Climate Change Bill
The next item of business is a debate on motion S3M-1023, in the name of Stewart Stevenson, on the United Kingdom Climate Change Bill.
We all understand the need to take action on climate change and to co-operate with other countries to do so. The United Kingdom Climate Change Bill sets a statutory target of at least a 60 per cent reduction in targeted greenhouse gases by 2050. The target relates to carbon dioxide, but the bill provides scope to alter the target level or to include other greenhouse gases in future. It will be the secretary of state's duty to meet that target, but he will look to the other Administrations in these islands to assist.
The bill ensures consultation with the Scottish ministers on setting and amending carbon budgets and on amending targets. The bill will benefit Scotland. It enables us to obtain expert advice from the new committee on climate change on our contribution to the UK target and on our own proposed target of 80 per cent. It provides enabling powers under which all the Administrations may establish trading schemes related to greenhouse gas emissions. That provides a means of establishing joint schemes—but does not require us to have such schemes—and allows us to set up what we decide is suitable for Scotland. We have no immediate plans to use those powers. The bill also provides for a UK-wide assessment of the risks posed by climate change, to which we will need to adapt.
Through the bill, we shall work with our partners at Westminster towards shared objectives and demonstrate international leadership. It is important to note, though, that the bill does not dictate the measures that we should take in Scotland. We can legislate in the Scottish Parliament for our own target and determine Scottish measures to support both targets.
I move,
That the Parliament endorses the principle of introducing for the United Kingdom as a whole statutory targets and a related framework for action to mitigate climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions as set out in the Climate Change Bill, introduced in the House of Lords on 14 November 2007, and agrees that the provisions in the Bill which fall within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament should be considered by the UK Parliament.
On the last day before the Christmas recess, there can be few more important subjects for debate than the environment and climate change. Whether one is choking in the smog of Los Angeles or watching acid rain fall in Siberia, climate change is a global issue that requires co-operation, understanding and international action. Al Gore has developed into an evangelist on climate change, and I recommend his film "An Inconvenient Truth" to all members as a Christmas stocking filler.
The Bali summit has made important progress with a development road map to cut greenhouse gas emissions that has been described as an "historic" agreement by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hilary Benn. I recognise that it will not satisfy every non-governmental organisation and every environmental campaigner, but as is often said, a journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step.
Labour members welcome the legislative consent motion as a positive opportunity to recognise that climate change knows no boundaries. As the minister has, appropriately, laid out, the Westminster bill sets a number of targets: a 60 per cent cut in CO2 emissions by 2050; intermediate targets by 2020; an independent committee on climate change with, of course, Scottish input; the establishment of trading schemes related to greenhouse gas emissions; and annual reporting. The Climate Change Bill is historic, as it will make the United Kingdom the first country in the world to have a legally binding long-term framework to cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.
The consultation on the bill received more than 17,000 responses. Some called for the bar to be raised, with higher targets; some suggested that other greenhouse gases should be included in the targets; and some suggested the inclusion of international aviation and shipping, which are currently not in the bill. Of course, as the minister pointed out, all those issues can be addressed by the expert committee.
In the spirit of Christmas generosity, I welcome the constructive cross-party engagement that exists on the issue, especially from the SNP. In opposition, the SNP was not keen on legislative consent motions; today, it recognises their usefulness and the benefit that can come to Scotland by allowing Westminster to legislate for the introduction of a shared framework throughout the UK. We all have the common goal of a world with a low-carbon economy, and I always welcome sinners who wish to repent. I also welcome the support of WWF Scotland and RSPB Scotland for the legislative framework, which will ensure that CO2 emissions cuts are achieved and be a vital tool in the fight against climate change.
In its election campaign, the SNP made great play of its 3 per cent binding targets year on year. I ask the minister, in winding up the debate, in the spirit of generosity, to confirm today whether those 3 per cent targets will be in the Scottish Government's bill; when the Scottish Government's proposal will be open to consultation; when the draft bill will be published; and whether the Government will consider carbon-neutral budgets whereby carbon-emitting projects such as the Forth road bridge, about which we have just heard, will be mitigated by carbon-reducing projects on the other side of the balance sheet, such as modal shift.
