Examination of Witness (Questions 1-19)
RT HON
DAVID MILIBAND
MP
4 JUNE 2007
Q1 Chairman: Thank you very much. Welcome
to your second visit to the Committee. I appreciate we have only
got an hour so I will not waste a lot of time with flattering
introductions.
David Miliband: It is all right.
I do not mind.
Q2 Chairman: Can I kick off with Stern,
which obviously came out after you saw us last summer? It was
described, for example, by the Green Alliance as "a challenge
not just to the international community, but also to the UK government
that commissioned it". It is six months since Stern was published.
What are the specific domestic policy measures that have been
taken or are planned in response to the Stern conclusions, which
are quite strong?
David Miliband: I think Stern
was a challenge to all countries to up their game. The answer
that I would give to your question is to point first of all, obviously,
to the Pre-Budget Report just preceding Stern but then the Budget,
and the Budget took on its own measures about six million tonnes
of carbon out of the UK emissions on an annual basis. That is
on a baseline of 150-160 million tonnes of carbon, and obviously
the Energy Review, because the Energy Review added to the Climate
Change Programme Review that was published just over a year before,
took 22-33 million tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere by 2020.
We can go through the individual measures—I do not know
if that is what you want—but I would say that since Stern
those have been two major changes. I would say thirdly that while
it would be wrong to say that the Stern report was the sole motivating
factor in the publication of the Climate Change Bill I think that
Stern helped answer the second great cry of the climate change
deniers, the first cry being, "The science is not proven",
the second cry being, "We cannot afford to do anything about
it". I think Stern, by rebutting that second cry, helped
to prepare the ground for a strong Climate Change Bill.
Q3 Chairman: In the light of some
of the criticisms that were made in Stern, both on the science
and on the economics, do you think the impact of the Stern report
was as great as you would have hoped?
David Miliband: I think it is
greater. There is no question in my mind that the impact of the
Stern report (while never a prophet in his own land) has been
that around the world countless not just environment ministers
but also more senior people have said to me that Stern has helped
to change the debate in fundamental ways—inside their governments,
inside business and in the wider public realm. Obviously, I have
not seen the telegrams that have come back from Nick Stern's visits
around the world, which have been numerous, but there is absolutely
no question in my mind that when he goes in the cabinet of Singapore,
the cabinet of Australia, the cabinets of a range of countries
come to have a presentation from him, and the massive business
audiences, the massive university audiences and the massive media
coverage have been remarkable.
Q4 Mark Lazarowicz: The Energy White
Paper reaffirms the Government's acceptance of the Royal Commission
on Environmental Pollution's recommendation of cutting carbon
emissions by 60% by 2050, and that is obviously the same premise
that the Climate Change Bill is founded on, but, as you know,
the Royal Commission's rationale was based on a target of limiting
global concentrations of CO2 to 550 parts per million, and of
course the science has moved on since then. Can the Government
still be confident that a 60% target is the right one to enshrine
as the starting point for legislation?
David Miliband: The starting point
is not 60%; it is at least 60%, and those two words "at least",
which are on the face of the Bill, are very important indeed because
underlying your question is perhaps a supplementary, which might
be, "Has the science not moved on since 2000 when the Royal
Commission met"? Yes, it has. There is certainly greater
certainty, and that is one reason why the Climate Change Bill
refers to at least a 60% reduction, because there is no question
in my mind that there is only one direction in which the scale
and effort is going to go, which is up. If we were to change I
think we should do so on the basis of considered advice, most
obviously from the Committee on Climate Change, but I think the
Bill is consistent in that respect because it recognises that
60% is the minimum.
Q5 Mark Lazarowicz: But, given the
way the science is going, as you recognised, and indeed Stern
himself makes the point that the upper end of his range of CO2
concentration in the atmosphere is a "dangerous place to
be", would it not be better at this stage to go for a higher
target because that could reduce the difficulty that might face
Government now or in the very near future of moving up to a higher
target? If everybody is accepting that it is going to be more
than 60% should we not try and get that figure as far as we can
from the start?
