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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Most scientists seem
to agree that the world is getting warmer and that it's our fault. We
use too much energy and pump too much carbon dioxide and other chemicals
into the atmosphere. They've been meeting in Holland this past week for
another summit on global warming and the political leaders are joining
them now for another week of talks. The scientists will tell them that
the situation is even worse than we'd been led to believe and that the
earth is likely to get a lot hotter over the next fifty years than they'd
thought. Britain is the good guy in all of this. We were set a target
in Kyoto two years ago for cuts in CO2 emissions but the government says
we might even double that. But we've had it easy so far. We've switched
from burning coal to generate electricity to burning gas and we can only
do that once. And we still have nuclear power stations generating electricity,
and they are going. The other big factor in all this of course is transport.
We need to use our cars less and there's no sign of that happening. On
the contrary. But at least WE are trying. Unlike the world's biggest
polluter, the United States. The Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is
responsible for all this and he's in the Hague now.
Good afternoon Mr Prescott.
JOHN PRESCOTT: Good afternoon John.
HUMPHRYS: We'll come back to Britain
later in this chat if we may, but let's look at the world picture first,
and that's fairly bleak isn't it, because without America we can't make
the progress that we need. America must reduce its emissions and that
it seems isn't going to happen.
PRESCOTT: Well John I think everybody's
got a veto here. You can be a developing country and you've got certain
things that you want from it. Europe has a clearly different agenda to
the American and what we call the umbrella group, so everybody could veto
it, and that's precisely what was at Kyoto and I remember you and I being
on the Today programme talking about whether the Americans would move from
a zero cut, and you said no, they won't. Well we got seven per cent on
their nineteen-ninety levels and that was an improvement and that's why
we clinched the deal. So at this stage we are facing everybody putting
their negotiation positions forward and the politicians now have to find
an agreement.
HUMPHRYS: Yes. And that was the
principle, but this is now the practice isn't it, and what we want is for
America to make fifty per cent of their cuts at home, actually to cut pollution
as opposed to doing it in every other clever way. And there's no chance
of that is there?
PRESCOTT: Well you've just put
a condition on that. I mean the Americans are not very happy at setting
ceilings. What they say is that if we can achieve the targets that we've
set for ourselves by other means, which are being discussed here, than
simply domestic policies, that's not very acceptable to Europe of course,
and that's one of the arguments that will take place and we'll have to
find agreements about it. But you know America has already been softening
its position from the last time at Kyoto. I'll wait and see what their
final negotiation position is before I come to a conclusion. I do think
you can get an agreement and I've started my walking and talking that I
had at Kyoto. I've talked to the chairman of conference, I've talked to
the Americans and I'm talking to other countries, and hopefully, by mid-week,
we'll get an idea where the real difficulties lie and that we can concentrate
our minds on.
HUMPHRYS: And the difficulties
with those other means as you sort of suggest there is that what many people
believe that means is exploiting loopholes in essence. I mean for instance
they're going to buy permits from places like Russia and the Ukraine which
will in effect allow them to pollute, and many people say, people like
Greenpeace say that's a sort of cheat's charter.
PRESCOTT: Well, these are the arguments
going on at the present time, but at Kyoto we were very clear. We said
the use of forests, which are called sinks here, carbon sinks, would be
part of it and they would be the new trees. Since then during the last
two years since they've been negotiating the bits and pieces that make
up these agreements they've taken it further, and said well, all trees
should be involved in it, and there is an estimate made and a number of
the NGO's, that's the green groups are saying, if you look at the forests
America got and you take everything into account they wouldn't have to
do anything in their own domestic economy, like something on cars or fuel.
Now that's an argument, the Americans are strong about it, so is Europe,
but these are negotiated positions at the moment and there are some signs
that some give is coming in this situation.
HUMPHRYS: But that's an argument
that you clearly from what you're saying, are not prepared to accept. I
mean they've got to make cuts haven't they?
