Speech by Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP - Britain’s Low Carbon Future: what the Climate Change Bill means for our daily lives - Kew Royal Botanic Garden, 29 October 2007
Thanks Steve [Hopper, Director of Kew]. It’s a pleasure to be here at Kew to help launch the Climate Change Bill command paper which – putting Parliament first - I tabled at 11.00 am this morning in Parliament.
I think we all know why we are here, why climate change matters, and why it is a time – above all – for leadership. On that subject, I just mention that the UK was the first country ever to use carbon emissions trading, the first to put climate change at the heart of a G8 presidency, the first to call a debate on climate change in the UN security council and now we will be the first country in the world to put forward a legally binding framework for reducing emissions over time.
Such a thing would have been unimaginable nearly 170 years ago when Kew became a Royal Botanic Garden. But looking back to the winters that the first gardeners here had to cope with shows just how much our climate has changed since then, and how much the bill is needed.
On Christmas day 1840, the year William Hooker was appointed the first Director here, the mean temperature for the entire day was minus 4.4°C. On the 20th January 1838, a particularly cold year for that time, the mean temperature for central England for the entire day was minus 11.9C. There were 34 days that winter where the average temperature was below freezing.
Last winter, by contrast was one of the warmest in the entire 336 year record since 1772 and there were only three days where the mean was below zero.
We know that the world has changed and is still changing.
We have just experienced the hottest 12 month period and the wettest summer on record, with floods that devastated large parts of our country and left many people homeless. And looking across this small and fragile planet, we have seen droughts in Australia and America pushing up global grain prices and floods in Africa affecting millions of people who depend on their environment for their livelihoods.
Kew has helped to change the world, and now reaches out across continents to protect and educate. It is not only a World Heritage Site but is leading international efforts to protect and conserve plants and biodiversity. And earlier this year, the Kew Millennium Seed Bank put its billionth seed into storage, helping to preserve more than 20,000 species for future generations.
Thanks to the work of dedicated botanists at Kew like Nigel Hepper, Britain has played a central role in proving that our climate is changing. You have tracked how, since the late 1970s, Spring now arrives sooner than before: whether it’s wood anemones flowering 19 days earlier or bluebells opening out six days earlier.
Work such as this has helped to lay the foundations for Nick Stern’s report into the economics of climate change that has done so much to change another climate – the climate for political debate - and to create a growing clamour for global action.
The science is no longer in doubt. The sceptics are sidelined. Time is short. And it is clear that we have to do something for both moral and economically reasons.
I’d like to use this opportunity today to thank Nick and his team for his work. And I’d also like to thank each of you gathered in this room and the organisations that you represent for your work in campaigning on climate change. Friends of the Earth in particular have made an enormous contribution and I’m pleased that Tony Juniper is able to join us today with Simon Retallack and David Nussbaum.
I am also grateful to everyone who took part in our public consultation. There were almost 17,000 responses, and in particular I would like to thank the EFRA Select Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee and a specially formed Joint Committee for the effort they put in to analysing the draft Bill and for their considered views.
We are publishing our response to all of these comments today in this command paper and I hope that everyone who had something to say can see either how their suggestions will be reflected in the revised bill, which will be introduced before Parliament in the forthcoming session, or – if we have not taken them up – why this was so. Above all, I hope you will feel that this was a proper consultation and that Government has really listened.
The main elements of the bill received widespread support. So we will set up an independent Climate Change Committee that will advise on 5 year carbon budgets, which will be set for up to 3 periods ahead to provide greater certainty to individuals, businesses and households.
We will use the bill to introduce carbon trading in further sectors.
These powers will implement the new Carbon Reduction Commitment – a trading scheme for large to medium-sized companies. This scheme will save 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2020 and help to spread responsibility for doing something about climate change across the UK economy. It will be fully auction based – another world first – but also broadly revenue neutral to the Exchequer, with all the money being recycled directly back to the scheme’s participants.
In other areas we have listened and are changing our approach. Together we have made a good bill better. It is now stronger, more transparent and makes Government more accountable.
