Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 74)
MONDAY 14 MAY 2007
DR KEVIN
ANDERSON, DR
ALICE BOWS,
MR BRIAN
SAMUEL AND
MR DAN
STANIASZEK
Q60 Patrick Hall: How compatible
with a market is it to try to impose a limit on one of the parties?
Mr Samuel: It provides a degree
of market flexibility, so we are trying to take a pragmatic approach
to this, but ideally the best means of reducing emissions would
be to ensure the UK did it on its own territory.
Q61 Patrick Hall: Yes, but since
we are participating in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which
is going to look at whether aviation et cetera can be included,
if we were to have a limit on the ability to purchase credit from
overseas, in terms of the five-year budgets, then that would require
Government to stop British organisations from participating in
the Emissions Trading Scheme. Is that not a great danger and would
it not be very confusing?
Mr Samuel: The real problem is
that the carbon offsetting schemes that are out there at the moment
are not sufficiently robust and the emission reduction projects
likewise do not deliver additional emission reductions. If they
were made far stronger, then we would be more supportive. At the
moment, you are not having a transfer of sustainable energy best
practice skills across developing countries and you are seeing
essentially leakage of emissions. It is not acceptable as it is
at the moment and that is why we are proposing a cap.
Dr Anderson: I disagree completely
with us trying to offset by indulgences from outside of the EU,
which is broadly all that we are doing with it as far as I can
see. I have no problems about markets within the EU because there
is an overall cap and we can argue about whether the cap should
cost enough or not and it is up to us to do that. The problem
about going outside of that is that whilst we might meet sustainability
goals or whilst we might do great things abroad, and if we need
to do those we should do those anyway, we should not then allow
that to be an offset for emissions from the UK. Again it is this
rebound issue. We do not know if we invest in renewable power
in India, whether that encourages people in India to start to
behave differently and if they behave differently, do they then
start buying scooters so they can travel between villages. I am
not saying whether it is a bad or a good thing. All I am saying
is that we do not know what the CO2 implications are
of our interventions in these countries. We might say they are
good for sustainability goals: they have nothing necessarily to
do with CO2. I would completely disagree with any form of going
outside of the EU, unless the country you go to has a national
emissions cap and you are buying off their cap. That is why I
object; I do not object within the EU, but as far as I am aware
no-one else has a cap like that.
Q62 Patrick Hall: May I ask the Energy
Saving Trust whether that point that has just been made by Dr
Anderson about the big distinction between what happens within
the EU and trading outside, or purchasing credits from outside,
is a valid point?
Mr Samuel: It is a valid point;
there is a big distinction. However, at the moment the national
allocation plans within the EU are not sufficiently robust so
there is still a further complication there.
Q63 Lynne Jones: Just picking up
on that, you are not saying that people cannot spend money on
offset schemes, it just should not count towards our national
targets.
Dr Anderson: People can spend
money wherever they want to. I personally completely disagree
with personal offset schemes as well. It is just another form
of buying indulgences. There is no guarantee you would reduce
emissions; you might even increase the emissions and in fact there
are quite good examples of how you could increase emissions as
well, but it helps us sleep at night. I am concerned about the
idea of actually enshrining that in some national law; it is bad
enough individuals doing it but the state sanctioning it is more
concerning.
Q64 Patrick Hall: That is relevant
to what we are looking at because the Bill would enable that to
come forward at some point, even personal allowances. So there
needs to be a debate on that.
Dr Anderson: There has been a
consultative document out on offset which is still out at the
moment; I am not sure whether they have completed the consultation
yet. The consultation process is about whether the offsetting
schemes are robust or not. Well I do not give a damn whether they
are robust or not: they are philosophically flawed as far as I
can see. Even if they are the best schemes out there, even if
you can guarantee the trees last, even if you can guarantee the
energy efficiency schemes work, but you still cannot guarantee
any reduction in CO2 emissions, that is my concern.
Q65 Lynne Jones: Given your scenario
that we are heading for a four-degree rise in temperature rather
than two, to what extent should we be concentrating on adaptation
rather than reduction? We need to do both obviously.
Dr Bows: There is nothing really
on adaptation in the Bill. There is a lack of emphasis on adaptation
generally, but it should never be a "rather than". We
have to do everything that we can possibly do in order to mitigate
emissions and we have to be realistic about the temperature rises
that we are going to have to adapt to and not enough is being
done. If we are not talking about levels of three or four or more
degrees in the Bill, then we are not considering the actual adaptation
that will be required.
Q66 Lynne Jones: So at the moment
the Government have targets that they are pretending are going
to meet the 2°C target and they are not. Therefore they have
to start being realistic and say either they are going to meet
the two-degree target or they have to accept that it is not politically
possible and they have to start spending loads of money on flood
defences and all these other things.
Dr Anderson: It is even more complicated
for Government than that. Even if the Government set up a framework
so that they are making their contribution towards the 2°C
future, they also have to look at whether they seriously think
the rest of the world is doing that and if the rest of the world
is not doing that, and I guess that is the conclusion they would
come to, then they would have to inform the planet they have done
their bit for mitigation towards 2°C but it does not appear
to be occurring globally at the moment and they do not have a
lot of time to figure it out, they have to start adapting to higher
temperatures and look at what impacts that will have and let the
planners know that. The planners have to know the temperatures
are likely to be somewhat higher than that.
