Zero Carbon Britain

Speech by Chris Huhne delivered to proposing the 'Zero Carbon Britain' motion to the Liberal Democrat Brighton Conference 2007 on Mon 17th Sep 2007

Well, it has been raining again. It looks as if normal service this summer has been resumed. It was not so good to be flooded out in Hull or Oxford or Cheltenham. I visited Hull with Carl Minns, our council leader. We talked to one pensioner who had always thought of floods as rivers overflowing, the seas rushing in. It was not like that in Hull. She sat in her front room while it rained. As she watched her favourite television programme, the filthy water mixed with sewage rose through the floor boards. Ruining first the carpet, then the furniture, and then making her homeless. Climate change means far more wild weather.

Do we want a world where the wind whips the tiles from our roofs? Fells trees that have grown for generations? Where it rains four inches in a day, the same as a normal month. Rain that fills up the gutters and drains and sewers. We are tearing up nature by the roots.

I recently met Aqqaluk Lynge, who is a leader of the Inuit in the Arctic. He spoke sadly of our responsibility for his future and that of his people. He asked me to tell you how urgent the problem now is. Within a generation, the natural system that has supported the Inuit for centuries will have gone. Think of that lonely polar bear adrift on pack ice, isolated from its food. If the polar bear becomes extinct, so will the Inuit and their culture.

Throughout the world, animal life is hanging by a thread. More than a third of all species are likely to become extinct if we do not stop now. It's not just about saving the panda. It's saving human life.

That is why the efforts of the Labour government are so feeble. Gordon Brown does not get the environment. He does not feel it in his gut. He was the Chancellor who cut taxes on pollution. He cut climate change research. He even cut flood defences.

Brown bottled out of making every big company report its green impact. Brown vetoed tolls on lorries to shift freight to rail. Now he is Prime Minister, he has even downgraded the cabinet committee on environment and energy. He will not chair it himself. Brown is not green. Never has been, and never will be.

As for the Tories, they have yet to agree on a single one of John Gummer's plans to cut carbon. A lot of their ideas will put up carbon emissions. The only green thing about John Redwood is his name. Redwood wants more roads - and Cameron has backed him. Redwood wants airport expansion in the South East - and Cameron has backed him. So far the score is John Redwood 2, and John Gummer nil.

Cameron's circus skills are going to be tested if he rides these two horses in opposite directions.

Cameron is far better at sound bites than sound plans. That is no surprise because he ignored the green agenda before he ran for leader. He stopped green plans getting in the last Tory manifesto.

David Cameron could write about anything when he wrote a column for Guardian Unlimited. So I checked how many times he used the word green. Three times. The first was his colleague Damien Green. The second was blaming Norman Lamont for talking about the green shoots of economic recovery. And the third was about sitting on the green leather benches of the House of Commons.

Then out of the blue - sorry, I forgot, he's green now - David Cameron discovered the environment. It's making policy like spraying on a tan. And it goes just as deep. Well, we know that David Cameron thinks he is the heir to Blair. But after phoney Tony, who needs Sham Cam?

In the plans we debate today, we set out an ambitious objective for zero carbon Britain. It would put us in the global lead in tackling climate chaos. Along with Sweden, Norway and New Zealand. We are the first British political party to tackle carbon emissions from every part of the economy: from transport, from electricity generation, from our housing, from offices and from factories. Conference, you bravely last year voted for the green tax switch; taxing pollution not people. You showed Liberal Democrats have the courage to lead where others follow. This year we prove again that the time for talk and targets is past; we need action.

Yes, we need fair carbon shares for all. We cannot ask the developing world to choose between penury and the planet. If we cannot show that we can be prosperous and green, the Chinese will go on building two coal fired power stations a week. That is why we need research to bring down the costs of solar, tidal and wind power, so the developing world can leapfrog from no energy to renewable energy.

Internationally, the European Union will lead the way for a new Kyoto protocol after it runs out in 2012. When the Tories tell you they care about the environment, they fall strangely silent about the central role our EU partners have played. Without the EU, we'd get nowhere on global warming. With the EU, we will win. Long live the environmental European Union. It was the EU that stood up to George W. Bush. On global warming, he's the wrecker in the White House.

At home, we can no longer pretend that a 60 per cent cut in carbon emissions is enough, as the Government claims. No-one believes it, not even ministers. The science says it needs to be more than 80 per cent. That's why we demand a clear objective for the long term: Britain should aim to be carbon neutral by 2050. Here you will find plans to generate electricity from renewable sources. To build a Severn electricity scheme. To encourage home generation of electricity as in the Netherlands. To save energy through our green mortgage scheme in old homes as well as in new. To cut the power consumption in offices and factories, and stop the scandal of Whitehall burning its office lights all night. Government must lead in going green.

On transport, we plan a sharp rise in Vehicle Excise Duty on new gas-guzzlers. The EU Commission wants to set limits on car emissions, but it should state clearly that no car can be sold in the EU if it still belches carbon by 2040. It can be electric. It can be fuelled by a hydrogen cell. But we have to get tough with car-makers about emissions. And we have to get real about rail. Doubling rail investment. Building high speed lines to stop domestic flights. Shifting from road to rail, and cutting congestion on our existing rail lines.

My green vision for Britain is not about hair shirts, but wholesome living. Far from being a bad life, the greening of Britain will be better - like the reformed smoker who can taste and smell again. In the countryside, a green Britain will mean clear streams. Rich topsoil for growing local vegetables and fruit. Lusher grassland. In our cities, it will mean Paris-style borrow a bike schemes. Public transport that works. Breathe deep in the parks, because the air will be fresh and not reeking of diesel and petrol fumes. Our homes will be warm by design, not by burning fossil fuels.

We must know by now we have little time to change. But we still have to make that leap. We have to summon up the courage. What sort of people are we if we value our own instant pleasure more than our children and their future on this planet? If we gamble with our world today and hope that something will turn up tomorrow? Liberal Democrats believe in fairness. We loathe a society where the devil takes the hindmost. Every child should have a fair chance in life. In the same way, every child must have a fair chance of happiness - on a planet that can sustain a civilised society with liberal values of community, respect and tolerance. We hold this world in trust.

Conference, with this paper, let's begin living. Living as if what mattered was our world, our future, and our children.