Examination of witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 5 JULY 2000
PROFESSOR SIR
TOM BLUNDELL,
DR SUSAN
OWENS and PROFESSOR
BRIAN HOSKINS
20. You are not suggesting an increase.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) No. The main point is
that we are proposing a different way of delivering the tax so
that it is carbon based and dissuades people from using those
sources of energy which produce carbon dioxide. In many parts
of our report, we write that fuel poverty is a scandal in this
country. It is obviously a challenge we need to face.
(Dr Owens) We would agree with your own assessment
that fuel poverty is a critical social problem and that current
policies are doing no more than scratch the surface or tinker
with that problem. We would see the first call on our proposed
carbon tax as being to alleviate fuel poverty, both by home energy
efficiency improvements and where necessary by increasing benefits,
for example the cold weather and fuel payments might be increased.
Mr Brake
21. Have you costed not implementing your recommendations?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) Not implementing our
recommendations leads to damaging consequences and catastrophes
which are really very, very difficult to cost. They lead initially
to increases of sea level and that would have much more expensive
impacts on low lying countries obviously, like Bay of Bengal,
etcetera and also huge migrations of population. To cost that
in the future is a challenge but it is obviously going to be huge.
You will only have to compare the kinds of migrations of populations
which would be implied with the sort of things which have been
happening in Mozambique this year and the problems and the costs
of that.
22. May I return to the subject of UK leadership
on this important issue? Do you consider Michael Meacher's comment
in the FT that a 60 per cent cut by 2050 was not real politics
an obstacle to preparing an effective long-term response by the
UK to the climate change threat?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) I did not take it in
quite that way. When I have spoken to Michael Meacher about it,
he is very much aware that 60 per cent is a figure which we should
aim at and agrees with the kinds of calculations which have led
to that figure. The way it was presented in the press and by journalists
interviewing is that we are going to try to make the 60 per cent
cuts over the same timescales as, for example, the Kyoto Protocol.
What we are really saying is that those reductions in emissions
in 50 years' time need changes in the way we live at the present
time and also further investment and research in the area. The
real politics require that we embark on that route.
23. If his view is not an obstacle, and I am
sure it is not, what obstacles are there in your way of achieving
a long-term dramatic reduction in CO2 emissions?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) One of the problems is
one we have just discussed a moment ago which is the question
of fuel poverty. That is a major issue. The main issue is just
the way we think, the fact that politicians and everyone tend
to think in two or three years' time and almost any policy we
make now leads to very little change over the next 30 or 40 years.
The changes start to occur in 50 years' time and to have a problem
of that kind means that it is very difficult to get political
action and public involvement.
24. Any ideas how we can change people's way
of thinking?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) We have continuously
to describe what the consequences are. We need to get the question
addressed in the press. It would have been nice if Tony Blair
had mentioned this issue in his article in News of the World when
he was discussing petrol prices at the weekend. It is interesting
that the Saudi Arabians seem to have made a very good analysis
of the situation and are reducing prices of oil because they believe
that if they stay high people will change to alternative forms
of energy use. If we could get over some of those issues to the
public and have some discussion on them, we would start to get
the public aware, but it is a huge challenge and we do not underestimate
it.
Mr Gray
25. I should like to turn to what you say about
aircraft fuel duty. You rightly acknowledge that there would be
no point at all just doing that locally because that in fact might
well be anti-environmental in the sense that the planes would
go to somewhere else to refuel. Is there any real evidence that
there is any elasticity at all in the use of aircraft fuel? In
other words, would you not have to put an absolutely punitive
tax on aircraft fuel if you were going to have any effect at all
on the number of airmiles flown around the world?
(Dr Owens) It might be difficult to put figures on
elasticities whilst other things remain unchanged. Some of that
will depend on the distances being travelled. We did regret the
halving of the airport tax, or passenger duty as it is called,
because that applies to air travel within Europe, where one might
reasonably expect trains to compete with air travel. We felt that
was a retrograde step. We recognised the difficulties involved
in doing anything about duty on aircraft fuel because air travel
is international. This is an issue which cannot be dealt with
by us alone at national level. We therefore feel very strongly
that the UK should urge for measures to be taken internationally,
at OECD level if we cannot do it any wider than that, and at European
level if we cannot do it at OECD level. Air travel is growing
very rapidly. It is another area where contributions to emissions
of carbon dioxide are growing and whilst we seem to have abandoned
the policy of predict and provide for surface transport it lives
on in airtransport. Although there will be difficulties and there
is no doubt much work to be done on estimating elasticities, we
feel that this is a field which cannot be ignored. We have to
do something about it.
