Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 16/10/2014
Event: Owen Paterson: current UK energy policies "will not keep the lights on"
Credit: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
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[Additional context: this interview followed an earlier interview, on the Today progarmme, with Lord Adair Turner, former Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change. The interview with Owen Paterson was advertised as being broadcast at 7:49 AM but was brought forward and broadcast at 7:33 AM.]
Mishal Husain: "We have a doomed policy on climate change, binding us to cut emissions by 80% by the year 2050". Three months after being sacked as Environment Secretary, that is the view of Owen Paterson, who believes that we should scrap the legislation that binds the UK to that emissions target, the 2008 Climate Change Act. He is already known for speaking out against what he calls the "Green Blob", the environmental lobby, and he is here in the studio this morning - good morning.
Owen Paterson: Good morning, Mishal.
Mishal Husain: It would be a very big step to take, scrapping the Climate Change Act, a central piece of legislation in this area. Why is it necessary?
Owen Paterson: Well, what I've suggested - as we're the only country that's bound itself legally to these targets - we should actually suspend the Act until we see how other countries perform. If you look what's happening in the BRIC countries and China, they've got a huge increase in industrial activity - China's emissions overtook ours, per head - I think it's unwise for us to be way out in front, with this legally binding Act, imposing conditions on this country, which -
Mishal Husain: Although you could argue, couldn't you, that leadership is about being way out in front. I just wondered where you get -
Owen Paterson: Well, hang on, not much fun if your leadership - if you're working in Scunthorpe and you're one of 1,500 people -
Mishal Husain: Where, where do you -
Owen Paterson: - being chucked out because of high energy costs.
Mishal Husain: Where do you get this assertion that we are the only country to have legislated in this way? There are almost 500 climate laws in 66 countries - Denmark, Finland, Mexico, all sorts of countries that have passed their own climate acts with legally binding emissions targets.
Owen Paterson: Not to 2050, not binding the government itself. And what worries me about this - and I heard Adair just now - good to see Adair again on the stairs, we were good friends at Cambridge - I'm afraid I have to disagree with him. The Act does not specify any technology but it's quite clear from the DECC pathway for 2050, published in 2010, that there is a preference to go for renewables, and it is simply not doable. And what I've found in my own constituency and from travelling around the country when I was doing Defra, was the extraordinary - and I think quite justified - hostility to heavily-subsidised wind projects. Imposing industrial projects in the middle of the countryside is extremely unpopular -
Mishal Husain: And, and -
Owen Paterson: - and I just don't think it's - it's just not deliverable.
Mishal Husain: But are you extrapolating far too widely from one point, which is the opposition that you've made to wind power - and we can talk about that in a moment - you yourself have just acknowledged that your issue isn't so much then with the Climate Change Act but with the way that the Department for Energy and Climate Change is looking at this issue. So you can call for a - you can call for a rethink on energy - that is one point - but to call for the scrapping of a major piece of legislation in this area is going far too far.
Owen Paterson: No, I said we should suspend it, to see how negotiations go with other countries -
Mishal Husain: There's no mechanism - there's no mechanism to do that.
Owen Paterson: Yes there is - Clause 2 says the Secretary of State can amend by order, and just change the percentage. If you put 0% on the order, you've effectively suspended it. Look, that's really Parliamentary techie stuff.
Mishal Husain: Within certain criteria, which you can argue whether -
Owen Paterson: But no, my point is: the only way it can really be delivered, as is quite clear from the various pathways, which was published by DECC, in 2050, which have all got a Greek letter on them - their preference is one for renewables, it is simply not doable. We've simply not got the surface area to put enough wind farms up. And, sadly, they're not reliable. When the wind doesn't blow, we don't get the energy. So, what I proposed last night are four commonsense policies which would deliver energy, which would keep the lights on - and don't forget, our whole society is massively dependent on electricity - it would be quite catastrophic.
Mishal Husain: Just briefly - spell out what those are, then - briefly, if you will.
Owen Paterson: Okay, I think we should really push for shale gas - if you see what shale gas has done to the States, it has had the most dramatic impact on a) reducing emissions, which are down to the 1960s levels in the States, and -
Mishal Husain: Questions, there are many questions about whether we could replicate that in the UK.
Owen Paterson: Okay, bringing whole industries back from China, which are no longer competitive in our country and the States [?], and we've got to be competitive with the States. Secondly, I think there is a clear role for Combined Heat and Power, which I think has not been looked at, an awful lot of our heat goes straight up the chimney. I think we could look at small nuclears, also using them as Combined Heat and Power, and then I think what no-one has really picked up in my speech - much more intelligent demand management. You could have quite cheap electronic gadgets on every one of our millions of fridges -
Mishal Husain: Energy efficiency.
Owen Paterson: - which knock off the fridges at a critical moment, just for 20 or 30 minutes.
Mishal Husain: Okay.
Owen Paterson: Now, that - that would knock the peaks out. And if we had a mixture of all those things, that would be a sensible, commonsense policy. But none of those are possible at the moment, within the confines of the Climate Change Act, because everything is, as I said earlier, has got to be decarbonised.
