.
I support that point. Inevitably, the user pays in the end.
If Scotland or the UK goes down the route of including aviation emissions, can we quantify what the implications of that would be for aviation prices, or can that not be calculated at this point?
I do not think that there is enough certainty about the price of carbon or how the interaction will go. It will depend on how people respond to the need to reduce carbon overall. There is certainly recognition that the cost of emissions will increase over time, and I am sure that there will be a lively debate about the appropriate cap to be set. It seems likely that the only direction in which carbon costs will go is up. The aviation industry is well aware that that means that its costs will increase and that, ultimately, prices will increase.
What is the best method of organising that? Is it through what is, in effect, a taxation scheme, or is it through other approaches that bear more on the industry?
Trading will be a far more efficient method of recognising the true cost of emissions, because it is about creating a market in something that allows people to respond. In the past, we have had taxation. For example, we have air passenger duty, which is a significant burden on the ticket price. In many cases, APD taxation accounts for more than half the ticket price. Unfortunately, it is a blunt instrument and the money has not been reinvested in new technologies or in the ability of other industries and sectors to reduce emissions. It might have reduced travel at the margins—in fact, it certainly has—but it has not had the spin-off benefit of money being reinvested in the longer-term gains that trading will allow.
That gives me the industry's point of view, but I am also interested in the impact from the consumer's point of view. What is the difference for the consumer between a trading arrangement and a taxation system?
An efficient system should allow the consumer to make sensible choices. If the aviation industry buys credits to allow it to offer a service that people still pay for, in effect, they are getting that efficient choice. A traveller might have a choice between travelling by train, flying, or perhaps not travelling at all, and they will take an informed view by considering all the options that are on the table. The best way in which to make sure that that is an efficient option for them is to ensure that we have a true recognition of the price of carbon. The trading scheme should allow that to happen.
I will change tack a wee bit. In response to an earlier question, you said that Scotland is in a relatively isolated position in Europe. That is undoubtedly the case. We are part of an island that is remote from the European continent. Presumably, that partly explains why aviation usage and emission rates are higher in the UK. The central belt of Scotland is 400 miles from London and 500 miles from the Channel tunnel, so we probably do not have the surface alternatives that other people in Europe—or perhaps even people in the south-east of England—have. If we want to do business with other parts of Europe or travel there for leisure, we are at a comparative disadvantage geographically. If we are the ones to wear the hair shirts—if I can put it in that way—in capping our systems, are there any issues in that for Scotland?
There are—that is what we are saying. We need to be aware of why we are doing things differently—why we are setting higher targets, or using the mechanisms differently—and we should bear in mind the unintended consequences.
At the end of the day, if there was a cap for all sectors, the choice could be made to allow aviation to consume the entire budget. In that scenario, there would be a reasonable amount, or perhaps a significant amount—I do not know, as I have not done the numbers—of growth in aviation in Scotland. That would be a choice that would be made. The other issue is the shipping industry. If it was included in the cap and the target, there is a long-term issue with technology, as has been stated. Given the lead time that is required to reduce emissions, it is likely that emissions could be reduced in the long term, but not in the short term. Thought would therefore have to be given to which of the sectors would be allowed, or chosen, to use up the biggest part of the budget. Ultimately, the cap will have to be in line with a climate change target.
Des McNulty's question takes us back to something that was said earlier. Why is aviation singled out? What about co-modality? In Germany, the route between Frankfurt and Cologne, which is just less than 300km, was traditionally done by aeroplane, but it is now done by train. Lufthansa flights and all other flights between the two cities were cancelled because the train was competitive in terms of speed. Even though Scotland is on the periphery, if high-speed rail was delivered, there would be sufficient links within the UK to allow the consumer to choose other modes of transport. The time is right for that. We should not forget the issue of security in aviation. It is much more convenient to get on a train at the station than to go through all the hassle at an airport. We must also consider the point that was made by the previous panel about complex travel time. The travel time by air is not just the one-hour flight to London, as people need to get to the city centre. Even today, with relatively slow trains to London, the train ride from Edinburgh to London might already be more attractive, particularly given that people can use their time better, which is especially important for business.
That takes me neatly on to the point that I was trying to get to. Is the argument that, rather than have a cap or an arrangement that takes into account international aviation, we should take into account aviation as a whole? If the overall objective is to reduce or control aviation emissions, should we consider how to reduce aviation use where there is a feasible alternative? That approach could permit more international aviation where there is no alternative. Should we consider that policy issue?
I believe fundamentally in consumer choice. I would have no difficulty if the Government wanted to invest in a high-speed rail link. That is long overdue and it would be a great asset for the country to pursue. People will then vote with their feet and their wallets—that is important. At present, it does not cost the Government any money at all to have the aviation industry providing links to London or anywhere else, because all the money is private. However, high-speed rail will have a significant cost. As well as the infrastructure cost of any new high-speed rail links, in most cases rail franchises receive a significant on-going subsidy for running costs. That is a decision for the politicians. There is not an either/or situation—it is important that people have a choice. I am reminded that there are still six flights a day between Brussels and Amsterdam, which are less than 100 miles apart and which have one of the best high-speed rail links in Europe. People want choice and the different modes offer different levels of service.
If we had the right cap for climate change, the trading scheme would be all that we would need. While we do not—and I do not envisage us having the right cap for some years, although maybe it is different in Scotland—we have to consider suites of policy measures, particularly for sectors that already have a large proportion of emissions or sectors whose emissions are likely to grow significantly in the future. That would send the right signals.