26. With all due respect to you, you have not
even begun to answer the question. The question was: is it not
the case that the tax would have to be absolutely punitive? If
we are talking here about changing people's behaviour, about fewer
aeroplanes in the skies and if you are going to avoid being Luddite—you
could just say ban them all and that would be fine—assuming
you are talking about bringing in a tax which will change behaviour,
surely the tax would need to be extraordinarily high so that people
would say in fact they are not going to go on holiday this year
because they cannot afford the cost of the flights? You are talking
about putting the cost of flights up so that ordinary people—business
travellers will continue—would be prevented from going on
holiday to Majorca by putting the tax up to a level which would
make it uneconomic for them to do it. First of all the question
is: is it likely that tax would occur in that way? Secondly, even
if it did, is it likely that just saying the rest of the world
will do it too ... No-one is going to do it, are they?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The carbon dioxide emitted
in a flight to Florida is more than the amount that the average
motorist uses in a year, so it is obviously a major issue. You
may be right that the taxes would have to be very much increased
to reflect that kind of emission.
27. So it is not realistic.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) All of these issues are
going to require international action. If we do not do anything,
all that will happen is that we shall have damaging consequences.
28. It is rather like saying let us tax everybody
out of the skies. Well, we are not going to tax everybody out
of the skies, are we? It is crazy.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) We have to have some
policy or you are going to face damaging consequences in the future.
Mrs Ellman
29. Could you give us some idea of the scale
of the changes which will be needed to make a significant difference,
for example in public transport or in domestic energy use?
(Professor Hoskins) As the study progressed it became
very clear that the first thing is reduction in energy demand
and that could have interesting and important consequences for
our way of life. Certainly the transport issue one is thinking
of not developing use of four-by-fours but actually rather other
vehicles which are using less fuel and alternative modes of transport.
It became very important in terms of the use of heat. If you take
a power station like Drax power station, the symbol of that has
been the cooling towers, but that is a symbol of the waste because
that is all the waste heat. Seventy per cent is wasted going up
those cooling towers. We have to stop that sort of thing. We should
be using that heat because nearby are all those houses who arethen
using electricity and gas to create heat. We should be using that
heat. It is a different way of thinking, of approaching, saying
we have this, how can we best use what is available? It will go
right through our life of just being not mean about it but just
thinking clearly about the things we need and how we can get those
in an optimum manner.
30. On transport issues what kind of change
are we talking about?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) Obviously we are seeing
a move from road transport to public transport. We need to see
a change in the way that cars are powered using hybrid technologies.
(Dr Owens) The sort of changes we envision in transport
were largely set out in the Commission's previous reports on transport:
a shift away from cars towards public transport and many more
local journeys could be done without motorised transport at all
to the benefit of people's health as well as to the benefit of
the local environment and the global environment. We would also
envisage some increases in the cost of travelling as we have already
discussed. Major changes in transport, yes, but over a long period
and bringing other advantages. We would hope also that land use
planning and transport would continue to be more integrated. Some
progress has been made on that front. Over the sorts of time periods
we are considering, we might be moving towards the kinds of settlement
patterns where many journeys were much less necessary than they
are now.
31. How do current Government policies relate
to the scale of change which you would like to see?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The current Government
policies in terms of the Kyoto Protocol lead to a very small reduction
compared with what we envisage. I should say the Government is
being quite brave in setting itself a 20 per cent target and moving
towards that. Those are changes over shorter term timescales.
We are talking about changes over longer timescales so that the
changes are more radical but they are over a longer time. One
of the points we are making in our report is that we need to act
now because it is the rate of change in many of these aspects
which is key, for example in the housing stock. We have a very
low turnover in housing stock. We would need to make sure we improve
standards of energy efficiency in housing now in order to have
housing energy efficiency in the future which will meet some of
these objectives.
Miss McIntosh
32. My uncle's house in Denmark is heated in
precisely the way Professor Hoskins suggested. Are the power stations
given incentives by the Government to do that or is it just that
they are so practical that that is what they choose to do?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) There has been a very
different tradition in Scandinavia in the way that heat and energy
are produced. There has been a tradition of producing it locally
and using the heat as well as the electricity. We would need to
move to that different culture.
Mr Brake
33. Have you done any work on costing the heat
which is produced in that way? How much would it cost the consumer
as opposed to heat generated in the normal way through electricity
or gas consumption?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) You can do some simple
calculations because in coal fired power stations you are losing
something like 50 per cent of your energy and in many of the combined
cycle 40 per cent. You can see that you are actually throwing
away between 40 and 50 per cent of the energy input. From that
you can make some calculations. The challenge is how to move in
a democratic situation from the situation of having a housing
development next to a power station which does not use the heat.