Labour has shown world leadership in taking action on climate change. We made it our top priority for our presidency of the G8 in 2005 and we led the world in setting tough targets for cutting the emissions of greenhouse gases. We also launched the world's first economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme and, in April 2001, in a resolution for which I voted, the Labour Government introduced the climate change levy, which is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 2.5 million tonnes by 2010.
Labour's proposed Scottish climate bill would have delivered a reduction in council tax for householders who recycle more and for those who install energy-efficiency measures and microgeneration. I should at this stage acknowledge Sarah Boyack's work in the area. Will the minister undertake to consider such measures in the Scottish Government's proposed climate change bill?
With ice caps melting in Greenland, wild fires raging in tropical forests and the oceans acidifying, planet earth cannot wait any longer for action on global warming. We strongly support this legislative consent motion and commend it to the chamber.
This is a unique day: we are all agreeing on things that we have never agreed on before. The irony is, of course, that we are debating a legislative consent motion that is not only supported by the SNP but has been proposed by an SNP minister. In the past, the SNP always opposed legislative consent motions—
No we did not.
Well, the SNP opposed them in principle because it believed that everything should be done here. On the other hand, the Conservatives always supported legislative consent motions because, deep down, many of us still think that everything should be legislated for in London. However, as I said, today, we are in the unique position of being in full agreement on the principle.
The legislative consent motion on the UK Climate Change Bill is one of the most complex and important of its kind, and it sets a framework for something that we must and will work towards in years to come. As a Conservative, I might well suggest that there is no need for a Scottish climate change bill because the UK bill can cover everything, but my position has changed almost as much as everyone else's, because I have come to the conclusion that that is not the case. I believe that Scotland needs its own bill because we start from a very different baseline from the rest of the UK and because this country's potential for achieving results in these important areas is very different.
We must also take this opportunity to consider measures such as trading schemes to ensure that Scotland does not suffer from the setting of higher targets. One might, for example, ask why the Government has set an 80 per cent carbon reduction target for Scotland when the UK target is 60 per cent. I am prepared to accept many arguments on the matter, but my worry is that 80 per cent was plucked out of the air because it is more impressive than 60 per cent. If such a target can be justified, I am happy to support it.
I have raised with the minister before—and will raise it again now to ensure that we can have some thinking on the matter—my concern that although the potential for achieving results is different in Scotland, setting even more ambitious voluntary targets might result in the Scottish economy, Scottish businesses and Scottish local authorities suffering financially from trying to find the resources to meet them. As we begin to examine the proposed framework, we must get the minister to think about the additional cost to the Scottish economy of setting more ambitious targets.
When I raised my concern before, the minister said that any effects will be positive rather than negative. I want to ensure that trading schemes or other fiscal arrangements allow for Scotland to be compensated should any negative effects make themselves felt. After all, if Scotland—as it is well able to do—takes on a disproportionate level of responsibility for reducing the UK's output of climate change gases, there must be some mechanism to ensure that it is not financially penalised in that respect. We must all think about ways of ensuring that Scotland's greater effort does not result in its suffering financially.
I, too, support the legislative consent motion. The UK Climate Change Bill should be welcomed because it will establish the vital legislative framework for achieving cuts in emissions. Of course, we can and will argue over whether the targets are appropriate. The Liberal Democrats believe that the bill in its present form is too weak and unambitious, so the Liberal Democrats at Westminster will continue to press for a tougher bill that provides a framework for cutting our carbon emissions to a more sustainable level.
The UK bill will not compromise Scotland's climate change legislation. We must work within a national and, indeed, international context on such a crucial issue. The role of the devolved Administrations has now been detailed in the bill. I understand that that was not the case in the draft bill, so I commend the work that has been done by the Scottish Government climate change directorate and the minister on that. The secretary of state will be under an obligation to consult the devolved Administrations on setting carbon budgets, amending carbon budgets and even potentially amending the targets, and he will also have to publish an account of how he has taken account of our ministers' views.
The bill sets UK targets but is silent on the Scottish share of that task, which is why it is so important that the Government move quickly on a Scottish climate change bill. A consultation on the Scottish bill is expected to be launched in January 2008. The Scottish Government has already indicated ambitious targets to legislate for an 80 per cent emissions reduction in all six major greenhouse gases, while the target in the UK Climate Change Bill is to reduce levels of carbon dioxide by 60 per cent by 2050.