David Miliband: My answer would
be no for three main reasons. First of all, remember that Stern
was talking about greenhouse gases, not CO2, and that 60% of CO2
could translate to a higher level of reduction for greenhouse
gases. Secondly, I think it would be quite wrong for me or anyone
else just to pick a number out of the air on the grounds that
it is better to have any higher number than 60. If we were to
move from 60 it should be on the basis of considered scientific
work, et cetera. That is why the Bill makes specific provision
for that sort of change to happen. I think we should only move
on after very careful consideration. Thirdly and critically, what
Stern says, and what I agree with very strongly, is that we need
to shift the investment decisions that are being made over the
next five to 10 years, and that is why having the 2020 target
on the face of the Bill is so important. Although a lot of attention
is on the "at least 60% change by 2050", more important
for the decisions that are being made by businesses today is the
fact that the 2020 target is on the face of the Bill. That is
what is going to govern their decisions and fortunately the target
that has been set for 2020 of 26-32% reduction is consistent with
higher levels of reduction come 2050, so while it is right to
unlock the door to a higher figure I think it is right now to
build on the consensus that exists around 60%, the very strong
business commitment there has been recently in front of you and
all the NGOs agreeing that that is within the range that is needed,
so I think it would not have been sensible to have plucked another
figure out of the air.
Q6 Mark Lazarowicz: I was not suggesting
you should pluck a figure out of the air but, given that there
are question marks about whether 60% is the right figure, would
it not be better at this stage to decide, based upon the scientific
evidence that is developing and is available now, to have a higher
figure at the start rather having to come back later?
David Miliband: And I keep referring
you to the fact that it is "at least 60%", and "at
least 60%" is the right figure. I think it is right to build
on the consensus around the fact that at least 60% in terms of
CO2 is the right place to start. The first priority is to get
our system of carbon budgeting up and running. That is the first
task of the Carbon Committee, to get 15 years' worth of carbon
budgets up to 2022, which is what business wants. Business wants
that long term certainty about what they are going to be required
to do up and running and then we can consider whether or not it
is right to shift the figure up, but at the moment business decisions
will be governed by the shorter term target of 2020.
Q7 Mark Lazarowicz: The draft Bill
does specify fairly rigorously the considerations that your success
will have to take into account to change the 2050 target if "there
have been significant developments in scientific knowledge about
climate change or international law or policy that make it appropriate
to do so". Clearly, we cannot foresee what is going to happen
over the next 40 or 50 years but what are the kinds of significant
developments that were in mind when these provisions were framed?
David Miliband: The obvious one
is that the science is becoming more certain but, more significantly,
it is becoming worse in that the urgency of the change is becoming
more stark and the evidence of the impact of global warming is
becoming more stark. I would guess, knowing what most of you have
said about this, that you would agree with me about this, that
the danger in this whole debate about a "safe" level
of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in the atmosphere is Nick
Stern saying that 550 parts per million is "a very dangerous
place to be". We are now at 430. One of the things I worry
about is that people think that if you pick a number between 450
and 550 it is safe if you are below it and it is dangerous if
you are above it, whereas actually we are in a situation where
Nick Stern says 550 is a very dangerous place to be so the current
level is a place that carries dangers—0.7 degrees increase
in temperature over the last 100 years, 0.4 degrees over the last
30 years. That is an unprecedented level of climatic change induced
by human activity and it carries with it relatively manageable
risks in this country. We are now spending £850 million a
year on flood defence, 35% more than we were 10 years ago. It
is a risk that is having to be managed. There are much starker
risks in other parts of the world and it is about risk, not just
you are safe at one level and you are unsafe at another level.
It is about the degree of risk. We already carry a 30-35% risk
that average temperatures by 2050 will rise by two degrees centigrade.
I think it is incumbent on us to try and explain to people that
we are in a place that carries dangers now and it is about mitigating
very serious consequences.
Q8 Mr Hurd: Everyone recognises the
uncertainties but if 550 is increasingly seen as a very dangerous
place to be why do we still talk about it in terms of our range
of apparently acceptable options? Should the British Government
not be taking a lead in narrowing the frame at this stage?
David Miliband: I think we can
be slightly more precise than saying it is a very dangerous place
to be. What we know is that at 500 parts per million there is
a better than even chance of a three-degree average change in
the temperature of the earth's surface by mid century and we know
that at 450 parts per million there is a better than even chance
of a two-degree change in the average temperature of the earth's
surface. The debates that are going on in the G8 plus 5 almost
as we speak are about narrowing within that range. What I always
say to people is that that step you take towards 550 increases
the risk but I think at the moment it is right to establish that
range in our minds. That is not to say that we should ignore the
fact that the closer you get to 550 the more dangerous it is.
Q9 Mr Hurd: But is there not a risk
that we will get to a point pretty soon where the experts are
telling us that 550 is out of reach, in other words, there is
slippage of ambition?
