20140227_LD

Source: RTCC

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8xDH-yUbk

Date: 27/02/2014

Event: Lord Deben: Canada and Australia "in an outrageously unacceptable position"

Attribution: RTCC

People:

Lord Deben: John Gummer, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change (UK)
Sophie Yeo: Reporter, RTCC

Sophie Yeo: What do you think is the greatest achievement of this edition of the GLOBE report?

Lord Deben: I think it was really to cover nearly 90% of the world's pollution. The 66 countries concerned are the problem - if we can solve those problems, then we have really faced up to the issues of climate change.

Sophie Yeo: And to what extent can climate change be tackled through domestic legislation?

Lord Deben: Well, in a sense it has to be tackled through domestic activity, because it's only by doing things in each individual place that you achieve the total end. But of course there's got to be an overarching system - just simple things like having the same measurement for what you mean by "a tonne of carbon" for [inaudible], is very important. You've got to have an overarching system, but in the end, each country - through its domestic legislation - is going to have to achieve its contribution. Which is, after all, what happens in the United Kingdom and what happens in all those countries that have signed up to Kyoto. So Kyoto II would be a mixture of the overall and the individual.

Sophie Yeo: And do you think that is an approach that is more sophisticated than Kyoto I?

Lord Deben: Well, I think it's a matter of stages along the post [?], I mean, in Kyoto I, most people were arguing about who should carry the burden, Now most people are recognising that this is something that affects all of us. So we all know we have got to act. If you look at the Chinese, who are perhaps doing more than any other country, it's doing it, not because of some international view, it's doing it because it recognises that climate change is a threat to itself. So what we're talking about now is not so much "How do you share the burden out?", it's "How do you solve the problem?" So it's a different issue, and I don't think it's the same response that's needed - it's something in addition to Kyoto I.

Sophie Yeo: At the moment, we've got all the climate legislation taking place in different countries, and that fits in quite well with the bottom-up approach that the UN is going to take. How can we make sure that that does - that that bottom-up approach to the legislation adds up to 2 degrees?

Lord Deben: Well, it's very difficult, because with the present situation, it doesn't. It just is that it's the only way, it seems to me, that you're going to get to that stage, because unless people commit to things themselves, unless they own the solution themselves, then we're not going to have a real solution at all. And it's like anything else in life, you've first of all got to own the problem and own the desire to solve it. Once you've done that, then it will not, I think, be as difficult to lift our aspirations up sufficiently to ensure that we don't go beyond those 2 degrees, which is a really serious boundary, because we've no idea what would happen if you did do that. And we suspect that what might happen would be really disastrous.

Sophie Yeo: You say it won't be difficult to lift the aspirations, once you've got a good foundation. It strikes me at times it could be quite difficult to lift the aspirations, if people already feel they've gone as far as they would like to go. How do you think that these aspirations can be - can be lifted?

Lord Deben: Well, what I mean is that if you don't start on the journey at all, it's very difficult to get to - to go the second mile. and that is, after all, the meaning of that phrase - you do the first mile, well you can get someone to go the second mile. I don't think it's going to be easy in the absolute terms but it seems to me much easier, once people have set out on the journey, to say "Can't we hurry up a bit". Whereas if you don't think you've got to go along that journey - and there are some who are silly enough to think that - then it's a very, very tough thing indeed. I believe that with so many in the world beginning along that journey, I think we'll be able to help them to do that much more.

Sophie Yeo: Having looked in such detail at the legislation of the 66 countries, do you think the UK can still safely say it's leading the way?

Lord Deben: Well, I think we're leading the way in one particular way, and that is that we do have a statutory basis, both for our commitment to reduce our emissions by 80% by the year 2050, and that we have a Climate Change Committee, which has real responsibilities and which lasts and produces the necessary budgets to lead us to 2050. I think that institutionally we're probably still ahead. But my goodness - lots of people are doing all sorts of things which we can learn from. And the idea that we're stuck out there, way ahead of other people, is no longer true. And it's one of the great advantages of this document, is that it shows everybody that they're not the only ones, that others too are - and in very difficult circumstances, if you look. Portugal, which has been hit hugely by the recession - Portugal is sticking to its guns, it's determined to make its contribution. Look at Korea, look at China, look at Mexico, and you begin to see that the world is now filled with people who are determined to beat this global threat.

Sophie Yeo: Do you think having such a thorough overview of what countries are doing, on a domestic level, across the world, undermines the argument that many people make, that - you know, "We're just one country, we can't do it", you know? How does it help, in bringing - bringing everyone together, in that way?