Both the UK Climate Change Bill and the forthcoming Scottish bill refer, contrary to the Scottish National Party manifesto commitment, to five-year targets rather than to annual binding targets. The Government's view that annual targets are too difficult is convenient nonsense: five-year targets would be not-in-my-term-of-office targets and not worth the paper they are written on. We want steady progress rather than five-year targets.
The Scottish Government must produce substantive policies to tackle climate change. Ambitious targets are not in themselves enough. The lack of any clear and radical initiatives to achieve them is an important omission from the SNP Government's plans. The budget, with its big investment in motorways and relatively low investment in renewables, offers no clarification.
The SNP's climate change policies are inconsistent. The budget shows a clear discrepancy between the Government's desire for economic growth and its stated intention to reduce emissions, with no explanation of how it will bridge the gap. TRANSform Scotland recently stated:
"while the Government aspires to delivering reductions in emissions, the Budget fails to clearly set out what are the climate change repercussions of the investments it proposes. It is difficult to believe there will be reductions in emissions from transport if we are to see spending on roads go up by a third."
On that point, I welcome the commitment that the First Minister made this morning in response to Sarah Boyack. He said that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth would return to Parliament before the budget is finalised with detailed information about the carbon impact of his budget decisions. That will be interesting.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats want introduced at the earliest possible opportunity a Scottish climate change bill that contains ambitious and specific mandatory carbon reduction targets. We want policies that will deliver 100 per cent renewable electricity, a carbon balance sheet for all Scottish Government policies, a sustainable transport plan and consideration of a system of personal carbon allowances as part of a domestic carbon-quota trading scheme. We also want annual emissions reduction targets by sector.
The first announcement that the SNP made on the Scottish climate change bill was that it would not contain annual targets, which breaks its manifesto commitment. The SNP has delayed the introduction of the bill for approximately 18 months for a period of "formal and informal consultation", but no details are forthcoming. We are swiftly losing ground.
To return to the UK bill, I reiterate our support for the legislative consent motion.
Some legislative consent motions have been agreed to without debate. There are good reasons to have even a short debate on this occasion, not the least of which is that it is one of the most extensive legislative consent—or Sewel—motions that we have ever considered, because huge parts of the UK bill cover devolved matters. Perhaps more important than the scope of the LCM is that the legislation is on the most urgent and important issue. More and more, I hear politicians from across the spectrum saying that: I recently heard Gordon Brown say it at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in London, although I wonder increasingly how many of them understand the meaning of the words they say.
The Scottish and UK Governments both claim to be world leaders on climate change. Those are reasonable claims, but only because of the crying lack of competition for the title. Very few Governments in developed countries are even saying the right thing, and those that are will still not do the right thing. The Prime Minister's comments came in the same week as the Government gave backing in principle for a new runway at Heathrow airport. They came in the same month as the Bali negotiations, which David Stewart mentioned. He called the agreement an historic treaty, but I prefer to call it an historic irony. We have been in the same place many times with the Americans. We weaken treaties to keep them at the table and we weaken them even more when they threaten to leave again. We weaken them and weaken them, but they do not sign at the end of the day. There is a real danger that we will end up repeating exactly the same process.
Our debate is happening while four political parties continue to strike the balance, as I mentioned in the previous debate. They support road building—including, I remind Alison McInnes, projects that were set in motion by the previous Government and which were supported by all four of those parties—aviation subsidies and fawning over the unsustainable development plans of ill-coiffured billionaires. We are also having the debate in the same month as figures for car journeys and air journeys broke all records—something that happens pretty much annually.
In short, we are failing. We are not doing what we said we would do. If we were ignorant of the consequences—if we did not understand or did not know what was going to happen and is already happening to some countries, particularly small island states—or if we did not understand the threat to our civilisation, our global economy and hundreds of millions of lives, we could almost be forgiven for our inaction. However, we are not ignorant: we understand but we are doing nothing.
