Clause 6
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
2:15 pm
Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the final impact assessment provides those figures based on 60 per cent. and on 80 per cent., and 35 per cent. is the number consistent with 80 per cent. It is the stepping stone to 80 per cent. in the same way that 26 per cent. is the stepping stone to 60 per cent. All the analysis has been done by the Government on that basis.
The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal rightly asked about the economic cost of not getting on with all of this. There is, as we have said, a huge potential benefit. To some extent, the argument for 35 per cent. is also the argument for 80 per cent., and I will not rehash all of that. There is, however, a separate set of arguments, first about the consistency of all the other 2020 goals we have entered into, secondly about the trajectory, and most of all about the importance of early progress. What matters is in the jargon “the area under the curve”, that is the cumulative emissions. If we are not quite serious that quite soon we are going to make big headway, then the goals for 2050 will not be worth having because we will already have done the damage.