Lord Deben: Well, there's no doubt that whenever you go anywhere in the world, the first thing that people say is either "We're doing it, and no-one else is", or "Why does it matter that we doing it? Because we're only a tiny bit of the whole". What this does is to show that the whole is an addition to each - with each of those tiny bits. I mean, we add up to it, and none of us can fall out, if we're going to have the success we need. And the second thing is: when you realise that other people, in much worse conditions than yourself - I mean, fancy Mexico going to the extent that it is, with all its problems, South Africa, thinking about what Portugal, as I said earlier, was doing. It really does say to Britain, which is in a much more favourable economic situation than any of those, and it just reminds us that not only aren't we on our own, but also we've got some pretty heavy challenges from other people who really are going further, given their circumstances, than we have yet done.

Sophie Yeo: Do you think this could be a prompt to the UK to take it to the next step?

Lord Deben: Well, I hope it will be an encouragement to the UK. The UK is a remarkable country, in the sense that we have a real consensus and that all parties are seeking to achieve this end. What I hope it will do is to remind, for example, Canada and Australia, who are, in fact, in an outrageously unacceptable position, because they have stepped aside from what's happening to the whole of the rest of the world. And for two English-speaking countries to have done that is really sad. And I mean, of course, Canada has the advantage of having the remarkable exemplar of British Columbia, with its Carbon Tax, which is extremely good, and there are other bits of Canada that have been trying very hard to make up for what the country as a whole has not done. Australia is a sad example of going backwards, and I think it's a great pity, it's wholly contrary to the science, it's wholly contrary to the interests of Australia, and I hope that many people in Australia will see that when the rest of the world is going in the right direction, what nonsense it is for them to be going backwards.

Sophie Yeo: How much do you think Australia's attempts to repeal the Carbon Tax has resonated across the rest of the world?

Lord Deben: Oh, I think Australia is seen as being a very, very odd exemplar. You know, it's - it's very sad, and it's, and it's, and it's something I feel very personally about, because I think it just lets down the whole British tradition. That a country should have become so selfish about this issue, so that it's prepared to spoil the efforts of others, and to foil what very much less - very much less rich countries are doing. Because all that pollution which Australia is pushing into the atmosphere, of course, is changing my climate, I mean this is a real insult to the sovereignty of other countries.

Sophie Yeo: Who in the UK government would you like to see reading this report?

Lord Deben: Well, I think the whole government will welcome it. I mean, you know, we have a government which is quite clearly committed to fighting the battle on climate change. We're not going to have an argument about whether we should or we shouldn't. The only arguments in the future is the best way to do it, and those are good arguments - I'm in favour of that, because we must do it in the most cost-effective - both cost and effective - way that we can. So it's a different situation, Britain - of course, there are individuals who have not yet caught up onto the modern science and who still wish it weren't like that. But I have some sympathy for them, because I wish climate change wasn't happening - it would be so much easier for us all if it wasn't. I'm not - I don't want it to happen. But as it is happening, and as the science is conclusive, then really we have to get on with it, and this government, as its predecessor, are determined to do so. I don't think we're going to see a change in there. This will give support and help - it will enable them to point out to others just how much is being done. And I hope they'll be able to bring greater pressure on those countries - those few countries, now - who seem to be unwilling or unable to take up the cudgels.

Sophie Yeo: Are there any particular examples of legislation in other countries that you think the UK should take as a quite direct example of something it could enact into our own [inaudible] system?

Lord Deben: I do think that those who have been willing to have interim targets of carbon intensity have something to teach us. I think it's a pity that we haven't agreed yet to have a carbon intensity target for 2030. It's a long way to 2050, and unless businesses recognise that there are really effective milestones on that way, then I think you won't get the investment that you really want. Now we've got milestones up to 2020, we've got budgets up to 2027, but we don't have a kind of benchmark between 2020 and 2050, and I think we ought to have that, and I think some countries have sought to do that, and that's the sort of legislation that we might well seek, too. And I know the government's now committed itself to look at that, after the next election.

Sophie Yeo: Is legislation enough or does there still need to be a social education, towards climate change?

Lord Deben: Well, legislation, in any circumstances, is not enough - you've actually got to have society backing these things. One of the things that is very noticeable in Britain is that the majority of people - when you push them, certainly - think we ought to do something about it, but they're not out there waving the flag saying they should, and I'm not sure that they all will be. But you do have to have a growing understanding of what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it, and an assurance that this is in the most cost-effective ways. No point in trying to do things expensively when you can do them cheaply, no point in picking the high fruit when you can pick the low fruit - all those things we're got to get right, and that's - that's one of the things that we perhaps haven't been as good at communicating in the past. I'm very keen on improving that.

Sophie Yeo: Lord Deben, thank you very much.

Lord Deben: Thank you.