PRESCOTT: Well, I would say my
main judge in this John is to say I look in the agreement for it to have
any credibility whatsoever, it must reduce the greenhouse gases below the
levels of nineteen-ninety by twenty-ten. Now if any agreement doesn't
do that it will lose all forms of environmental credibility. Now I know
the greens say sometimes to me: But you know the advance isn't much John,
you're not talking - five per cent's very small compared to the kind of
the scale of the problem. What I would say in answer, as long as we've
got a programme legally binding that will reduce it, at least we've made
the start, we've changed the direction, we're going globally to deal with
the global solution which has legal implications for all the developed
countries signed up to it.
HUMPHRYS: And that would mean that
America would have to make real cuts as opposed to simply saying you know,
let's exploit these loopholes?
PRESCOTT: Well, I think that's
what we've always said to the Americans. You know when we signed at Kyoto
we made it clear that Europe was always feeling strongly that you have
to take certain domestic actions and you can't solve it by these kind of
mechanisms on their own. And that is the nature of the disputes at this
stage between us which negotiations have to settle. You do remember John
that they weren't going to make any change in their gas cuts when we started
at Kyoto, and they went to a seven per cent which means effectively something
like a twenty-five to thirty per cent cut in their gases in ten years'
time.
HUMPHRYS: Yes. The trouble with
that though is the political situation has changed hasn't it. It looks
as though we're going to have a President Bush. It's going to be more
difficult with him isn't it?
PRESCOTT: That's an interesting
point John. I mean you can only have one President at one time really
can't you.
HUMPHRYS: At the moment.... Quite!
PRESCOTT: No, no, but there's only
one President at the moment, and that's President Clinton, and I just wonder
- you know it was President Reagan that took American into better relations
with China when you wouldn't have thought that, and Nader has made an effect
in those elections that the green groups, and I disagree with what the
green groups have done there, but in Florida it's shown that it was a balance
that it could have been for Gore and not for Bush. Now that might change
the political terrain whoever wins this presidency, but they are the difficulties
we have to take into account and they are only one small part of them,
there are many.
HUMPHRYS: Well that's certainly
true. Let's go to the United Kingdom now. We've done well, so far obviously
better than pretty well anybody else, but....
PRESCOTT: ...we're leading the
world...
HUMPHRYS: Absolutely, but it is
now going to get tougher isn't it. From here on in, it gets really tough?
PRESCOTT: Well, in the sense that
we have now mapped out our programme on climate change. We launched it
on Friday and a lot of attention was given to it, and indeed I think the
floods have concentrated people's minds on the connection between climate
change and how it can affect you at home. Now we set that programme out
and the commission have reviewed all that nations' contributions in the
European community and we come out the best with Germany. Now I'm very
proud of that, it shows that we've set a programme, we will achieve more
than was actually set up under the Kyoto agreements and we've set out where
they can come, and I think people have agreed it's a realistic programme
and I'm proud that we're leading the way in that. It gives me a stronger
negotiating hand over here to say, Listen, we led the way when we came
at Kyoto. We continue to lead the way and it's not simply because the
coal industry was closed down. We've made very practical promises which
industry now recognise. More efficient industry is better for them, warmer
houses are better for people to work in, more efficient cars, less polluting
is better for everyone and even the industry accepts that so there is a
major change coming about, so technology, style of living, all these will
contribute to achieving our targets.
HUMPHRYS: But it is going to get
tougher from now on isn't it. There is more to do and it is going to
get more difficult now, because we've made the great savings as it were,
converting coal-fired power stations into gas. We can't keep doing that,
we can only do that once, and it is going to get more difficult now isn't
it?
PRESCOTT: Yes, but certainly the
decimation of the coal industry by the previous administration allowed
you to claim you'd done something on that side, and achieved our targets
that we set are real. But all the other areas now, efficiency gains, the
climate change levy, all these are major contributing parts to which we
have agreement with industries and sectors now to implement it, and I'm
looking forward to doing that.
HUMPHRYS: But the reason I say
it's going to get more difficult in future, is we are going to face some
sort of energy gap aren't we. By two-thousand and twenty our nuclear energy
is going to drop from what it is at the moment about a quarter of our total
energy supplies, electricity supplies, down to three per cent. We have
to fill that gap. It's going to be terribly difficult to do that isn't
it?