I could urge the Scottish Government to press the UK Government to go further in its bill. Certainly, as other members have made clear, it needs to go further. A 60 per cent reduction might have made sense when we were unsure of some of the science but it is now clearly a meaningless and inadequate target. I could urge the Government to go further on which greenhouse gases are covered and whether emissions from aviation and shipping are included, but the Scottish Parliament's job is to urgently demand more from the Scottish bill, which is also clearly falling behind the science—an 80 per cent reduction target is behind the science now.
As we close the year with this short debate on a hugely important motion, let us commit to spending the next year ensuring that the Scottish bill goes far beyond even the Government's current aspirations and sets the pace for change that could become an example that is genuinely worthy of the title "world leaders on climate change".
The legislative consent motion is unusual in its extent. Key elements of the bill are within the legislative competence of this Parliament, but we must work with our UK partners, within the framework of European Union initiatives and with everyone throughout the world on this subject. I will deal with one or two of the points that have been raised and will try to get them all in.
David Stewart correctly said that climate change knows no boundaries. When our CO2 goes into the atmosphere, it is almost certainly blown across the North Sea to Norway, and what is in our atmosphere comes from other countries. We have a shared responsibility so, in seeking to share responsibility with the Westminster Government, we are taking a pragmatic and proper view of what we should do.
The comment was made that the bill does not cover emissions from aviation. That is true, but we are supporting the UK's attempts to ensure that aviation is included in emissions trading throughout Europe and we will continue to do that. I spoke to Jim Fitzpatrick about that and, in particular, developed with him some of the issues that there would be for smaller propeller-driven aircraft that run a number of our lifeline services. With Westminster, we will continue to track changes to the bill as they are made.
Alex Johnstone—I think, subject to confirmation—said that I was the first SNP member, as an Opposition spokesperson, to propose to our group that we should support a Sewel motion, which we did. I recall that I spoke on that. We are as pragmatic as the Government as we were as the Opposition, and I am sure that we will continue to be so as we go forward.
David Stewart and other members referred to the proposed Scottish climate change bill. I do not recognise some of the things that have been said about the progress that we are making on it. We have been working intensively on the UK bill, and we are working on our own bill. An extensive consultation document will be published next month. I am sure that members will find it interesting. I hope not only that we can all engage in the consultation process as individuals and political parties, but that we can encourage others to do so. We cannot deal with the subject on a partisan basis; we can only—
Excuse me, minister.
There are far too many conversations going on. Take your conversations outside the chamber.
I very much agree with Stewart Stevenson that we should not be partisan on the matter. Will he accept that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has already acknowledged that the Climate Change Bill has the scope to increase the UK target from 60 per cent to 80 per cent, and that he is already considering the science on that matter? He understands that the science is pushing us in that direction. Will the minister therefore accept that that is not a matter of partisan dispute?
Sarah Boyack makes an absolutely proper point. This is not about competing in the UK, with the different targets that the different countries of the UK may have to set. The targets should reflect the different opportunities and challenges of each country. In Scotland, we can be the renewable energy capital of Europe and make a particularly significant contribution through that.
Alison McInnes seemed to suggest that ministers—that would be myself—would not be accountable to Parliament for the progress that is made. Each year, we intend to show what is happening on climate change and we intend that the minister will be accountable to the relevant committee and to Parliament. I suggest gently to Alison McInnes that her talking about our increased roads budget is fair enough, but I ask could she talk to Mike Rumbles about that. Earlier today, he was actively encouraging me to increase expenditure on roads.
Patrick Harvie said that the bill has a huge scope—I agree. He wants the UK Government to go further. We have just heard an indication that it might be prepared to do so, so we will work with the UK Government as it considers its targets. Over the period to 2050, the year at which both the UK and Scotland seek to achieve their targets, we will learn more about the science. We will learn more about what is possible, and we will understand more about the opportunities that exist.
In the context of the LCM, we have to ensure that we determine Scotland's response to the challenge of climate change. The Government, in setting an 80 per cent target, on which we will be consulting next year, is showing the leadership that is expected. We have been congratulated by Al Gore, and we will deliver on what we have to do for the world and for Scotland. I hope that a 104-year-old Stewart Stevenson can be around in 2050 to see us deliver on that.
I will have to let the minister grow a little bit older before we come to the next item of business, which will be decision time. I cannot take it until 5 o'clock, I am afraid.
What?
I mean 4.30—I beg your pardon. I had you worried for a moment there.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—