Gordon Dewar said clearly that people should continue to have a choice, even if there are high-speed rail alternatives at some point in the future. He also said that he expects the aviation industry to grow. We all understand that such growth will not necessarily be matched by efficiency improvements, so the conclusion is that aviation emissions will continue to grow rather than reduce. How much slack should the rest of the economy take for aviation growth?
That should be decided through emission trading. Regardless of the conversation about whether the cap is set at the right level now or should be tightened or about what it will be in the future, it is sensible to leave it to the emission trading scheme so that people can value the cost of emissions, factor that into investments and use the money that they receive from trading to invest further in their ability to improve the overall emissions level. If we presume that we can concentrate on one set of emissions rather than another, we will penalise a sector unnecessarily and might create unforeseen outcomes. More important, we will not offer the best incentives to people to invest where we can make overall emissions reductions.
Surely that same criticism applies if there is no focus on reducing emissions in one sector—if aviation does not have to make urgent changes—and we just expect every other sector of the economy to be penalised.
But growth will not happen except within the overall cap. If aviation cannot buy its share of what it thinks it needs or wants, it will not be able to grow—that is the point of the cap under the emission trading scheme. Therefore, growth can happen only if the trading scheme is effective.
In its written submission, the Chamber of Shipping highlighted the difficulties that it foresees in measuring accurately Scotland's share of international emissions and Robert Ashdown has spoken about that today. The chamber also said in its submission that including international shipping in the bill could be a retrograde step that might hinder international negotiations on emissions reduction in the sector. What are the chamber's concerns on those issues?
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to measure emissions from ships: they can be measured on physical activity or on economic activity. Depending on which way Scotland chose to measure its emissions, that measure could be in conflict with the proposals from the IMO. I am not sure about the interrelationship between the Scottish and English Governments, but the line that the UK Government takes within the IMO might be curtailed by decisions that you take in Scotland.
Are you aware of any contact between the Scottish Government and the IMO on the matter?
The IMO is made up of nation states, so only the UK has a seat and, of course, shipping is not a devolved matter.
No, but clearly shipping is being considered in the bill, so I wondered whether there had been any discussion about it.
I doubt that they are robust at all. We have several ways of measuring emissions from shipping but, unfortunately, they are all inaccurate. It is an exceedingly difficult sector to measure because unlike aviation, ships can carry enormous quantities of fuel; they do not need to refuel every time they touch a port. A ship can come into a Scottish port and then disappear; it might take on no bunkers or 100 per cent of bunkers. It depends entirely on its voyage patterns and the bunker capacity of the ship.
I note from your joint letter with WWF to the Committee on Climate Change that
It is very early days. The Climate Change Act 2008 came into force only in December last year. We acknowledge the Committee on Climate Change's recommendation for the Government to take account of international shipping emissions, for measurement purposes only—that is key. We fully endorse that position. We need to be able to measure the industry to set an accurate baseline, so that we can make reductions in line with targets and achieve a position under the level of the cap. I do not disagree with any of that philosophy.
I completely agree with Rob Ashdown. The issue is difficult, and we should probably be measuring the trade flows. Different ships are used, and it is hardly possible to get data on what ship a container might have used on the five legs of its journey to Scotland. Ship details and technical data on ships could be obtained from the IMO, but freight data would need to be linked to the ship that delivered the goods to the Scottish port. If we consider things from a Scotland-only perspective, a lot of cargo is brought into ports in the south of England and then moved north by truck or train. You should not just consider the shipping aspects; you need to examine the whole transport chain. There is scope to reduce CO2 emissions through increasing the length of the maritime leg of the whole voyage. That might be of benefit—it could contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions—but just taking the shipping leg into account is not sufficient.
You said earlier that we have weak policy levers to influence what happens in shipping, which I understand. What can the Scottish Government do to assist the shipping industry to reduce its emissions, including those caused by ships in harbours?
A lot of the focus today has been on caps, trading and so on. The important thing in the longer-term carbon debate is to lock in carbon savings. That means infrastructure. If we want to move to electrically powered, fuel cell ships, they will need to be able to plug in to recharge in ports.
One thing that is relatively easy is cold ironing, which is when ships use the electricity supply on the quay so that they do not use their engines while they are in port. If the energy generation is right, there is a reduction not only in CO2 emissions but in NOx and SO2 emissions, which act very locally.
The evidence from the Chamber of Shipping states:
In three words: market-based instruments. The growth of the industry is the result of the growth in global population and world trade. As I have said before, shipping is a service industry. We mirror global trade, and we know that our emissions will grow—they are likely to grow more quickly than technological innovations will enable us to decrease them. We recognise that we may have to invest in other sectors so that they can make the carbon reductions that we cannot make until we reach that step change in technology.
I was about to ask you about the changes in technology and energy efficiency. Will you describe the successes to date and give us a rough idea of what is achievable in the next 10 or 20 years?
Without wishing to sound facetious, it all depends on what you call an existing ship. If you call an existing ship a ship that is 15 or 20 years old, it might be possible to make a 30 or 40 per cent reduction by using a brand new ship from the yard. If you call an existing ship a ship such as the high-end, high-spec Queen Mary II, which was launched last year, if you threw absolutely everything at that ship, and cost and passenger comfort were not an issue, you might make a 5 per cent saving. Technological savings can be made, but they are increasingly hard to achieve.