PRESCOTT: Oh yes, there are many
alternatives we can use, one of the things about Britain of course, it
has had tremendous energy alternatives but it's not easy. Of course none
of these programmes are easy but neither is it easy living with the fact
of floods and the kind of climate change problems that are occurring in
Britain as we've seen quite recently and I think that's educated quite
a few of our public to say there is something wrong here, that we have
to make changes. And I've got to argue those. For example, if I say why
is it certain towns didn't build their flood defences when the money was
there and those that did were protected. I think you have to convince the
electorate and I have to argue the case, trying to argue to use public
transport more than your private car I'm bound to say has not been an easy
argument John as you know, on your Today programme. But I argue it and
we are going in the right direction and we are leading the world in making
a change. Yes, it's a global problem and it needs a global solution, that's
why I'm here in the Hague. But it also needs a transport solution, that's
why I've given a hundred and eighty billion pounds to the whole business
of transport, far more than has ever been given to the transport industry
before.
HUMPHRYS: Come to transport in
a second but as far as that energy gap that I was talking about is concerned,
we are not going to be able to plug that gap are we. It's a very big gap,
we are not going to be able to plug it with what they call renewal sources
of energy, wind power and all the rest of it...
PRESCOTT: ...that's under par...
HUMPHRYS: ..but only ten per
cent by two thousand and twenty, that's not going to be enough to fill
it, is it. So I'm not quite sure how we are going to plug that gap.
PRESCOTT: We have spelt out in
a number of our programmes where we think the demands for energy can be
met but of course the increasing demand for energy and any modern economy
continues to increase, but one of the things we want to do, we don't use
energy efficiently enough. You know, as an example, when I came in in
nineteen ninety seven, we were leaking so much water I called the water
companies and said I'm not going to agree reservoirs, stop the leaks. Nearly
a quarter of the leaks actually were reduced, that's enough water to keep
London for a year. We are changing and that's the same with fuel, cars
will not use as much fuel, they were be much more efficient, different
types of technology. So it is a challenge and that's what the Climate Levy
is about, getting people to use energy much more effectively.
HUMPHRYS: But are we changing fast
enough. Germany for instance, tells...
PRESCOTT: ...I'll be there chasing...
HUMPHRYS: I'm sure you will, but
I mean here's one you can chase, Germany says look you've got to treble
gaze your house, saves a lot of energy. Are we prepared to say to people
you've got to treble gaze your house, or triple gaze it, whatever you call
it.
PRESCOTT: We have got programmes
for improving energy. I'm actually putting quite a lot of money into housing
to achieve that, that's one of our measures we announced on Friday...
HUMPHRYS: ...making them do it
is...
PRESCOTT: ..pardon?
HUMPHRYS: Making them do it is
the thing.
PRESCOTT: But we are doing it John.
HUMPHRYS: I'm sorry if you've got
a problem there - what I am saying is that we don't actually insist upon
it, do we, we don't say to people, you know this is how it has to be with
new houses in future.
PRESCOTT: Perhaps we don't give
the instructions in the same way the Germans do, what we say to the Local
Authorities is here is the programme, here's the money, we want you to
do it and we are already beginning to see it happen. We also want new rules
and regulations about the design and quality of houses which we are changing.
And all that we set out in Friday's programme and that programme has been
accepted as the most realistic and acceptable by the commission and most
of the observers note that it's a good programme and one that this party..this
government has put in to achieve in the long term.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at transport
now then. This is terribly difficult isn't it. Your own projections tell
us that carbon dioxide....
PRESCOTT: ..you can say that again...
HUMPHRYS: ..carbon dioxide emissions
from all road transport, including lorries and all the rest of it are going
to increase by fifteen per cent by two thousand and ten, thirty per cent
by two thousand and twenty and we are actually, there are no signs at all
of us using our cars less. So how on earth do you square this circle?
PRESCOTT: Well first of all there's
a technological advance and what the Europeans have done and this is where
the European card is quite important, they have negotiated with all the
motor car manufacturers who want to sell cars in Europe, massive increase
in the efficiency of the motor vehicle itself, the reduction of CO2 gases.
