Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440
- 459)
WEDNESDAY 23 MAY 2007
RT HON
DAVID MILIBAND
MP AND MR
ROBIN MORTIMER
Q440 Chairman: I am looking at clause
two and it says that it is the duty of the Secretary of State
to set, for each succeeding period of five years, an amount for
the net UK carbon account. So, what are going to be the terms
in which that budget is going to be set? Is it going to be so
many tonnes of carbon?
David Miliband: Dioxide, yes.
Q441 Chairman: Or is that going to
be a single number, or is there going to be a trajectory during
those five years?
David Miliband: That is actually
explained. It is an annualised figure over the five years. You
have got to go from figure A in year one to figure B in year—
Q442 Chairman: The budget is going
to be set in so many tonnes of carbon?
David Miliband: Yes.
Q443 Chairman: And it is going to
be a linear extrapolation in each of the years and in each of
the five-yearly periods?
David Miliband: Yes, as explained
in this documentation that we have provided.
Q444 Chairman: Not as explained,
I am talking about what is down here in the Draft Bill.
David Miliband: Yes, I am sorry,
I am very happy to find it for you, but that is explained in this
documentation—because it is over five years it is annualised
across the period.
Q445 Chairman: The reason I am looking
at this question of the direction of travel—the word you
used was "trajectory"—we are at the moment in
a situation where you cannot say that we have to run on a linear
projection, because we are already running behind the targets
as to where we should be?
David Miliband: Which targets
are we running behind?
Q446 Chairman: At the moment, as
I understand it, the Government should be saving, roughly speaking,
1% a year in terms of emissions. Is that right?
David Miliband: It depends what
you are talking about. We are required under the Kyoto Protocol
to reduce our—
Q447 Chairman: No, I am talking about
your target that you agreed to. There is a 60% reductions target
already in existence. Forget the Bill for a moment. The Government
has indicated that it is running behind that target: yes or no?
David Miliband: No. We have got
targets that we agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol for a 12.5%
reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 2010 on a 1990 basis.
You can translate that into a carbon dioxide reduction as well.
On those figures, by 2010, we will over achieve on those.
Q448 Chairman: That again is Kyoto.
We are not talking about Kyoto. Kyoto finishes in 2012 and there
are not any Kyoto targets that exist after 2012 at this moment
in time. The Bill focuses on a 60% target which was defined by
the Royal Commission, and the Government signed up to that as
an aspirational target before this Bill was drafted?
David Miliband: Yes.
Q449 Chairman: So, if we concentrate
on the track so far from 1990, here we are in the year 2007, 17
years have elapsed since the beginning. How much have we saved
over the 17 years?
David Miliband: From memory, we
are on track to achieve an 8 or 9% reduction in our carbon dioxide
by 2010.
Q450 Chairman: So eight or nine by
2010?
David Miliband: Let me finish
the point and then you can tell me why I am wrong. Eight or nine
per cent, if you do not include reductions achieved under the
European Emissions Trading Scheme. If you include the reductions
on the Emissions Trading Scheme you would add between 2 and 4%
to that.
Q451 Chairman: So that could be between
ten and 13. There seems to be a little bit of confusion. You do
not want to phone a friend and get the answer?
David Miliband: In the interests
of accuracy, I want to get it right. I do not want to mislead
the Committee. The figures in my head are that we are on track
to achieve an 8 or 9% reduction by 2010. That does not include
the EU ETS. I am very happy to send you a note with all the details.
Q452 Chairman: So over a 20-year
period, the maximum number, even counting the EU ETS, is 13%.
That says to me that the trajectory is running less than a linear
1% a year?
David Miliband: All I would say
to you is—
Q453 Chairman: Do you agree with
that analysis?
David Miliband: Only if you are
saying that the world stops in 2010.
Q454 Chairman: No, I am not.
David Miliband: You are talking
about trajectory. Let me just make the point. The trajectory we
have set does not stop in 2010. As the Energy Review made clear
today, if we take all of the decisions on energy that have been
set out in the Bill today, at a minimum, you will achieve a 26%
reduction by 2020 with the policy decisions that are on the table
already.
Q455 Chairman: I know those are where
you want to be, but what I am trying to establish, because we
have got to the stage where you very kindly confirmed—.
I am not trying to trip you up in terms of achievement, but you
are saying that the maximum we might do over 20 years is 13%.
David Miliband: No, that is wrong.
I have been corrected, it is 16%.
Chairman: Even 16%. I do not want to
trip you up on the numbers, but that is less than 1% a year is
what I am saying.
Lynne Jones: Originally the target was
20% by 2010.
Q456 Chairman: What I am saying is,
if you took a linear relationship from 1990 to 2050, that is 1%
a year saving, and we are already dropping behind that rate of
progress. You may well be right that all of the things that are
coming are going to enable us to catch up and overtake the linear
extrapolation, but the question that I want to know, coming back
to these discrete five-year budgetary periods, are they going
to be couched in terms where you could map them out on a graph
that might show something like that against a linear trajectory?
David Miliband: Yes, is the short
answer to that. You will be able to.
Q457 Chairman: We will?
David Miliband: Yes.
Q458 Chairman: Are they going to
be broken down within those five-year periods on an annualised
basis or are we looking at three discrete five year periods to
map out the trajectory?
David Miliband: No. The five-year
budget, as I said a few moments ago, will be broken down on an
annualised basis. I did say that when I said there will be figure
A and figure B, and then the difference between figure A and figure
B will be chopped into five and then you will have an annual reduction.
Q459 Lynne Jones: The 26-32% by 2020,
is that an upper target or are you looking to exceed that?
David Miliband: That is interesting.
We obviously want to make a contribution that is consistent with
the economic, social and environmental goals that we have set.
It would clearly be a failure of policy if we ended up below the
26%. I would consider it much less of a failure of policy if we
ended up above the 32%, but I think it is important for the sort
of compact that we have tried to establish with investors in the
business community that they know the ball park that we are aiming
for, and, just in parentheses, the 26-32% is consistent with a
significantly higher than 60% reduction by 2050.
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