In the draft bill in March we suggested a CO2 reduction target of at least 60% by 2050. We recognise, however, that the science is changing. So as the Prime Minister announced in September, the paper today commits to asking the Committee on Climate Change to report on whether the 60% reduction, which is already bigger than most countries, should be stronger still and whether it should include all greenhouse gases.
In March, we suggested keeping international aviation outside our targets. The paper today makes clear that this too will be reviewed by the Committee which will look at the impact of including aviation and a methodology for doing so once we get agreement, for which the UK is pressing strongly in Europe, for aviation to be part of the EU ETS
We have also strengthened the role of the Committee, its independence, and we will increase its budget.
We have put in place stronger annual reporting requirements on Government. And Ministers will now have to explain to Parliament if a target is missed or a budget exceeded.
A further major change is to increase the role the bill will play in helping the country adapt to climate change. We will regularly assess the risks to the UK from the impact of climate change and report back to Parliament. And following each risk report we will publish a clear, sustainable programme of action on adaptation.
The climate change bill is about putting sustainable development at the heart of everything we do as a country. And the bills we are taking forward alongside the Climate Change Bill in Parliament, particularly the energy bill, planning bill and the National Policy Statements we will develop under this, will mean that we think about sustainable development in all areas.
So I want to be clear about this too: protecting the countryside and biodiversity has to be part of what we mean by sustainable economic growth.
In the past, we’ve sometimes thought of the natural world of plants, wildlife and the countryside as if they were an optional extra to economic growth. We’ve taken them for granted.
Of course, we value much of our wildlife and landscape for its own sake and in ways that we cannot easily quantify.
But we do now understand more about the links between a healthy environment and a healthy society, and between a thriving environment and a thriving economy. You can’t have one without the other.
Take our forests. On their own, they provide social and environmental benefits estimated at more than £1bn a year. And some of the most recent research estimates that the natural environment contributes over £18.5bn a year to our economy and provides over 500,000 full time equivalent jobs.
If your house is near a park, University of East Anglia research suggests it can be up to 30% more valuable.
Well planned public space can increase business trading by 40% and encourage private investment. And well managed green spaces can help regenerate communities.
But this isn’t just about money.
An attractive environment also encourages people to take up walking and other forms of exercise, reducing their chances of heart attacks, diabetes and some forms of cancer.
Research in Japan has showed that being able to take a stroll in tree lined streets or a local park is linked to a higher sense of community participation and increased life expectancy. And other research has shown that natural views – trees and lakes – can help reduce blood pressure and feelings of stress.
Looking further across the world, 3 out of 4 people rely on traditional medicines derived from natural sources as their primary means of health care; and 9 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty depend on forests for some part of their livelihood.
The great forests of our planet act as huge carbon sinks.
But if you’re the government of a country in the Congo region, you look at the forest you have and you think: “we could cut these down and generate enough wealth to improve the healthcare and education for an entire generation, or we could take the chance that the world will value them in the future”. If you are the government of a poor country, that’s not an easy decision to make.
We have to hep change the incentives – so the value of these forests is made real now, not in 20 years time – and so that these great green sinks can go on working for all of us.
That’s one reason why we’re working hard, through the Environmental Transformation Fund, to help countries protect these sinks. Our fund is a start. But it’s clear we have to do much more.
All these changes will be important, and the framework the bill provides is essential as well as ground-breaking. But we have to remember that most people don’t see their lives through bills, or committees, or plans, or government strategies.
They live them.
So my test for this bill is what difference will it make to the way people live their lives over the next 50 years? Will it set the framework for low carbon living, low carbon communities and low carbon economies or not?
Take a child born today, on the day we publish this command paper. I hope that her life will affected by the framework this bill establishes in countless ways.
What could this change look like?
As she grows up, she will think nothing of being able to buy more energy efficient appliances using less electricity, all monitored in real time by a smart meter. She will be able to switch off the TV and see the electricity saved.
Her parents will be contacted by a company offering a Green Homes Service to insulate their house now and pay for it through savings on their energy bills in future. And when they sell their old house to move into a new zero carbon home they will be able to get more for it because its Energy Performance Certificate is higher.
And to help her parents insulate their home, from April next year, we will introduce a Carbon Emissions Reduction Target that will require the energy companies to invest more in energy efficiency in their customers homes. It will mean that over the next three years, over £2.5 billion will be invested to support measures such as energy efficient appliances, insulation and low energy light bulbs.