And I think even the Tories argue that's all you have to do. But let me
just say, that is an important step forward and on the alternatives, are
the public transport. Where we have things like in Manchester, where you
have got for example light railway systems, where the very convenient and
good alternative transport show that people leave their cars at home on
a number of occasions and use the public transport. In Europe they have
more cars per head than we have but they use public transport more and
the basic reason is we allowed public transport to run down. I've got to
provide better choices, better quality, more reliable. And as you can see,
and everyday on the television that is not easy to do, but I've found the
resources, I've found the legislation, now it's the timetable to reverse
all the dis-investment that has taken place in our transport and forced
people to use their cars more because they couldn't rely on the public
transport system.
HUMPHRYS: Exactly, but you talk
about forcing people. I mean there do have to be sticks as well as carrots
doesn't there and Gordon...
PRESCOTT: ..I'm not forcing people...
HUMPHRYS: ..some people of course
that you should. But let me just look at what Gordon Brown did, well alright,
but let's look at what Gordon Brown did in his mini-Budget, he cut the
price of fuel. Well now that's not exactly a disincentive to using cars
is it, Imperial College reckons that that adds 1.5 per cent to car journeys.
So he didn't help you very much there did he?
PRESCOTT: Well John, I've got to
say that that's part of a kind of disingenuous argument that's going on
at the moment. If the argument is that the cost of fuel, however it is
made up, its world price and its tax, has an effect on reducing the vehicle..use
of vehicles right, and you can argue about that, if that is the argument,
then I'm bound to say it has increased despite whatever tax has gone because
fuel prices internationally have gone up. So that has not changed in regard
to that, all that's changed is the refusal to continue the Fuel Duty Escalator.
HUMPHRYS: But I mean you're not
suggesting are you, that the price of fuel is not a considerable factor
in the extent to which we use our cars? - fuel is more expensive we use
less.
PRESCOTT: It is one of the main
reasons but if I look at the costs of cars, whether it's the RAC or the
AA surveys, it's a lot cheaper to run a car now because the level of efficiencies
and technologies have made private transport still much cheaper again because
of that. And people will just judge the car on the fuel price, I understand
it but it's not the total price, but I have to live with what they think.
But we are back to the same point, fuel is still costing you more than
it did twelve months ago and that's nothing to do with our tax policy.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but Gordon Brown
cut the price of fuel in his last Budget and Imperial College calculated...
PRESCOTT: ...environmental, yes
to reduce the amount of gases and make our air cleaner with the sulphur
proposal and that is one step towards getting even better fuels to be used
in other different cars in the future. And it's a step in the right direction
but it's still got a carbon...
HUMPHRYS: ...doesn't help the CO2..
PRESCOTT: ..well it has that problem
I agree but there are a number of changes coming and as I understand it
in the new technologies coming in the cars and new fuels, you need to make
that step to improve it first. But all in all, John, it is advance in the
right direction, it is putting environment at the top of the list and making
sure we get it at the top of the list, keep it at the top of the list and
begin to get the kind of changes in public opinion that we are beginning
to see..
HUMPHRYS: The trouble is, even
with all of those things, and I've got your great big DETR, your department's
document in front of me, Climate Change the UK Programme. Even allowing
for all of that there is going to be a big increase in the amount of CO2
that we emit from road transport over the next ten and then, over the next
twenty years. This is a very serious problem for us, we'll have to something
more than we've done, in other words.
PRESCOTT: Well, I think there are
lots of things and indeed trying to get a public transport in a decent
state like they have in Europe is one thing that I am trying to do. And
planning our estates so you don't have to get in a car to go to a hospital
or schools, the new millennium estate that I've developed up on, in Greenwich,
means that you can have a lot of these facilities near to where people
live without having to get in the car to go to them. Now you have got
to change a whole kind of life-style, the way we plan our houses, the way
we meet the services people require, the new Urban White Paper, which I've
just launched is partly about that, there's the Rural Paper in the next
or so. All these are changes. I can find the framework, but governments
can't do it on their own. It's about how we get people to recognise, do
you still want to have the kind of extreme weathers we have, with the consequences
we've seen with floods, or do we want to make a change?
HUMPHRYS: Well...
PRESCOTT: It was a man-made solution,
let's find a man-made solution to solve that difficulty of climate change.
HUMPHRYS: And they might well say
we'd love to use public transport. We'd like to use the railways, but
look at the state of them, there is a crisis of confidence in the railways
at the moment, you...
PRESCOTT: ....massive dis-investment
over a long time...