Sails have been used successfully on container ships crossing the Atlantic. Such good examples should be strengthened. However, from a Scottish perspective, that requires an industry that can innovate. You need research to support such innovation. Scotland could contribute by investing in research and innovation.
You said that shipping requires a global deal, in order to overcome the problem of double counting. However, could this Scottish bill be world leading, if it includes international aviation—pause—and shipping? When we get to Copenhagen and are considering a global deal, we could be leading, and the bill could play a part in shaping the deal. We should not wait; we should take the initiative and lead the rest of the world.
As I said before, the issue is not desirability or ambition but practicality. You have to ask yourselves how policies would be implemented. The bill is about Scotland taking legal responsibility for carbon emissions, but you wish to take legal responsibility for something that you simply cannot control. If you impose reductions on United Kingdom ships, those ships will simply not go to Scottish ports. A great deal of north European traffic heads through northern Scottish waters, but if you try to take responsibility for emissions from those ships, you will find that, because of the rights bestowed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the rights of free passage, you can do absolutely nothing to restrict their movements. I hope that our written evidence explained the situation more clearly than I am doing now, but it is extremely difficult for any nation state or any regional body to regulate the international shipping industry.
Let us leave aside the issue of regulation and consider simply the measurement of emissions for inclusion within Scottish targets. Should such measurement be included in the bill, to ensure that the picture is holistic? The industry could then get behind the bill and help to ensure that Copenhagen results in positive changes.
You might briefly have been out of the room when I said that my comments were solely about reduction targets for international shipping. As long as the administrative burden is not completely horrific, measurement should be possible, although it would be complicated. Committee members will have seen the letter to the Office of Climate Change in which we address those issues. However, measurement would be possible. The real difficulty would arise only if you imposed reduction targets on international shipping. For reduction targets to be meaningful, they will have to bite; if they bite, they will have a commercial impact and cost; and if that is the case, operators, as commercial businesses, will legitimately seek to avoid those costs where they can.
My apologies for missing part of your evidence earlier—I had to attend another committee briefly—but I am back now.
I would like to answer the question and to underline Robert Ashdown's points. Measurement is extremely important. We cannot consider one mode, because we have to consider modal shift. Only if we measure modal shift can we see whether we have actually achieved anything. You cannot leave something out and not measure it. There is no point in saying that you have reduced shipping if you do not measure whether movements are now taking place by air or by truck. You need to measure all transport modes.
I would like to pursue the issue of measurement. When responding to my colleagues, you seemed to accept that measuring emissions, especially around the coast, is important, but I do not understand why there is a commitment to measure emissions if there are no targets. If there are no targets, how can we monitor what is happening?
Our answer was predicated on the fact that you cannot change behaviour purely by measuring emissions. We argue that any change of behaviour would be negative: ships would simply stop coming to Scottish ports and go to English ports, and the cost of goods would be driven up. However, measurement is important, so that Scotland knows what its responsibilities are. If the trajectory curve already includes some measurement of shipping, it will not come as such a great surprise if and when—in three or four years' time—the IMO or the European Union imposes a climate change scheme on shipping. That is why we think that measurement is beneficial but we draw the line at reduction targets.
If the other European countries got involved in measuring and setting targets, surely there would be an advantage to Scotland in having led the way?
I am not aware of any other European countries that are taking unilateral action in that fashion, primarily because they are equally convinced of the arguments for global or, as a second-best step, regional legislation. I cannot see what advantage would accrue to Scotland from setting targets that will almost undoubtedly be subject to international bargaining once the issue reaches more international forums.
So setting targets for emissions would be bad for Scotland.
The ports represent a significant amount of the Scottish economy and provide a significant number of Scottish jobs. Anything that harmed their commercial competitiveness would be bad for the Scottish economy.
Ministers have a policy commitment to aim for 3 per cent year-on-year emissions cuts. How well placed is the international shipping sector to deliver such cuts, even if they are not included in global targets? You have probably answered the question by indicating that there is a lack of commitment to deliver cuts, but I am still interested in hearing your views.
To tell you the truth, the question is difficult to answer. Let me put it this way—the consumer can contribute to reducing emissions from shipping. If you stop buying kiwi fruit from New Zealand and buy them from Italy, you contribute to CO2 reduction, because the goods are not moved a long distance. It comes down to what consumers use. If they go back to using locally and regionally produced food, CO2 emissions will be reduced. If people continue to eat strawberries from the Canary Islands or from Chile, it will have a huge CO2 impact. However, eating Scottish salmon instead of Chilean salmon, even though it is a little more expensive, has a positive impact on CO2 emissions. It may be a good idea to address the issue through the shipping industry, but consumers need to be aware of the CO2 emissions that they produce as a result of their consumption.
Are you saying that the shipping industry is not really responsible for CO2 emissions, and that they are an issue for someone else?
It is responsible in so far as it can achieve technological efficiency, but the demand for shipping is generated by us.
I know what you are saying.
The Chamber of Shipping recognises fully that we, along with all other sectors, have a responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions in line with societal expectations, and we do not shy away from that. We are keen to deliver carbon reductions in an efficient and robust manner, so that we can deliver real carbon savings. As we said earlier, this is not a zero-sum game. By getting it wrong and penalising shipping—which is the most efficient form of transport—we might drive carbon emissions up. We must be careful how we approach the issue and ensure that we put the right policies in place.
