APPENDIX FIVE
Memorandum submitted by Jane Griffiths
MP
Please find enclosed with this letter a submission
for the Environmental Audit Committee's investigation regarding
the Government's procurement policy and climate change. Rather
than give examples across the range of Government procurement
I have focused in on one particular area. The detail in my response
comes from answers supplied to Parliamentary Questions and other
publicly available information. They show that as far as coolants
and refrigerant for air conditioning are concerned the Government
has not only failed to follow its own procurement policy, it has
purchasing guidance amongst departments which specify the procurement
of items which run contrary to both their own procurement and
climate change policies.
In the last couple of years I have been trying
to do something about this, I have raised the matter through questions,
EDMs and an adjournment debate. I have had a meeting with the
Science and the Environment Ministers but as you see from the
evidence the procurement of air conditioning and coolants with
HFC continues.
CLIMATE CHANGE
AND UK GOVERNMENT
PROCUREMENT
The importance of the climate change issue: UK
political commitments
The UK Government's Chief Scientific Adviser,
Professor Sir David King, recently stated, "In my view, climate
change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more
serious even than the threat of terrorism." (Science,
9 January 2004). The study "Abrupt Climate Change" (2003),
produced by Global Business Network for the US Defense Department,
states that climate change "should be elevated beyond a scientific
debate to a US national security concern", with catastrophic
climate change—involving flooding, drought, famine, civil
disorder and international conflict—as being "plausible"
and challenging "US national security in ways that should
be considered immediately".
The UK Climate Change Programme 2000 stated:
"HFCs are not sustainable in the long term". The Deputy
Prime Minister confirmed "a clear signal to industry that
HFCs have no long-term future" (9 March 2000). Caroline Spelman
MP, then Shadow Environment Secretary, said, "The decision
to replace CFCs with HFCs was a dirty deal . . . HFCs are a major
contributor to the greenhouse effect" (EU Standing Committee
A, 14 January 2004, col 16). Sue Doughty MP, Liberal-Democrat
Environment spokesperson said: "The Government seem to have
watered down their proposals . . . We need much greater ambition
. . . in the end, we just say `we will make it less bad'. I would
like fluorines to be phased out much faster" (bc cit, cols
7 and 18).
The Prime Minister stated on 14 September 2004:
"What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse gases,
associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth .
. . is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant,
has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term
. . . By unsustainable . . . I mean a challenge so far-reaching
in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that
it alters radically human existence . . . Its likely effect will
not be felt to its full extent until after the time for the political
decisions that need to be taken has passed" Among several
pieces of evidence, Mr Blair cited: "Swiss Re, the world's
second largest insurer, has estimated that the economic costs
of global warming could double to $150 billion each year in the
next 10 years, hitting insurers with $30-40 billion in claims."
As a clear indication of further ambition on this issue, he added:
"We have to recognise that the commitments reflected in the
Kyoto protocol and current EU policies are insufficient, uncomfortable
as that may be."
While Mr Blair did not refer to HFCs as such,
the Leader of the Opposition, Rt Hon Michael Howard MP, was very
specific: "We must be more active in removing the causes
of harmful emissions where we are able to. I can announce today
that the Conservatives are committed to phasing out the use of
hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, between 2008 and 2014 . . . HFCs
currently account for 2% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions
and that will have doubled by the end of the first decade of the
21st century. Unless . . . the Government gives a clear lead,
then the situation will only worsen." (13 September 2004)
Background
Fluorinated GHGs, including HFCs, are used in
refrigeration and air-conditioning, including vehicle air-conditioning,
foam blowing, solvents, aerosols and other products. These largely
replaced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), banned under the 1987 Montreal
Protocol because of their potential to damage the ozone layer.
While HFCs do not damage the ozone layer, they have a powerful
GWP. The most common, HFC-134a, is 1,300 times worse than CO2.
HFCs are among the gases which the Kyoto Protocol commits the
EU to reducing by 8% overall by 2008-12 compared to 1990. While
CO2, methane and N2O levels are steady or rising slightly in Europe,
HFC emissions are growing very fast— between 2000 and 2010
these may at least double, to represent a third of the UK's commitment
under Kyoto.
Meeting Kyoto Targets: HFCs and CO2
HFCs currently account for 2% of EU's greenhouse
gas emissions, compared with CO2's 80%, but their usage is rising
rapidly—particularly with the increased demand for air-conditioning
of vehicles and buildings. The HFC industry itself forecasts that
HFC production in 2007 will be three times greater than it was
in 2001. The 2004 Budget Report stated (para 7.8 and chart 7.1)
that UK CO2 emissions are down only by 8.7% since 1990, and running
level or slightly increasing since 1997, well above the Kyoto
target for 2010. The International Energy Agency warned on 2 March
that, "Energy savings rates across all sectors and in almost
all countries have slowed since the late 1980s, as has the decline
in CO2 emissions relative to GDP". Without action on HFCs
there will have to be further reductions in transport and energy
emissions (both currently growing fast). Such measures may carry
economic costs and distortions and, in view of their unpopularity,
will test the political will of EU Governments.
Refrigeration procurement: the Government record
Evidence of the UK Government's disappointing
implementation of its environmental commitments is manifested
by various recent procurement decisions which, despite specific
commitments, use HFCs. Beverley Hughes MP, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State for DETR, stated, "Our policy is to switch, where
possible, from hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) . . . to environmentally-preferable
substitutes" (WA 9 March 2001), thus reiterating the statement
in "Climate Change—The UK Programme" (November
2000) that "HFCs should only be used where other safe, technically
feasible, cost effective and more environmentally acceptable alternatives
do not exist".
HFCs have been used in the following: refurbishment
of No 10 Downing Street, the new GCHQ at Cheltenham, the MoD Whitehall
complex and RAF High Wycombe, Great George Street Treasury Building,
the new Home Office at Marsham Street, a building leased by DEFRA
in Temple Quay Bristol, and the DFID office, 20 Victoria Street.
More recent failings include: the HSE new building in Bootle;
MOD Admiralty Arch, London; Romford Hospital PFI project; British
Cattle Market Service, Workington (part of DEFRA); Windsor Library,
Imperial College; University of London Tanaka and HQ buildings;
and Liverpool University Surface Science Building. The Observer
reported the Meteorological Office's new £150 million headquarters
in Exeter has installed an HFC air-conditioning system (26 September
2004).
The story is not all bad the new air conditioning
for the IMO building on the Albert Embankment and the new air
conditioning for the QEII Centre were both non-HFC installations.
In an adjournment debate in 2002 I said, "The
Foreign and Commonwealth Office . . . asked about the coolant
for the new Government communications headquarters building .
. . said that the building will use the refrigerant HFC134A .
. . HFC 134A was responsible for 2.61 million tonnes of greenhouse
gas emissions in 2000. That is not quite the Government climate
change policy of not using HFC unless there is no choice . . .
The Secretary of State for Health provided me with a list of 77
building projects currently under way . . . The Department did
say that [the] NHS Model Engineering Specification . . . advises
that HFC 134A or 407C and its associate blends are used. That
is even further from the climate change policy . . . The Lord
Chancellor's Department . . . has a number [of building projects]
in the planning stage and . . . [takes] no consideration of climate
change impact. Disappointingly, the Government are not doing very
well in implementing their own climate change policies,"
(Hansard, 24 May 2002, cols 570-1).
19 January 2005
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