Schedule 6
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
12:45 pm
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
I am sorry, the Minister is right to correct me. That maize requires so much energy that it may be making a contribution to climate change rather than tackling it. There are examples of deforestation in other parts of the world that might be making way for the production of otherwise sustainable biofuels. Yet this is an area where there is a potential for CO2 reduction, and I am sure that many of us have examples of sustainable approaches to biofuels, using algae or switchgrass, or more energy-intensive crops such as sugar beet—provided that they are not grown on deforested land. There is also short rotation coppice, with willow in the UK. In my constituency, a company called Green Fuels sources local reused cooking oil and turns it into biodiesel. That is a very sustainable approach to providing transport fuel.
However, we are in a fast-moving policy landscape, as the Government would like to call it. Only yesterday, the Secretary of State told the House of Commons in the context of the Gallagher report, that
“Professor Gallagher also concludes that there is a risk that the uncontrolled expansion and use of biofuels could lead to unsustainable changes in land use, such as the destruction of rainforest to make way for the production of crops. That might, in turn, increase greenhouse gas emissions, as well as contributing to higher food prices and shortages. The Gallagher report therefore concludes that the introduction of biofuels should be slowed until policies are in place to direct biofuel production on to marginal or idle land and until these are demonstrated to be effective.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2008; Vol. 478, c. 1169.]
And lo, within 24 hours an opportunity arises in this Bill to make such a policy change, through amendment No. 1 to schedule 6 on the renewable transport fuel obligation.
We are operating in the context of wider European policy, including the 2003 directive that mandates European nations to increase the proportion of road fuels from renewable sources to 5.75 per cent. by 2010, and the imminent renewable energy directive, which may raise that target to 10 per cent. by 2020. We agree with the Government’s statement, although it has come late in the day, that action is required at EU level to modify that imminent biofuels target and to place a moratorium—I would say—on biofuels targets until we have strict sustainability criteria in place. Yet the Government have pressed ahead with some policy in their own right, including the renewable transport fuel obligation introduced in April.
It is possible—although not necessarily likely—that the EU directive might not be agreed before April 2009, and that even if the push for a change in EU policy fails and the directive comes in we might be allowed to develop stricter criteria. Such criteria might not prevent the importation of other biofuels—I gather that that would be prevented under the directive—but they might provide the basis for the kind of regime that we have seen in other sectors, where labelling and public information might lead to more sustainable procurement policies being implemented by businesses or Departments. Nevertheless, we might still be able to contribute to a more sustainable policy on biofuels.
The Secretary of State said yesterday that she had done the two main things that this Government seem to do on environmental policy. One is to commission a report—she has done that and it was clear in its conclusions. The second is to begin a consultation—she will formally consult on slowing down the rate of increase in the renewable transport fuel obligation. In her concluding remarks, she also said that
“I will not hesitate to alter our policy if that is what the science suggests is appropriate.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2008; Vol. 478, c. 1171.]
This seems a golden opportunity to do just that. If we cannot do it in this Bill, I would like to hear from Ministers what exactly the Secretary of State meant by altering Government policy as opposed to EU policy. Could the biofuels targets be amended, and could we introduce conditions such as those in amendment No. 1, which link fuel not only to the physical fact of renewability, but to the actual
“reduction of carbon emissions over its total lifecycle”,
which is the kind of sustainability criterion that we want to see throughout Europe? Is such a measure permissible and technically possible within Government policy at the moment, even in the context of European policy? We hope that it is, and that it will give us freedom to pursue a more sustainable policy on biofuels, even if European policy is moving slowly in that direction.