I hope that you agree that the statement that you have made is not absolute. You say that local production does not reduce carbon emissions in every circumstance, but it is inappropriate to say that it never does. Do you agree that, if potatoes are grown in 10 different countries, they might as well be used within those countries, rather than be whirled around the world a few times before they are consumed?
I am sure that there are one or two instances in which local produce is more carbon efficient.
Yes, I am sure that there are one or two.
Both.
The level of emissions will go up and down at the same time?
No. The increase will be at the global fleet level; the decrease will be on a per-ship basis.
I see. So you have an obligation to reduce the emissions per ship but no obligation to reduce emissions overall.
We would like to see a cap on global shipping emissions, but shipping must be allowed to trade above that cap; otherwise, you will constrain the world economy.
My final question, before I hand over to Des McNulty, is to both Gordon Dewar and Robert Ashdown. Your two sectors are telling us that their contribution to the economy is so important that their emissions must be allowed to grow in absolute terms. Food and housing are essential to life, and health services are essential to the economy. If every sector of the economy came here and told us that it understood that climate change is real, that it is human induced and that it threatens human survival, but that their sector was too important to be included within an ambitious timetable for emissions reduction, we would not have a chance, would we?
I do not think that there is any conflict between what I am saying and what you are saying. We are saying that, according to current forecasts, we will increase our usage of the allowable cap, but that will happen only if other sectors reduce their usage and we can buy their share of it. If others, in all sectors, do not reduce their usage, we will not be able to buy their share and we will not be able to grow. We are saying that, within an efficient trading scheme, there should be the opportunity for that growth. However, no sector can be certain of that growth, because it relies on an overall reduction in other sectors.
That still implies that, in an efficient trading system that we might have at some point in the future, every other sector of the economy will have to shrink dramatically in order to allow your two sectors to continue to increase their emissions.
And they will do that only if they get a better return from their emissions trading than from the alternatives. Again, it is all predicated on there being more efficient ways of reducing carbon emissions than putting individual caps on sectors such as aviation and shipping.
We note that it is heavily based on that assumption.
I have one final question for the shipping representatives. We have heard that there is an EU emission trading scheme for aviation, which provides a preferred framework for aviation. Should there be a shipping equivalent, or should shipping be included in the EU ETS?
I am glad that you asked that, because it highlights clearly the difficulties of trying to regulate this global industry at anything other than a global level. The European Parliament tasked the European Commission with including shipping in the EU ETS in 1997, but the Commission has not done that, because it understands fully that, although imposing legislation on aviation at a regional level is very difficult, doing so on shipping is twice as difficult. For 10 years, the Commission has urged and pressed the IMO to take action for it in that regard, because global regulation is much more effective and has a much bigger impact on global carbon reductions. So shipping is not in the EU ETS, but that is changing. The Commission has indicated that it is losing patience with the IMO and has said that, unless the IMO comes up with a robust scheme by the end of 2010, the Commission will look to include shipping in the EU ETS by 2013. That is very much a second step, but if we cannot achieve the A1 approach, A2 sometimes has to do.
On that A2 approach, and leaving aside the global versus regional issue, is the aviation mechanism appropriate for shipping?
No. The specifics would be different.
How would they be different?
The issue of free allocation is trickier for ships. The aviation industry has tried to work with the World Trade Organization on policy levers and on a series of bilateral negotiations with countries that have flights to the EU. It is not possible to do something similar for shipping, because a ship may make five or six port calls in different countries, so arrangements for shipping would have to be different. Because ships might not buy bunker fuels, that aspect would be different, too. Further, with the prospect of hubs being established outside Europe, for example in north Africa, any EU ETS for shipping would have to ensure that it did not create an incentive for such hubs to grow because, technically, they would require only short final journeys from north Africa into the EU, rather than journeys from, say, Asia into the EU. A range of areas therefore require specific policy mechanisms to ensure that carbon leakage does not occur.
I agree. If an EU ETS makes sense, it will have to be related to the freight flow from origin to destination. A good example of shipping finding its way around regional regulation arises from the United States cabotage law that does not allow ships sailing under flags other than the US flag to carry cargo along the US coast. The port of the Bahamas has grown a great deal because of that. It is on the doorstep of the US, so containers are brought to the Bahamas to be picked up for the last leg to the US on US-flagged ships.
Are there any final questions for the panel? Do the witnesses want to make any final points that have not been raised in questioning?
We recognise the problems and we want to do more. We are working hard to deliver a global open-trading scheme that can work for the international shipping industry and take account of countries that have not signed up to international schemes. We think that it is possible to do that, but it is proving challenging. However, we are committed to working towards that aim with the Scottish Government, the United Kingdom Government, Europe and the IMO.
We would like to see a Scottish perspective on local shipping and an incentive for that in the bill, because it has been left out so far.
That is a useful observation. Thank you for your time in answering questions. We will suspend briefly for a comfort break and a changeover of witnesses.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome panel three. I apologise to the witnesses because we are running a wee bit late and the committee's numbers are a bit depleted, but we hope that we can explore the issues in depth with you. I welcome Paul Tetlaw, the chair of Transform Scotland; Jeff Gazzard, co-ordinator of the GreenSkies campaign; and John Lauder, national director for Scotland at Sustrans.
Sustrans is a charity that campaigns on sustainable transport, particularly active travel. We work closely with the Scottish Government to deliver projects throughout Scotland.
We, too, welcome the bill and the ambition in Scotland for Scotland to be a leader in tackling climate change. We have made only four recommendations to enhance the bill.
