Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340
- 359)
TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2004
RT HON
ALISTAIR DARLING
MP, MR GRAHAM
PENDLEBURY AND
MR MICHAEL
MANN
Q340 Joan Walley: I accept that,
but what I want to know is how you are going to be safeguarding
that 60% commitment that has already been given as far as the
domestic agenda is concerned, from which aviation at the moment
is excluded, given the talks that will need to take place.
Mr Darling: You press on with
those commitments in the meantime and make sure that you do everything
you can to stick to that track on which we have set ourselves.
That is the answer to that.
Q341 Joan Walley: So you would not
have aviation undermining those commitments that have already
been given?
Mr Darling: What would be most
unfortunate would be to take on another obligation and the way
you deal with it is by not pursuing the other objectives. The
precise way in which we deal with these things is very difficult
for me to answer given that I do not actually know what precisely
the scale of the problem is that we are going to have to reach
yet. On the central point which you seek reassurance on, is the
government committed to the energy White Paper, yes we are committed
to that. How we deal with international emissions really depends
on how they are allocated and therefore what is necessary.
Q342 Joan Walley: And in terms of
your not knowing what the scale of the problem will be, that begs
the question, does it not, about the kind of modelling that would
be needed to start to get the detail of how to factor it in, so
what modelling has your department been doing?
Mr Darling: Again, you not only
have to work out what you are going to do; you also need to work
out what the scale of the problem is, and until we have an agreement
on that it is very difficult—there is theoretical modelling,
I suppose—to reach a conclusion as to what you might do.
Can I be more helpful than that? Mr Pendlebury will be more helpful
than I am.
Q343 Joan Walley: Hopefully he can
tell me what modelling there has been to explore this.
Mr Pendlebury: This document Aviation
and Global Warming sets out our assessment as underpinning
our White Paper on what we think the scale or volume of aviation
climate change or greenhouse gas emissions will be. The point
that you are making, as I understand it, is that if, perhaps as
part of an allocation methodology that is used for bringing aviation
into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, it is decided that international
aviation emissions should be allocated to states, say split 50/50
between country of origin and country of destination so you are
bringing international aviation emissions into domestic emissions
inventories, then, other things being equal, you would need to
look at your overall domestic emissions reduction target because
you are adding in a whole new set of emissions. In that sense,
yes, you are right. You would probably want to look at that overall
target.
Q344 Joan Walley: My question is
whether or not there has been any scenario modelling by the department
to look at these two different issues and how that would affect
the existing domestic commitments that have been made and other
sectors of industry, presumably, which are going to have to contract
because of the targets that the government requires to be met,
and how the aviation industry sits alongside all of that. Is there
modelling going on now because if there is not how can you factor
this into the general framework and provide the basis for the
negotiations that would then be needed within the European Union
context?
Mr Darling: We have not reached
that stage yet, have we?
Q345 Joan Walley: But when will you?
Mr Pendlebury: The basic premise
of your question only works if you do not adjust the target in
order to take into account aviation. What you said was, would
other sectors need to contract further in order to accommodate
aviation. The answer to that would only be yes if you stuck to
your existing target but added in another huge chunk of emissions
from aviation which was not previously there.
Q346 Joan Walley: But that then begs
the question about the extent of expansion within the aviation
industry that would be acceptable provided that the government
was not requiring other industry sectors to have to contract in
order to take account of that because you have only got so much
at any one time.
Mr Darling: I suppose you can
go a long way down the road of "What if this?" and "What
if that?" and so on. We have not got to that stage yet.
Q347 Joan Walley: No, but you are
not doing any modelling?
Mr Darling: Are we doing any modelling
on that?
Mr Pendlebury: We are.
Q348 Chairman: Sorry—that was
not clear.
Mr Pendlebury: The question that
you are asking is, what would be the cap that was set on aviation
emissions?
Q349 Joan Walley: I have not even
reached that stage yet. I am asking what modelling there would
be.
Mr Pendlebury: There is no specific
modelling going on as we speak on that particular issue but it
is something that clearly has to be done if aviation is going
to be brought into emissions trading schemes.
Q350 Joan Walley: If there is not
any modelling then why not and, if you are saying that it is something
that has to be done, how are you going to go about doing it?
Mr Pendlebury: This document again
in effect models what we think will be the aviation greenhouse
gas emissions out to 2050 and it presents three different scenarios,
so in that sense there is some modelling. Because this is the
work that was done in the run-up to the White Paper, so it is
in a sense an historic document, it was based on the assumption
that there would be three new runways in the south east; that
was the central scenario used. We have not got that, so that adjusts
things slightly. The work that we have done here also does not
take into account the possible impact of any economic instruments,
so in that sense it is a slightly conservative figure, but there
is in here a set of assumptions about what we think will happen
under different scenarios. What we would need to do further is
to say, "Okay; what do we think might be the results of bringing
aviation into the European Emissions Trading Scheme, and possibly
other measures as well, to see what kind of effect that has?".
