Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-92)
9 JUNE 2004
MR TONY
JUNIPER, MS
CLAIRE WILTON
AND MR
SIMON BULLOCK
Q80 Mr Chaytor: Could I ask about the
work of the Sustainable Development Commission? They are witnesses
before us today. What has their contribution been? And perhaps
a word or two about the structures of government generally. Do
you think that we have the right structures for the driving forward
of the strategy?
Mr Juniper: On the Commission,
we very much welcomed the work that it has done, both in terms
of the detailed, more technical analysis it has done in different
sectors, but also some of the more strategic comments it has made,
for example about the role of economic policy in delivering sustainability.
So we think that it is doing an extremely good job, and it should
have the resources and space to be able to continue to do that.
In terms of the structures of government, we made the broad comment
earlier that anything that seems to be a sustainable development
strategy needs to be at the centre of government rather than in
the periphery, in one department.
Q81 Mr Chaytor: Does that mean in the
Cabinet Office or in the Treasury?
Mr Juniper: Treasury is obviously
the place with the power, but again the single-department problem
emerging probably applies there as it would to Defra. So probably
somewhere where there is a strategic view across government rather
than a particular departmental perspective. I do not know where
that would best be. At the moment, I think that the Cabinet Office
sounds like the place where people should look.
Q82 Gregory Barker: I want to go back
and ask you a question about the oil price. Do you have a view
on whether a high oil price is good or whether a low oil price
is good? It is $40 now, compared to less than $10 six years ago.
The higher the oil price goes, on the one hand it encourages people
to consume less, but it also significantly extends the life of
the oil industry. Whole swathes of the planet are now becoming
available and economic to develop for oil use that could stretch
for decades ahead of us. Do you have a view therefore on whether
a high oil price is good or bad? The reason I am interested is
because the Chancellor is obviously lobbying for a lower oil price.
Mr Juniper: Indeed. The high price
evidently has led to some very important discussions taking place
about the future of that particular industry and about how we
rely on imported fossil energy. To that extent it has been a helpful
way of catalysing some discussions about the long-term. However,
I think that the life of the oil industry cannot continue in a
way which would lead it to exploit all the resources in the ground.
The atmosphere simply cannot absorb that level of carbon dioxide
without crossing thresholds that would lead to very serious and
very damaging climate change. So the price issue will not be the
thing that will get us out of the fossil fuel energy sector. As
you say, it will stimulate further exploration. We have seen documents—and
I think that one or two Committee members have seen them—emerging
from a transatlantic energy dialogue between President Bush and
Prime Minister Blair that took place last year, which essentially
sets out a strategy to enable British and American oil companies
to work with countries to get the remaining oil and gas in the
ground into use, into the economy. So there is some very worrying
long-term thinking that appears to lie behind the present resource
issues concerning oil and gas. The price volatility issue is helping
to focus attention but probably will not, by any means, lead on
its own to the development of new technologies. As you say, it
will lead to people looking for profitability in exploiting reserves
that remain.
Q83 Gregory Barker: What was the answer
to the question?
Mr Bullock: High oil prices will
mean that some reserves are more economic, but high oil prices
also mean that the alternatives and efficiency will be much more
attractive options.
Q84 Gregory Barker: That was the premise
of the question. The question was, are you in favour of a high
or low oil price?
Mr Juniper: High.
Q85 Gregory Barker: High?
Mr Juniper: We are in favour of
higher prices but associated with behaviour changes and the effects
that new technologies may have. It is not a gratuitous punishment
against people who use oil, petrol and gas, but a matter of changing
the behaviour of the users and encouraging efficient use through
better technology.
Q86 Gregory Barker: So should the Chancellor
be lobbying OPEC to take measures that will reduce the oil price,
or should he be standing back and welcoming this? That is what
I am trying to get at.
Mr Juniper: He will not welcome
it, because he is a finance minister—but perhaps the environment
minister should be welcoming it, as a counterpoint to the—
Q87 Gregory Barker: So it is good?
Mr Juniper: Yes.
Mr Bullock: High oil prices are
an opportunity for us to go down a low-carbon path.
Q88 Gregory Barker: Which outweighs the
exploration element?
Mr Bullock: We should be going
down other energy options anyway. If high oil prices give us the
opportunity to do that, then there is a larger incentive to do
it now, so that we are not caught out in five years' time when
the next major oil shock comes.
Q89 Gregory Barker: I feel that we still
have not got your answer.
Mr Juniper: The point that Simon
is making is that, the more we make efficiency gains and shift
to new technologies now, the less likely we are to suffer economic
stress as a result of a future oil shock. So the less we are reliant
on large quantities of cheap oil, the better our economy will
be—in a world where oil supplies are going to become less
certain and probably more expensive.
Gregory Barker: I did not quite get the
clear answer I was hoping for.
Q90 Mr Savidge: On the matter of the
fuel tax protest, I think that bears on a very big philosophical
issue.
Mr Juniper: It does.
Q91 Mr Savidge: One talks about how government
has a set of principles. In fact, not just government but almost
every major political party in this country has a set of principles.
However, once pressure started to build up, almost every party
started shifting towards the populist position. A lot of that
pressure of course came from our popular media, and our popular
media tend to go for the short-term effects. It tends to make
a position where it is very difficult to go for sophisticated
arguments to the effect that, relatively speaking, the cost of
private motoring has gone down while the cost of public transport
has gone up. To what extent does one have a problem there, not
just for the politicians and the media but possibly for the public
itself—which tends to be increasingly fickle, if asked to
weigh up the short-term against the long-term?
Mr Juniper: Yes, absolutely. The
recent events on the question of fuel prices make that point very
well. We do have a major communications challenge—all of
us who are concerned with sustainability, whether we are in the
NGOs or whether we are in government, trying to defend particular
policies, or whether we are in opposition, trying to advocate
sustainability policies. The communications side of it is absolutely
key to creating the support for changes, which in some respects
can be presented as very negative. I do not know if there is any
short answer to how one deals with that, but it is about coming
up with clear arguments; about presenting the big picture; about
investing in real communications, unlike some of the half-hearted
things we have seen. We need some real money behind some strong,
long-term, consistent messages being put out about questions like
climate change, as the backdrop then for presenting policies that
deal with it. At the moment, we have policies coming out without
the context, and then they are not backed up when the backlash
comes. It is not surprising that we finish up where we are now,
I would say, on questions like fuel tax protests.
Q92 Chairman: Thank you very much. That
has been most informative.
Mr Juniper: Before we leave, Chairman,
could we say how much we have welcomed the Committee's recent
work and how valuable we have found it in stimulating discussion
about issues that otherwise might not have had the scrutiny that
they needed? We are therefore very pleased to be here today, contributing
to what we hope will be another major contribution to these important
issues.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
| 