More than two million homes will receive support to insulate their lofts. In total this will save 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year by 2011 and £60 a year on the average bill.
At school, she will be taught in zero carbon classrooms generating renewable electricity and heat, and her teachers will use energy efficient whiteboards. Together with other children in her class she will start a campaign at school to reduce the carbon emissions from school food, sourcing sustainably from local or international producers depending on which has lower carbon.
In the playground, children will be asking each other about how much their parents recycle and whether their street is doing better than others at reducing its carbon impact.
For Christmas she’ll get a laptop that uses tiny amounts of electricity and is recharged by the solar panel on her parent’s roof that has been manufactured in Britain by a world leading firm.
When she considers her career options, she will be able to choose to work in that firm, or elsewhere in a fast growing renewables industry, exporting British technology and energy solutions to the rest of the world.
When she buys her first car, the fuel consumption and CO2 output will be proudly displayed on the front of the brochure, not hidden in the small print.
When she goes shopping on the high street on a Saturday, or to the supermarket or the bank, many of the shops and companies she visits will be taking action to reduce their emissions through the Carbon Reduction Commitment, improving their supply chains to run on greener fuel, insulating their buildings, reducing packaging and even generating renewable energy.
When she walks past a new development, or perhaps buys somewhere to live, she will know that every single new house is zero carbon, that it generates some of its electricity from renewables, and that it has helped Britain adapt to future climate change.
All of this should in time be a normal part of everyday life in Britain. But whether this bill changes people’s lives in the way I have just described will be just one test of its success.
The second – even more fundamental - test is whether similar legislation is adopted in other countries so leading to change there too.
We know that without international action, dangerous climate change is inevitable. That’s why it’s so important that we demonstrate that a low carbon future is possible and practical.
As we get closer to Bali, we are lobbying hard to secure international agreement. Phil Woolas was in Bogor, Indonesia last week at the pre-COP Ministerial, and I hope that at that meeting in December we will agree on a way forward to Copenhagen in 2009 and a global deal.
I would encourage all of you to think ahead to this date, and ask what can I do to change my life before 2009 to show the world that we can face up to climate change, that we can stand up for what is right and be counted.
Millions of people will do so. And all of us should join them.
One of the great memories of my life was walking alongside the thousands and thousands who marched in Edinburgh on that summer’s day two years ago to Make Poverty History. In 2009, I want to be able to march alongside millions to Make Climate Change History.
So my challenge, as we look ahead, is for every one of us to get involved. Government is doing its bit through the “Act on CO2” campaign and the carbon calculator, 500,000 people have been to visit the site. We are encouraging people to find out about their carbon emissions and how to reduce them. But when you think back to how this bill came about, you realise the power of people when they put their minds to change things. That’s why we are meeting today as a result of the power of public pressure. We’re making sure the politics responds.
It may seem as if each one of us is not able to do very much on our own. But it’s not so, because you add up each little step together we can achieve an astonishing amount.
Through “You, Me and the Climate”, being launched today across London, a group of young people are committing to change their lives to live more sustainably, and to encourage others to join them.
I hope it will be the start of something much bigger. Remember, by 2050 we have to save 324 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year to meet our target.
So can we do it ?
If 4.5 million of us installed cavity wall insulation, then we would be more than 1% of the way to our 2050 target.
If 11 million of us turned the thermostat down by 1 degree centigrade, we’d be another 1% closer.
If 13 million of us walked or cycled instead of using a car for a trip of 2 miles every day, we’d be another 1% closer.
If 17 million of us replaced 5 light bulbs in our home with energy saving bulbs, we’d be another 1% closer.
And if 23 million of us turned our appliances off standby each day, we’d be another 1% closer.
Five steps that could take us 5% of the way.
On our own, our actions might seem small. But together, we can make more progress than any of us might expect.
We just need to look each other in the eye, and say: “I will if you will.”
We just need to think about the world we will bequeath to the next generation and ask “what would I not do for my children?”
We just need to get on with it. One step forward at a time. Together.
Thank you.
Page last modified: 29 October 2007
Page published:
29 October 2007