Thank you very much. I am sure that we will explore in our questions issues to do with the targets and how different sectors will perform.
The Aviation Environment Federation, which is a very small body—there are four of us—is the only non-governmental organisation anywhere in the world that works exclusively on aviation. We are proud of that.
The UK Committee on Climate Change, which is not as pessimistic as Paul Tetlaw—or perhaps it is—estimates that the surface transport modes throughout the UK could reduce CO2 emissions by between 5 million tonnes and 32 million tonnes. Do you endorse those figures? Why is the range so broad?
The variety of possible figures is really interesting. Before I came to the meeting, I looked at some estimates that the Department for Transport has made for the UK. It has estimated that if every large town and city in the UK ran an individualised travel marketing programme—essentially a soft measure like the travelsmart programme that Sustrans runs, in which we sit down with households, assess their transport needs and consider how to reduce their individual car trips by walking, cycling and taking public transport—14.2 million tonnes of carbon emissions could be saved by 2015. That figure is for the UK. We could make a wild estimate and say that, at 10 per cent of that, Scotland could save 1.42 million tonnes. However, we will not do that; we will go with what the DFT said. In light of that, it seems to me that 32 million tonnes might be conservative.
Are there any other views on the projected reductions?
The range is interestingly wide and not terribly ambitious. As I tried to illustrate with my crude "Blue Peter" model, it is unacceptable for transport not to play its part, which it has not been doing. It has been going in the wrong direction: between 1990 and 2006, transport emissions rose by more than 14 per cent in Scotland, whereas overall emissions fell by 12.3 per cent, which means that non-transport emissions fell by much more. All other sectors are contributing, but transport is not.
The question largely concerned surface-based transport. Does Jeff Gazzard have anything to add?
The debate is framed by policy measures that, as my two colleagues said, stem from basic mathematics. If we cannot agree on the figures, how will we ever agree about the policy measures? This is not algebraic logarithmic equations or mathematics meeting physics; it is simple addition and percentages, which even I can do.
I have another question about walking and cycling in particular. John Lauder expressed some surprise—or disappointment—that the bill does not do more on active travel. I can take it as read that you think that there is scope for legislation to achieve more active travel. How should it be achieved? Should there be targets for public transport or active travel? Would it be more appropriate to think of mechanisms to create financial incentives as other witnesses have argued, to ensure that people have clearer reasons for making those different choices?
Both of those ideas could be applied. We could learn something from other northern European countries. The Scandinavian countries have already done a lot of the work that I think we should start to do in Scotland. They did not set targets for modal share—Denmark, for example, did not say that it was going to have a 15 per cent modal share in 20 years' time; rather, the Danes looked at why people do not walk and cycle and began to tackle those reasons through a range of interventions. They built paths, for example, and reallocated road space. They built that into their planning frameworks and they enforced it fairly rigorously. For example, they reduced the amount of car parking in city centres every year. They did it quietly, but they did it and they set targets for it.
Did those countries take a legislative approach that needs to be taken in the bill, or are you asking for a more strategic approach and a change to Government transport strategy?
A change in strategy at all levels of government is required—it is required at national level but it must be cascaded down.
I put the same question to Paul Tetlaw: given the aspiration that everyone, across the political spectrum, is signing up to, does there need to be a clearer emphasis on emissions reduction in the Government's transport strategy?
Yes. To build on what John Lauder said, there needs to be a national framework. Whether it is part of the STPR or national planning framework 2 does not matter; nationally, we must set a framework that states that this is where we are going with policy and cascades that down to local authorities. We have examined the matter quite closely and our understanding is that the other countries to which John Lauder refers—the Scandinavian countries and so on—set a national framework; it was part of a national plan that all parties would buy into over the long term. Emissions reduction is not a contentious issue like road pricing and so on; I cannot see that people would get upset about it—people would welcome it. We need a framework to drive it forward. At a national level we must grasp the bull by the horns, and whether it is part of NPF 2 or STPR does not really matter.
I will bring in other members; I am sure that other points can be built into other questions.
I ask you all for your thoughts on the 2050 target and the interim target. How ambitious are they? Would you like to see any changes?
We are perfectly happy with the target, although we would be happier if it included aviation and shipping. The important thing is the interim target, on which we feel we could make some progress quite quickly.
Would you like the interim target to be changed?
No, we are happy with it.
In my written submission, I mentioned a 3 per cent annual emission reduction target, which would allow for better interim targets along the way. As long as we have that target in place, we will hit a trajectory. There are a lot of graphs flying around in the WWF Scotland paper—I am not sure whether it has been submitted to you, but I found it very helpful in demonstrating the sort of trajectory that could be achieved with a 3 per cent target. With that target in place, we will hit the interim targets and the end point that we need to achieve. Scientists are questioning whether that end point is good enough or whether it needs to be tougher, but we have to start somewhere.
There is not a problem with realising that the target should include aviation and shipping emissions—however imperfect some of the measurement systems might be, they still exist. Bunker fuels are reported only as memo items in an arcane situation in which both aviation and shipping emissions are dealt with by their respective trade bodies. The organisations are trade bodies, despite the fact that they have the initials "UN" in front of their names—the fact that the IMO and the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organisation are dealing with the issue is akin to having the drug companies run the World Health Organization. That is not a throwaway line.
We will come to international aviation and shipping later—I will ask some further questions on the targets. Paul Tetlaw has given his view already, but I ask the other witnesses for their views on the annual targets.