David Miliband: That is interesting
but I do not think so. I think it would be easier for me to make
the opposite case, that over the last six months since Stern came
out instead of the range being beyond 550 we have narrowed it
down to 550 or below. I think that if we had been having this
discussion six months or a year ago you would have said, "But
there is no limit on the level". Even the notion of a stabilisation
goal might not have been part of the common currency that it is
now, so I would say to you six months on from Stern, that we have
got a range, all of which involves danger but we have got to move
on from that. If you are saying, "Does not 550 carry greater
dangers than 500?", you are right, and 500 carries greater
dangers than 450.
Q10 Mr Hurd: Are we still committed
to two degrees?
David Miliband: Completely, and,
just for the record, two degrees is a European interpretation
of what constitutes the dangerous climate change that the 1992
Rio Summit involving all 189 countries, including the US, said
they wanted to prevent. We have got a concept of dangerous climate
change, 189 countries have committed to fighting against it, the
European Union has said that two degrees constitutes a dangerous
rise and we remain committed to trying to prevent that level of
change. What I would say though is that it is not an on-off switch.
I do not need to tell you. You know that different levels of stock
of CO2 or its equivalent carry different levels of risk that you
will breach the two-degree barrier. I am sorry to go on but someone
told me this last week, which I think is striking and is not understood.
People understand that a two-degree average change in the temperature
of the earth's surface means the earth is a bit hotter. Some people
know that the difference in temperature between now and the last
Ice Age is five degrees, so you begin to get a sense of the scale,
but what is underestimated in this and what I have learned over
the last year is that this is not a linear process; it carries
with it more extreme temperatures. Just to put that in perspective,
I was told—and I am going to try and find out if this is
right—that with a two-degree average change it will not
be uncommon to have 50oC in Berlin by mid century, so associated
with a two-degree change is something that is pretty unprecedented
in northern Europe, and I think that is quite a sobering demonstration
because 50oC is beyond our experience.
Q11 Chairman: The debate has moved
on quite dramatically in the last six months but I do find your
characterisation of the urgency of the situation and the dangers,
which I wholly agree with, very much at odds with your first answer
about the adequacy of the Government's response to the Stern report.
I think that the measures in the PBR last December were not in
any way reflective of the urgency of the problem you have described
rather accurately.
David Miliband: That is a very
odd thing to say, if I may say so, because first of all the PBR
set out that sector by sector the Government would work through
different parts of the economy to achieve significant emissions
reductions. The PBR announced really significant change in respect
of housing stock, the commitment to zero carbon homes.
Q12 Chairman: New homes.
David Miliband: Yes, zero carbon
new homes.
Q13 Chairman: And what proportion
of the total housing stock is that?
David Miliband: By 2050, which
is what we are talking about, a third of the houses in the country
will be zero carbon.
Q14 Chairman: So on two-thirds the
Government has no policy to reduce carbon emissions?
David Miliband: No, that is not
true. If it were true that we had no policy for two-thirds of
the houses then you would be in a stronger position to say that
we had no policy. People often say, "Why do you not spend
money on this?" We have spent £300 million a year through
the Warm Front programme on insulation, £400 million a year
through energy efficiency commitment in respect of existing stock
of housing, 850,000 to a million cavity walls per year are being
filled by 2008, so what the PBR signalled and the Budget followed
through is that sector by sector we will be taking the right range
of market incentives, regulatory moves and informational changes
for consumers to have bottom-up pressure, and surely the message
of Stern is that this is a local and national problem that needs
local and national action, but also that it is an international
problem and no one, I think, can credibly say that the British
Government has not been anything other than extremely forward
in fashioning a very rigorous agenda for the international level.
Q15 Joan Walley: I do not think anyone
would dispute that there is a much greater public awareness about
all the issues that we are talking about here and which our reports
have centred on previously, but you have just been talking now
about risk, which is the one word that comes across really strongly:
the risk that is involved. I just wonder how much that sense of
risk is shared by the general public in terms of environmental
awareness. Some of us met with insurers the other week and they
obviously see the whole issue of risk translating into insurance
policies, but how much do you see the public at a local level
really buying into the high level of risk which in your high office
you have understood in the last 12 months but there is still a
huge gap between the understanding that many people have and other
people, as it were?
David Miliband: "Mixed"
and "limited" are the words that come to mind about
the degree of risk that people are exposed to or that people perceive.