Q67 Lynne Jones: Is there any feasible
mechanism within legislation to require these
adaptations or is it just something that you
have to leave to Government in terms of its public spending policy?
Dr Anderson: Planning laws presumably.
Planning laws can significantly change and take account of these
sorts of issues. To some extent, they probably already are and
the Environment Agency certainly gives advice on things like flood
risk.
Q68 Lynne Jones: Those are other
laws, rather than the Climate Change Bill.
Dr Anderson: Yes. Adaptation is
not our expertise in our area of Tyndall so we are not able to
discuss that. It would seem wise to have something in here that
provides some mechanism for ensuring adaptation is driven forward
in a far more serious manner than it is currently.
Q69 Chairman: May I move us on to
the secondary powers? One of the model features is the ability
to set up within the United Kingdom limited trading schemes by
the use of secondary legislation, effectively I guess those will
be the things that are outwith things like the EU Emissions Trading
Scheme. Are they feasible? If so, what sectors might they apply
themselves to? Do you have any practical comments about how the
Bill deals with these second order trading activities?
Dr Anderson: You are generally
talking about smaller companies than the 20 megawatts necessary
at the moment as the marketing to the EU ETS.
Q70 Chairman: Yes.
Dr Anderson: We have no particular
comment other than if people want to do trading and it will reduce
emissions then fine.
Mr Samuel: The advantage is by
a cap and trade approach you can then actually put a cap on new
energy demand or carbon emissions and provided that is delivered
within the UK, then we would support that approach. It also provides
a carbon price and at the moment, you do not have a carbon price
in the market, so individuals in particular do not understand
and cannot equate the value of carbon into their everyday lives.
Until they can do that, then how likely are the vast majority
to take action?
Dr Anderson: You would have two
carbon prices then. You would have the EU ETS carbon price and
you might have smaller trading organisations with a different
carbon price.
Q71 Chairman: There are many prices
of carbon out there at the moment and that is part of the confusion.
Does this ability to do smaller-scale trading start to address
one of the problems which I would have liked to touch on when
we were talking about targets? The fact is that whatever way you
set a target, you are setting a one number description of the
sum total of actions of a lot of different parts. Do we need to
be more sophisticated in looking at the sectoral make-up of emissions
and trying to set targets for them and, where they are not incorporated
in things like the EU trading scheme, put in this kind of secondary
market for them as a way of helping them to achieve their targets?
Dr Anderson: The one thing you
would have to be careful about presumably would be double counting.
If you were a hairdresser and you were purchasing electricity,
then your electricity is already coming from a supplier that is
part of the EU ETS, so if you are then looking at your carbon
emissions in your hairdressing salon and relating that to another
one down the road, you would have to take account of the fact
that some of these emissions were already factored in, but your
gas emissions, as I understand it, are likely not to be factored
in. Those issues would have to be thought about, whether that
double counting was important or not, and these would probably
vary from sector to sector to some extent. Of course pretty much
all centrally generated electricity is now in the EU ETS.
Q72 Chairman: So it is going to be
quite difficult to find an emissions market to become part of
these trading schemes that does not run into the methodological
problem you have just enunciated.
Dr Anderson: If it is a problem.
Given the scale of the problem, a bit of double counting, as long
as it is pointing in the right direction, does not really worry
me.
Q73 Lynne Jones: What about personal
carbon allowances?
Dr Anderson: That is an area we
have done a lot of work on at the Tyndall Centre and we have been
pushing that for quite a long time. It is one thing we should
be seriously considering. Yes, I think personal carbon allowances,
given the scale of the problem that Alice outlined with some of
the graphs, might circumvent some of the political opposition
from the public about this, if we get the public directly involved.
The idea that Big Brother tells us we have to do this, rather
than giving individuals a choice to do what they want, which is
what a personal carbon allowance system does, brings some real
benefits, when you talk about these sort of scales of reductions,
of going down that approach. If we are just looking at 20% reductions,
30% reductions, I would think the personal carbon trading approach
is simply not something to be considered, it is not really appropriate.
There are plenty of other mechanisms for giving out those sorts
of levels of reductions. When we talk about the levels of reductions
that are necessary for 2°C or even 3°C, all the instruments
we have out there have never been tried at this sort of level;
we have never tried to bring about such radical shifts in society.
Personal carbon trading is one of the options you have to consider
seriously there. The idea of getting people to buy in, some communal
approach to dealing with this very serious issue, may actually
thwart some of the opposition that we would get to the Government
simply saying they will put a tax on petrol or a tax on aviation
or whatever.
Q74 Lynne Jones: So should there
be enabling? It is not practical to introduce carbon trading within
the near future, but should the Bill have enabling legislation
to introduce it some time to prepare for that in the future?
Dr Anderson: Yes, it should be
seriously considering it and setting that legislation in train.
Actually I would say that if we felt that it was that important,
we could introduce personal carbon trading relatively quickly.
It is not something that has to be that far away.
Chairman: Looking as clauses 28 and 29,
they look as though they could become the vehicle to do just that.
We will have to look to see whether we think that that is an adaptable
piece of language. Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. There
may be some further questions that we would like to write to you
about and if, as a result of these very useful exchanges, there
are any additional points you would like to make, please feel
free to do so. We really would appreciate further comments particularly
from the Tyndall Centre about this question of the setting and
the monitoring of targets, because that is going to be quite an
important part of the political debate about the Bill and some
further objective advice on that would be very useful indeed.
May I thank you again for your written submissions and for your
contributions today?
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