It would be great to have 3 per cent year on year. As to how well placed transport is to deliver that, in the immediate aftermath of the strategic transport projects review I struggle to see how transport will manage to make those cuts. There is heavy investment in road transport, which accounts for 95 per cent of all transport emissions, and which—as Paul Tetlaw said—will only grow. I do not think that it can be done—transport cannot reduce its emissions if there is such an investment in petrol-based and oil-based travel.
I am sorry—I should have asked how you think transport is placed to achieve the emissions reductions that you hope for in an annual target.
Are you asking about internal surface-based transport within Scotland?
We will start with that.
It is not well placed—the strategic transport projects review projects that emissions from road transport will increase by 10 per cent to 2022, which is not a good starting point.
Does aviation have any chance of contributing to a reduction in emissions in the short term?
No—it just does not. We have only to look at the figures to see that. My head spun when I analysed the scale of what Scotland's aviation emissions could be. Members might not believe me, but the Department for Transport's UK-wide figures, from which Scotland's figures come, lost millions of tonnes of CO2 when they were recast between 2006 and 2007. That is a big issue.
Regardless of the type of transport, does Scotland have the skill base to move to a low-carbon transport system and take advantage of the opportunities that will arise when we change our transport systems?
Absolutely. Why not? Scotland has a great history of innovation. I have no reason to believe that Scotland does not have people who can be equally successful in the new era by innovating in the required ways. We heard a lot from earlier witnesses about the importance of the economy. If Scotland developed appropriate technologies and took a lead, that could be a great boost to the economy. Others would come here to benefit from that, which would have an economic value.
Certainly.
I heard what you heard—what I describe as special pleading about the fundamental importance to the Scottish economy of aviation, which means that it cannot possibly contribute to achieving the targets, but there are many types of aviation. People have talked about rail travel replacing air travel. There are a huge number of internal flights. Most people accept the argument for rail travel—I know that the business sector accepts it because I am a member of a group of which the Confederation of British Industry Scotland and the chambers of commerce are also members, and it is heavily promoting high-speed rail links to the south. I am sure that business understands that an alternative will have to be presented and that internal aviation will not continue at existing levels. That is one area in which aviation emissions could be reduced.
I will pick up on your comments about leisure travel. How could the Government and Parliament change that behaviour and tell people that they cannot go on holiday?
Pricing mechanisms are the simple answer. The only reason why that hen party went on that trip was because it was so cheap to fly to Spain for the weekend. Jeff Gazzard can tell you much more than I can about air travel and whether it pays the true price of its impact on the environment. However, I think that pricing mechanisms could soon change the situation and prices will rise due to oil scarcity, if not through other means. The vision of ever-expanding airports and ever-growing numbers of air passengers is a fantasy.
You asked about the skills base. As Paul Tetlaw said, the skills base is definitely there. It is interesting to note that many of the big consulting engineering firms are interested in active travel and see it as a growth area. They are very imaginative and come up with great ideas all the time.
I am sorry to go on about leisure travel, but I represent the Lothians, and Edinburgh bases much of its tourism on short breaks. People might be worried that we are trying to stop them travelling, which would discourage people from coming here, as well. How do we deal with those concerns, which are based on the contribution that tourism—including the leisure weekends that you think are inappropriate—makes to the capital and other parts of Scotland?
I am not sure that you can sit here and say that such trips are appropriate. In a way, they are a bit of an easy target. The fact is that the website of the Scottish Government's version of the UK Government's act on CO2 campaign gives advice on how people can cut their CO2 emissions. It advises people to holiday at home, avoid flying, use videoconferencing, take the train and so on. The Scottish Government's advice differs slightly from the UK Government's campaign in that it suggests that people should buy offsets if they fly, whereas the UK Government says, basically, "You can buy offsets as a last resort, but they do not make much difference."
Unfortunately.
Indeed. However, your Government tells people to holiday at home. I love coming to Scotland, because it is one of the few places where I get on with my colleagues—you can understand why. I think it is great that I can get to Scotland by train. Scotland is a nation in Europe and people like Scotland. People like fiercely independent countries. Get out there and talk to other European nations about your policy. Appoint a Scottish climate change ambassador—I do not care who you choose; perhaps Al Gore might discover that he has long-forgotten Scottish links. There is a lot that you can do to adapt your policy and sell it to other people in a way that enables you to work with them.
Cathy Peattie would like to ask a quick supplementary, and so would I.
I will not go into the visit to Spain.
It is a question of compulsion, regulation, exhortation and education. One of the most fantastic things that I have seen happening recently is walking buses, where kids walk to school as a group. That comes up every couple of years. A car manufacturer usually gives them fluorescent jerseys and stuff like that.
I will follow that up with a quick question for Paul Tetlaw. You said that you are part of a group that promotes high-speed rail and that the CBI, the chambers of commerce and so on are involved and signed up to that agenda. To what extent do those business voices see the business case for bringing some of the tourism and leisure industries back to Scotland so that we benefit from them here, rather than our facilitating the continual offshoring of those industries?
I have not had that conversation with them, so on that basis I cannot comment, but I am sure that they understand, as we do, that it would be beneficial if the amount of money that goes out of the country was turned around and spent here instead.
Whether people spent the money on colourful hen nights or drunken weekends in Edinburgh or on something that is more benign, they would be spending that money in Scotland.
There is also a huge market just south of the border. At the moment, many people tend to go the other way. It would help if we could get a volume of them coming our way. I observe that there are a lot of English people in Edinburgh at the moment, and have been throughout the winter. I think a lot of them have come by train because the rail companies are marketing their services quite heavily. There is a big market to aim for there.