In part there has been a real issue about the way in which risk
has been talked about and dramatised by the environmental movement
over the last 10 or 15 years in that there has been a perception
that, if you like, the end of the world is nigh, which is not
the right way to think about this. The right way to think about
this is that climate change carries with it the risk of much greater
suffering by a large number of people, most of whom had nothing
to do with causing the problem, so it is about greater suffering,
not the end of the world. There is an issue there and it is striking
that the Al Gore movie should have as its sub-title A Planetary
Emergency, not A Humanitarian Emergency. It
is quite a striking tell, if you like, that it is thought of in
terms of the planet, not in terms of the people on the planet.
Secondly, and we have to be honest about this, while it is true
that if you go to Kenya you will meet herdspeople, as I have,
who tell you that they have to walk three or four hours to water
and their grandparents did not, while it is also true that in
Australia they have the biggest drought in a thousand years, that
has not yet happened here. Hopefully it will not happen here but
nonetheless the degree of risk that people in this country, in
my constituency or yours, are exposed to has not yet been dramatised
in the same sort of way. I would not want to say that people see
the risk around the corner or that when you think about insecurity
people are thinking about crime and antisocial behaviour rather
than the planet. However, I agree with you that there is much
greater awareness and people want to make a difference, and I
think that is one of the things that we have to try and help them
do.
Q16 Mr Chaytor: The UK's share of
total global emissions is generally considered to be about 2%,
but there has been an argument surfacing recently that says that
if you took into account the investments by British companies
abroad it would be 15%. Does the Government recognise that figure
and, if not, would that make a difference?
David Miliband: I would not want
to hang my hat on that particular figure, but there is a generic
point, which is that if you measure the flow of emissions we are
2% of the problem. If you measure the contribution to the stock,
it is obviously greater because carbon dioxide sits there for
100 years and we were the first industrialised country so we bear
a greater share of the responsibility for the stock. Thirdly,
you can make an argument both about British investments abroad
from the city but also about our own consumption of goods that
are manufactured abroad and that we import, so you can certainly
make an argument that we should not use the 2% figure as an excuse
for thinking we do not have to do anything. I would not want to
hang my hat on saying it is 15, 12, eight or six; I do not think
it really matters. The point is we are a relatively small part
of the problem but we have a big interest in being a significant
part of the solution.
Q17 Mr Chaytor: But should the higher
figure play a major or bigger part in the general debate about
it to try and increase the scale of Britain's responsibility rather
than diminishing it by focusing entirely on the 2%?
David Miliband: When people say,
"Look: I buy the science, I buy the economics but it does
not matter at all what we do because China is opening a coal-fired
power station every week so why should we bother? We are only
2% of the problem", I think you might deploy the argument,
"2% is the absolute minimum that we are responsible for".
I would also deploy the argument of the economic advantage to
be had from being an early mover into low carbon. I would also
deploy the argument that as the UK's climate change negotiator
I have not a cat in hell's chance of persuading the Indian or
the Chinese negotiators that they should take their responsibilities
seriously if we are not doing so ourselves, and I would also deploy
the argument that we are a long-term polluter so we have got the
responsibility to do it. I might also deploy the argument, "Do
not shield behind the 2%. Whether you are two or 10 you are still
massively dependent on getting other countries to do their bit".
Q18 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the relationship
between economic growth and emissions, although there is a divergence
between the rates, when do you expect we will see a complete disconnection
between the patterns of emission and the patterns of growth, ie,
continued increase in growth with no reduction in emissions?
David Miliband: If you look at
the last 10 years, despite the hike in gas prices which has increased
the amount of coal burned the economy has grown by 28% since 1997.
I am sure you and I have both put out many leaflets trumpeting
that fact. Greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 8%, so we have
decoupled economic growth from carbon growth. However, because
of the changes in gas prices over the last two or three years,
1997-2007 carbon dioxide emissions are up by 1½%, so it is
a complicated picture. I think you can confidently say that we
have decoupled economic growth from overall pollution growth but
we have obviously got to go further. I think it is interesting
that the environmental industry should be one of the fastest growing
sectors of job creation in the economy. Half a million people
now work in the environmental industry compared to 175,000 four
or six years ago. That is pretty striking, but there is a lot
more gain to be made from low carbon economics, I would say, in
everything from the research right through to the manufacturing
and the services associated with it. I had a presentation this
morning from a very large car manufacturer about how they saw
the agenda shifting towards electric and hydrogen fuelled cars.
I told them about the study that the Chancellor announced in the
Budget by Julia King and Nick Stern of how to take the carbon
out of the UK car fleet, 33 million cars over 20 years. They thought
that was a perfectly manageable time frame. It is interesting.
Q19 David Howarth: Can I take you
to another aspect of the transport sector, which is aviation?
David Miliband: If you must!
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