One of the things we found quite surprising when we were in Edinburgh
talking to local people about these problems, was that a local
public housing development had actually put electricity in for
heating throughout. We asked why and the reason was that the immediate
costs are much less and they do not factor in the ongoing costs
of heating the property. We obviously need to change that.
Mr Benn
34. Is it realistic to assume that hydrogen
powered vehicles could ultimately be a solution to transport pollution?
Is there anything which needs to be done to motivate people to
invest more in that technology, given the point you have made
about real fuel prices?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) No.
(Professor Hoskins) Hydrogen is a carrier for energy
so you have to get the hydrogen in the first place. It is well
possible that hydrogen could be the way of powering the vehicle,
however at some point you have to put the energy in to split to
get that hydrogen. The question is then what form of energy you
use to create the hydrogen in the first place.
Chairman: So back to the same situation.
Mrs Gorman
35. In your report you use expressions like
aircraft, greenhouse gas emissions, projected to increase by some
three per cent a year and so on and so on. Do you agree that carbon
dioxide is a very small trace gas within our environment, for
a start, meaning it is less than round about three parts per million?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) If you are asking a question
about the implications of carbon dioxide in the environment, I
shall ask Professor Hoskins.
(Professor Hoskins) We are talking about 300 parts
per million by volume. What we know is that, given standard physics
we can all trust, then in today's climate carbon dioxide actually
does play an important role in the energy balance in the planet.
Those same calculations would suggest that if you increased it,
even though it is a very small amount, then you will have a change
in that energy balance. We can feel that this rests on pretty
standard physics which one would expect to be changing the energy
balance of the planet, even though it is a very small part of
the atmosphere.
36. A minute part of a minute quantity. The
increase of three per cent is a very, very small increase in what
is a very, very small quantity.
(Professor Hoskins) It is a small constituent of the
atmosphere which we have. All our physics says that it is an important
part of the atmosphere that we have, an important part in the
energy balance of the planet. Then we are emitting certain amounts
of carbon dioxide. The increase in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
has corresponded to about half of what we have emitted and all
our calculations suggest that the increase we have already put
in there is having an important change on the energy balance of
the planet. Certainly the increasing amounts we are putting in
there will have an increasing importance in terms of the change
of that energy balance.
37. Given the implication of this attack on
carbon dioxide for the economy not just of our countries but many
countries, how do you equate the potential damage of that tiny
increase in carbon dioxide with the natural forces which affect
climate change, things like solar radiation, oceanic currents
and volcanic activity, over which we have no control whatsoever,
but which are massive in their effect on climate?
(Professor Hoskins) The climate system has always
varied and that is without us taking part in it. What we are doing
is taking the earth's climate at a period when it is relatively
warm and we are turning the heat up. We are actually influencing
the earth's climate system when it is at a warm stage at a rate
which is beyond all those things you have input before. The climate
has varied naturally but on a rather different timescale to the
one we are talking about. We are talking about making an important
change to the constitution of the atmosphere in the timescales
of decades and centuries and that is beyond anything the natural
system has put in before.
38. Given the assumption that climate change
is partly due to our physical activity and use of energy and production
of waste products from that energy, would you agree that an increase
in temperature globally is not necessarily entirely negative?
In high latitudes, where for example you could increase crop production
because of a longer growing season and also rising temperatures
which also increase precipitation, it can have a very profound
effect on improving the economy for many countries which rely
largely on growing products?
(Professor Hoskins) You said "given the assumption"
of climate change. We certainly do not assume it. We do actually
base it on what we think—
39. I said "climate change based on industrial
products". Anyway. I do apologise.
(Professor Hoskins) There is no doubt that locally
there could be winners and losers in terms of climate change.
If you consider then the implications of moving regions in which
certain crops can be grown, we have put lines on the map which
are called countries and if you then start saying this country
can no longer grow this, but this one can, there are certainly
major implications in that in terms of the mobility. In the past
people would have perhaps moved with the place they could grow
things. In the higher latitudes it may seem that would be very
pleasant but if you are talking about a globally average temperature
rising say 4 degrees, that probably means on a northern continent
rising something like 8 degrees. We are talking about huge movements
then in the snow line and in the way of life in those northern
countries. The ones which will be particularly sensitive are probably
the developing countries in Africa, the smaller changes perhaps
which might take place there, although they probably would not
be small. There would be increases in rainfall in certain places
and decreases in other places. Each of those would be hard to
deal with.
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