My comment is almost an anecdote. Every year, we run a conference for school travel co-ordinators, and in the past two years the best speakers were 17-year-olds. Those two sixth-year pupils from different schools absolutely understood the position. Their view was, "Of course I'm going to go abroad with my pals. I know that cheap flying is going to end pretty soon."
One of the witnesses mentioned the Government technical note that is attached to the bill. What do the witnesses think about the emission tracks that the Government suggests? Do you think that the emission changes are being made quickly enough?
Are you asking whether the emissions targets are being made quickly enough?
Are we seeing the trajectory go down as quickly as you would like? Would you like to see cuts being made earlier?
Yes. We want to see action.
You surprise me. What changes would you like to see?
As Paul Tetlaw said, we cannot beat the Government, because everyone has a responsibility. I have been trying to work out how targets will filter down. Paul Tetlaw also mentioned local government. I cannot see how the targets will filter down to local government through, for example, the single outcome agreements. We completely support those agreements; they are working on the ground in some instances, but not universally. I am sorry if I have gone off the topic of the question, but you pretty much knew the answer I was going to give.
It is nice to have it on the record.
It is more about how the targets will filter down. The way the framework has been set up means that it is not just about the Government setting targets. It is setting indicators and outcomes, but it is up to local authorities to reach agreement with the Government through the single outcome agreements. It is about how 3 per cent year-on-year cuts in carbon can be negotiated on that basis.
The less we do now, the more we will leave to be done in the future and the worse we make it for the future. You have probably heard that it is all about the area under the curve. The sooner we start the better. It is easier to start now, because there are lots of soft targets—everything we have been talking about that is not that difficult to shift.
I echo that.
Should the bill have sectoral emissions targets for transport?
Yes, it should.
That was nice and easy.
If it does not, there will be special pleading around transport and we will not be able to do anything about it. That would just not be realistic.
I agree with Paul Tetlaw. My concern is that the view could be taken that, in order to grow the economy, we must drive a cart and horses through any targets that we set for transport—that transport must be taken out of those targets. I feel that that is what we heard from the previous witnesses. That goes right to the root of what we measure and what we regard as economic growth. However, I do not want to open up that debate this afternoon.
Somebody had to make a joke about driving a horse and cart at some point.
It is always the Greens.
I have a final question on targets. Do you have an opinion on the measurement and reporting of emissions that are generated anywhere as a result of goods and services that are used in Scotland?
Yes, I do—if I have understood your question correctly.
It is about overall consumption and the Scottish economy.
It should be in terms of where it is produced, as well. One reason why our emissions have gone down over the years, while transport emissions have continued to go up, is that we have exported our manufacturing industry. Let us not kid ourselves that we have done anything other than that. It is naive to believe that we can continue to allow China or whoever else to take the hit for those emissions when they are produced in the manufacture of products that we import. It is only a matter of time before it is accepted that each country must take responsibility for the products that it imports. That will change the whole picture for shipping and so on, because there will not be the same volume of shipping around the world. Once a carbon budget has been created for a country's own goods, market forces will intervene and people will realise that it makes much more sense to produce those goods at home than to transport them halfway around the world.
I think I disagree, as well.
Quite a bit of work could be done to measure the costs and benefits of reducing carbon emissions. We regularly try to sell our ideas to the public, but that is a lot easier to do when we can produce facts and figures that people can understand. Where we struggle at the moment is in measurement and monitoring. The Government could invest in that research to help us to understand the benefits to individuals of reducing carbon emissions. We struggle for figures on that.
Aviation and shipping—particularly aviation—tend to get singled out for attention in the climate change agenda, sometimes by me but also by high-profile direct action activists and by a number of people who have debated the UK bill. The previous panel of witnesses might argue that the aviation sector should be allowed to continue to increase its emissions. The flip side of that is to ask why we should single it out for special attention.
Simply because it is kerosene all the way.
Would you like to respond to the argument that we heard from the previous panel of witnesses, who claimed that aviation's contribution to the economy is such that it is legitimate to argue that, within an efficient and tightly-capped trading system, it can be allowed to continue to grow, with the rest of the economy taking up the slack?
The contribution of aviation to GDP is important. Historically, aviation has grown at about twice the rate of GDP. It facilitates the movement of people and certain goods around the world, and the further it goes the more efficient it is. We cannot turn the clock back, but aviation does not pay its costs. If it did, we reckon that we could stabilise emissions at today's level.
You have mentioned some of the aviation emissions figures, and in a previous meeting the committee discussed the national atmospheric emissions inventory as a source for those figures. How robust is that source of emissions data?
It is as robust as you will get. As we say on page 3 of our written submission, the latest NAEI figure is that there were 1.122 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from international flights from Scotland in 2006. That is not so far from the 2005 DFT figure for all domestic and international flights, which was 1.5 million tonnes.
Yes.
Forecasts from the DFT, the Civil Aviation Authority and the NAEI are about as good as you will get, but Scotland needs to conduct a study into what its own figures are now and what they will be in future.
That is useful, thank you.
There should be a limit. The UK Government is establishing a limit—I have picked my words very carefully—and so, I believe, is the EU within its 2 degrees policy.
Would you support a proposal for an 80:20 split, for example, so that no more than 20 per cent of the domestic target should be reached through those measures?
