Whatever other challenges he faces, the energy minister can be pleased by the outcome of cabinet talks on carbon reduction
Fast lane or slow lane, Chris Huhne has been driving climate change policy in the right direction. Whatever else is going on in his career ? and the allegation that he asked his wife to take speeding points for him is serious ? the energy minister can be pleased by the outcome of cabinet discussions on future carbon reduction. With some important qualifications, the government has decided to accept the recommendation of the independent, advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCC) for a 50% cut in emissions by 2027. Anything less would have been shaming, both for Mr Huhne and the coalition as a whole, just a year after David Cameron promised it would be "the greenest government ever".
The speeding claims against Mr Huhne were understandably on MPs' minds yesterday afternoon, when he turned up in the Commons, under some duress, to make an oral rather than written statement on climate targets. A sniff of scandal draws MPs and journalists into the chamber but, whatever happens next in that story, climate change certainly matters more. In the moments after Mr Huhne's statement, both Greenpeace and the CCC put out statements largely welcoming what he had to say. "This is a world first: no other country has made legally binding commitments to ambitious emissions reduction targets for the 2020s," said the CCC. For such support, Mr Huhne must have given much thanks.
Politically, climate change is no longer the most pressing of issues in Britain. Scientifically, it still is. Politicians of all parties have to balance the immediate need for economic growth against the contradictory demands of tough carbon targets in the future. It is easy but dishonest to pretend that these two things can sit together without tension. Green jobs will provide future employment, but right now it is dirty jobs in manufacturing that are driving exports. Both the Treasury and the business department are well aware that what remains of the steel industry and the ceramics industry, to pick just two, would decamp abroad if Britain imposed costs on them that other countries do not. Exporting carbon pollution is not the same as reducing it, and the debate inside government about the right response to the CCC was not quite the battle of virtue against evil that some have described.
As a result, the fourth carbon budget, which will run from 2023, was announced alongside important (and still undefined) exemptions for energy-intensive industries, which could in the end render the targets hollow. Mr Huhne has also agreed to review progress in 2014, an automatic revision that will align Britain to progress elsewhere in the EU. Until now, this country has been boldly unilateralist on carbon targets, signing up, through a process set out in the Climate Change Act, to an emissions cut to a fifth of 1990 levels by 2050. The review means that if the rest of Europe falters in its task, Britain may do so too. This will dismay green groups. But unilateralism only makes sense to the extent that it encourages others to go further too. A heroic carbon reduction target that cannot be met only breeds cynicism.
It is of course easy for governments to set themselves tests far into the future. Mr Huhne will not be the climate change minister in 2027, when yesterday's target must be met. The greater test of this government's green credentials is what is being done now. Emissions fell heavily in 2009, because of recession. Any economic recovery now would probably push them back up. There are very difficult decisions ahead on energy supplies, and in particular nuclear. If petrol prices stay high, the government will face more pressure to drive them back down. Nonetheless, for all the jokes about speeding offences in the Commons yesterday, a downcast Mr Huhne did have something substantial to announce. Looking to the long term is a sound escape from present woes.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/18/climate-change-targets-chris-huhne
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