Q351 Joan Walley: That was exactly
the point of my question.
Mr Pendlebury: That is what we
will need to do further.
Q352 Joan Walley: Yes, but it is
a question of what we would need to do and what we are going to
do. What we really need to know is how you are going to go about
doing that and are you going to be doing it by a working party
of the kind that you have just mentioned you were chairing a couple
of weeks or so ago in Montreal. How are you going to be getting
this modelling off the ground? Otherwise, I do not see how you
can even be at the starting point to look at some kind of European
Union negotiated position or strategy to try and get agreement
round.
Mr Pendlebury: The first thing
that we need to do and that we are in the process of setting up
is getting together with the European Commission and some like-minded
Member States to address precisely those issues.
Q353 Joan Walley: Which like-minded
Member States?
Mr Pendlebury: Remember that we
only launched this in the middle of December, so we are still
at an early stage of trying to prepare our submissions.
Mr Darling: There is a distinction,
I think, between what we are trying to do in Europe, where I think
we are further ahead, for all the reasons that I have stated,
where we are in the process of discussing these things with other
Member States, and if you look at the wide problem that was left
after Kyoto where the international emissions were not included
because they were not being allocated. It is quite difficult to
be doing modelling on various scenarios which may or may not come
to pass and, given the time it took to get Kyoto agreed and what
subsequently happened, as we well know, in relation to Kyoto and
here, the country that we keep referring to is guilty of having
withdrawn, so it is not going to pursue it, at least for the time
being. It is very difficult then to be modelling all sorts of
other scenarios into them, "What if this?" and "What
if that?". What I said to you before this exchange was that
I think it would be quite wrong to get ourselves into a position
where we became very focused on what we would do if we got all
the aviation but we stopped doing what we are already signed up
to do with the reductions in Kyoto and in the White Paper itself.
Q354 Chairman: But you do accept
that the two are intimately related? You cannot include aviation
without it having an impact on domestic targets.
Mr Darling: Yes.
Q355 Chairman: I think Mr Pendlebury
actually said, "If you include aviation you have to look
at the domestic target". I would just like to ask Mr Pendlebury,
when you say you have to look at the domestic target, presumably
that is with a view to watering it down?
Mr Pendlebury: Not necessarily.
Q356 Chairman: It cannot possibly
be with a view to increasing it, can it? It is not logical.
Mr Darling: The answer to that
question is, once you knew what the allocation was and once you
had worked out the implications were, ministers, the government—the
Commons—would have to take a position on that, but we are
not at that stage yet. You can speculate until you are blue in
the face on these things. All I am saying to you is that I think
it is premature to be doing so. I would rather concentrate on
getting on with what we are supposed to be doing and then try
and do our level best to seek international agreements, whether
in Europe or elsewhere, to get the agreements that I referred
to.
Q357 Mr Chaytor: Secretary of State,
when you announced the go-ahead for the additional runway at Heathrow
you said that this would only be possible if stringent environmental
limits were to be met. What are those stringent environmental
limits?
Mr Darling: They are the ones
that I set out in my statement and in the White Paper. We have
got to ensure that in particular the nitrogen dioxide levels are
reduced. You were not in earlier when I referred to Heathrow,
that whether or not you were going to build a third runway there
the nitrogen dioxide levels are too high and they ought to be
reduced for the general good of people living there.
Q358 Mr Chaytor: Is the EU not—
Mr Darling: It is the mandatory
duty. For the general good of people living in the Heathrow area
we want to reduce emissions anyway, regardless of that.
Q359 Mr Chaytor: By how much, because
there is a new statutory limit of 2010 to 2015?
Mr Darling: It is 2010. We want
to make sure that it is compliant with the EU mandatory duty.
We have to make sure it is compliant. The answer to what we are
doing is that we as government, and the airport operators, the
local authorities and various others who are involved, have already
started the process of bottoming out what the source of these
emissions is because they are not all caused by aircraft. You
can imagine at Heathrow that they come from various sources. Aircraft,
yes, but they come from the ground equipment, they come undoubtedly
from the large volume of traffic, and not just coming into Heathrow.
The fact is that the M4 and the M25 are immediately adjacent to
it and there is other generation plant and so on. The idea is
that in the next year or so we will bottom out what is causing
the problem and then we will move towards dealing with it. BAA,
the airport operator, already has a programme for a reduction
in getting more fuel-efficient cars and the handling of aircraft
in terms of how long they are allowed to run their engines and
so on when manoeuvring on the airfield; these are all matters
that are being dealt with. In addition to that, the government
as you know is also looking generally at issues such as road pricing
in relation to traffic. We are also discussing the rail provision
so that we can try and improve the railway links in and out of
Heathrow, so there is a variety of measures that have been put
in place, all with a view to making sure that there is compliance
with the mandatory limits and also with a view generally to reducing
pollution, which is a good thing anyway.
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