I think that that is a lot, but it is about as good as you will get, and it is fair enough. We have spent the past five years working on having aviation included in the ETS because it was the only policy option open to us. Do not believe that we are fans of emissions trading as a concept to save the planet.
Are there any other views on international credits?
I support the 20 per cent figure that has been proposed. A limit is needed.
I want to consider the role of advisory functions, reporting duties, public organisations and so on. What advantages or disadvantages do you see in the UK Committee on Climate Change providing advice to the Scottish ministers?
There is probably a short-term advantage in that the UKCCC has been created and is up and running, but in the longer term it would be better to have a body that is appropriate to and for Scotland.
I agree completely.
That was my next question. Is the idea of a Scottish commission on climate change positive and helpful in the longer term? In a sense, that is what you have just said.
Yes, it is because it will take account of particularly Scottish circumstances.
The UKCCC has been very clever because it has rigorously distanced itself from NGOs, industry and special interest groups in its initial 18-month period. The committee has, in the immortal phrase, formed its own views, which was a smart thing to do. Scotland should have an equivalent commission, but it would need to work closely with the UKCCC. The way that it writes its reports and what it says seem okay to me.
So some kind of relationship between the two organisations and parallel working would make sense so that they did not go in different directions.
Yes. As I said, Scotland may have only 5.1 million people, but you are very important. The Executive and the Parliament do a cracking job; every time I have been here, I have been impressed. We are in Europe and you are part of the UK. At all those pinch points, there are policies and institutions that you need to engage with pretty quickly and thoroughly.
Is the reporting mechanism in the bill robust enough? If not, how can it be improved? Will the bill deliver flexible adaptation options for the transport sector?
I mentioned the water industry as an example of a sector in which regulation is clearly in the hands of particular bodies. One of our recommendations is that simply reporting on progress is not sufficient and that we need enforcement to ensure that we achieve the targets we set ourselves. Most of my career was in the water industry. We have brought about tremendous improvements in drinking water and waste water quality as a result of clear legislation and bodies that are tasked with enforcing it. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency, which deals with waste water, and the drinking water quality regulator for Scotland have worked successfully with the industry, and society has benefited.
We need to ensure that we have the right mix of people and that they have sufficient enforcement powers and independence.
I am interested in hearing more about the benefit of placing a duty on local authorities to tackle climate change and to report annually on their transport emissions, as well as on their other work on climate change.
That is vital. The point that I explored earlier was whether the single outcome agreement framework will allow local authorities to opt out or change their approach. Some local authorities are already enthusiastic, but others are not. The idea of enforcement seems to go against the idea of single outcome agreements, and it will be interesting to see how targets are enforced—if they can be.
Local authorities have public duties in issues such as equality and biodiversity.
Yes—a public duty is required.
I have a small point on that. The situation here is analogous with that in the US if we view local authorities as states—we have the good, the bad and the ugly. As we discussed, there are good local councils that can be green beacons and can be encouraged. We should start where we know we will get successes, whatever they may be, to provide a model. Just off the top of my head, we could have town twinning for carbon reduction measures. We have had a lot of input on air transport issues in the US, and we have worked with local authorities and regional bodies such as the air quality management group for the north-east states. In such groups, there are environmental protection officers, councillors, people from education authorities and others who can take many of the actions that have been mentioned. We need to consider what local authorities can do. On whether the approach should be voluntary or advisory, I suggest advisory. That is a good way forward.
The point is wider—public bodies generally should have a responsibility—but local authorities are key, given the activities that go on in their areas. I referred to the importance of land use planning and the type of developments that we permit in future. A duty would focus the minds of local authorities on the type of developments that they allow in their areas.
For many of the past 20 years, if not longer, I found that, although everyone thought that equality was an extremely good idea, only one officer or department had the responsibility for dealing with it. The creation of a public sector duty on equalities has meant that statutory organisations have had to take on the responsibility across the board. Do you not think that imposing a climate change duty would help us to get away from the idea that one department is wonderful and another is awful and that one council is good whereas another is awful? Such a duty would not be prescriptive but would work across councils.
That is a good point. For example, all local authorities are big users of travel. In the final few weeks before Ken Livingstone lost the mayoral election, the Greater London Authority put through a policy on air travel whereby, if a journey in Europe takes up to eight hours from door to door, it must be made by rail. Flying within the UK is not allowed—videoconferencing must be used.
As there are no final questions for the panel, I ask the witnesses whether there are any outstanding issues that they intended to raise with the committee but which did not come up during questioning.
The Scottish Executive should have some policies on whether to use air travel when travelling around the UK. Some of the Scottish islands are a bit peripheral, and I will not argue against the public service obligations that are in place. There are PSOs for Polish politicians to fly from Warsaw to Strasbourg, which does not represent a good use of air travel, but I accept that the air services to the Scottish islands are vital. They should be a little more expensive than they are, but PSOs have a role to play in peripherality.
I appreciate your point about the island links. If Rob Gibson had been at today's meeting, I am sure that that issue would have come up earlier.
This might sound like special pleading, but it definitely is not. I would like the committee to take account of paragraph 8.1 of the consultation document, which classes walking or cycling instead of using the car as a small change. A big opportunity is being missed: the issue should be mentioned in the bill, just as forestry—which has its own section—is.
Thank you very much. I appreciate the time that you have spent with us. I know that our meeting has overrun quite badly, and I put on record my appreciation to the staff who have supported us in continuing the meeting so late. I thank everyone for their time.
Meeting closed at 18:04.