Mishal Husain: Right. Is this really, though, about sour grapes, because you were sacked as Environment Secretary? That was not a position you wanted to be in, and this is your revenge on the government.
Owen Paterson: Oh, come on, Mishal, no. I -
Mishal Husain: Well, you weren't happy to be sacked - that was a job you wanted to be in.
Owen Paterson [laughs]: Everyone knows that.
Mishal Husain: And since then - you went along with all these parts of government policy, at the time, and since you've been sacked you've laid into them.
Owen Paterson: That's a perfectly fair comment, that I did go - and I voted for the Climate Change Act, I was quite open about that in my speech, and I think I had to be. But you know, I was a loyal member of the Shadow Cabinet and the Cabinet. But I did really pick up - took extraordinarily strong opposition in my own constituents, as I said, and in counties all round. You go to Northamptonshire, you go to Yorkshire, you go to Northumberland, you go to the West Country, and there's this extraordinarily strong opposition to what people see as subsidised and ineffective forms of renewable energy -
Mishal Husain: And the conclusion, the conclusion -
Owen Paterson: - so that's wind or it's solar - no, hang on -
Mishal Husain: - of your report is that either the Climate Change Act should be - should be scrapped, or suspended -
Owen Paterson: Can I just finish answering your question.
Mishal Husain: - which would mean that the natural home for your views would be UKIP. Because that is the only policy - that's the only party which believes the same as you do, on the Climate Change Act.
Owen Paterson: Emphatically not - UKIP is very good, as we know, at flushing out protest and spotting issues, absolutely hopeless at coming up with any detailed policy. So what I'm doing here is presenting the leadership - after three months, I've kept completely quiet up to three months, but I've spent quite a lot of time on this, I've got a lot of detail and I really was quite shocked at how this policy will fail. So, we are six months out from an election - it's a glorious opportunity for the Conservative Party to mark out a different path, and if it followed the path I've proposed, a) we would deliver our emissions reductions quicker, and we would keep the lights on, by very, very conservative policies, using existing technology and by energy saving, and I think those are true Conservative policies, they're commonsense policies, and I will be really pleased if my party took them up.
So, answering your preceding question, I'm very much acting as a candid friend. You know, on parts of this, the Prime Minister's been absolutely staunch - he and the Chancellor have been emphatic about the importance of shale and have pushed it as hard as they can. Now what we desperately need is a Conservative government with a Conservative majority to deliver this sort of policy.
Mishal Husain: Right, but you would acknowledge that you're putting forward these policies as a politician, not as a scientist, looking at this.
Owen Paterson: Obviously, yeah.
Mishal Husain: So what do you mean when you talk about the "Green Blob"? What is that and what is its influence, if it does exist?
Owen Paterson: Well, the Green Blob is holding the line. Um, you had Dr. Parr on, from Greenpeace, yesterday. And he skirted round Justin Webb's questions on Golden Rice. Since yesterday, 6,000 people have died because of vitamin A deficiency. And he batted away Justin's question on them stopping it - it was utterly wicked that last year Greenpeace activists trashed trials in the Philippines on Golden Rice. This is a huge problem around the world - 6,000 people a day dying of this deficiency.
Mishal Husain: Right, where are you getting - where are you getting that from?
Owen Paterson: These are accepted figures -
Mishal Husain: From where?
Owen Paterson: WHO figures. and today -
Mishal Husain: WHO figures on the number of deaths.
Owen Paterson: Today is World Food Day, it's the FAO World Food Day. And I think we should be looking exactly at the damage some of these groups do. If you look at - if you look at this issue, the guy said, yesterday on your programme, "It hasn't been tried out". Why? Because development has been stopped. If it is exploited -
Mishal Husain: Right, you're giving us figures on one issue. Can I -
Owen Paterson: - if it is exploited, you would bring enormous suffering to an end, an enormous misery - 6,000 people, since you had the programme on yesterday, have died because of this failure. And one of the main reasons is because development of it has been blocked by purely ideological reasons -
Mishal Husain: All right -
Owen Paterson: - by one of these green groups.
Mishal Husain: And Greenpeace have also said that, in terms of your views on the science of climate change, they have said that during your time in government you turned down the offer of a climate change briefing from the Chief Scientific Officer at the Department of Energy and Climate Change - is that true?
Owen Paterson: I have briefings from all sorts of scientists - I saw my Chief Scientific Officer -
Mishal Husain: From Professor David McKay - did you turn down a briefing from him?
Owen Paterson: I cannot remember every detail of every meeting, but I met my Chief Scientific Adviser frequently.
Mishal Husain: Right.
Owen Paterson: But my views on this are irrelevant. What is the problem -
Mishal Husain: You're putting them forward on this programme.
Owen Paterson: No, no. My views are - I'm very happy to see emissions come down, I've said that. What I'm saying is: the policies currently being put into practice, to deliver the targets of the Climate Change Act, will not reduce emissions and they will not keep the lights on. If we had my commonsense policies, the four of them - and others, I hope, will be adopted - what we want is for a thousand flowers to bloom and let the hidden hand take part - then you would see a whole lot of new technologies come forward, and money we're spending on renewable technologies that don't work, could be spent on technologies that do work.
Mishal Husain: Owen Paterson, thank you very much.