HUMPHRYS: ...absolutely, and you've
acknowledged that, but then over the last few months we have seen that
crisis of confidence increase. People have lost confidence entirely.
Do you, yourself, feel that Railtrack, the people who are after all responsible
for the railways, the railway infrastructure, do you think they've let
you down?
PRESCOTT: Well first of all, John,
people travelling by rail has gone up by eighteen per cent over these last
two or three years ...
HUMPHRYS: ...starting to fall now,
though isn't it?...
PRESCOTT: ...so they have been
using the rail. But
there's an increase, before it was a decline, now we've seen an increase.
But your point generally about have we got the organisation on the railways
right - well I've always thought we haven't, that's why I was bringing
legislation in for a strategic rail authority, that's why I've got a massive
amount of money for rail investment, the huge amount that everybody says
has never been there before, sixty billion pounds, so I've got the legislation,
I've got the resources, what I want is a proper organisation that can deliver
it, and I want it to be safe. that's why I've looked at the Cullen Report,
to give me a report on the safety in the industry. Now the Opposition
have said, that the fragmented kind of organisation they've given us was
wrong, that the privatisation solution didn't work. What I have to do
is to make changes. And that's why I brought in the strategic rail authority
to begin to see, with the regulator, to get a kind of railway that is safe,
modern and got the investments and that's what we have now on the table.
HUMPHRYS: And what you're going
to start this week, we understand, using the strategic rail authority and
all the rest of it, is to take a very hard look at Railtrack, and perhaps
to clip their wings, to take some of the responsibilities from them, that
they have at the moment and there is in other words, going to be a fundamental
review. Is that right? Fundamental review?
PRESCOTT: Well, I don't ... no
I hear tales, what's said in the press today, let me just say what the
facts are. When Mr Corbett said that he believed that the actual railways
had a conflict between safety, punctuality and reliability, you'll remember
he said that. I said well, I don't see that so, but I'm prepared to listen
to anything that threatens safety on the railways, so I asked um, Alastair
um...
HUMPHRYS: ...Morton
PRESCOTT: ...Alastair Morton, to
go in and discuss with them what this kind of reorganisation that he was
calling for. He set up five working groups and they've been working for
the last couple of weeks. When he announced his resignation, I then asked
Sir Alastair that would he meet the new Board and find exactly where we
lay, where they lie now in delivering on a programme that was given to
us, a recovery programme, and what their views were in the reorganisation
of Railtrack.
HUMPHRYS: And now he's going to
do that.
PRESCOTT: That was two weeks ago.
HUMPHRYS: Right, right. And where
has that got then. I mean, what's the conclusion of that? Or have you
not got anywhere with it yet?
PRESCOTT: I don't know because
he hasn't reported back to me and he was discussing with Gerald Corbett
then of course, 'cos he was the person who'd made those points, made similar
points about safety should be different inside the Cullen Report, but he
has now left and clearly, Alastair Morton has to ask the Board, since they've
had a change, and a possible change in a Chairman, how does the Board's
policy now relate to the promises they've made, that's quite proper to
do so. Do remember, I have the obligation under legislation to see there's
a safe railway, and I'm advised on that by the Health and Safety Executive,
so I have a direct statutory responsibility, to be assured about that.
HUMPHRYS: Indeed, and you weren't
sorry, as we understand it, to see Gerald Corbett go, for a variety of
reasons. You're now talking through....
PRESCOTT: ....John, don't just
make that assumption. If you say...
HUMPHRYS: ...well, did you beg
him to stay?
PRESCOTT: ...well, it's not up
for me to say who the Chief Officer should be of Railtrack. My obligation
is to see that Railtrack, whoever's the Chief Executive, or Chair, carry
out their obligations that they have on a licence to run the railway from
the Regulator, and in regards to safety, from me as the Secretary of State.
Who they choose to have to run it is their decision. What they do, and
how they do it, I have some responsibility for.
HUMPHRYS: Well indeed and it's
possible for you to offer a bit of support one way or the other if you
want somebody to stay.
PRESCOTT: No, I think it would
be quite wrong. Let me give you an example John. I think it was..was
it your Ed Stourton on your programme having a go whether I support or
didn't support - could you imagine if I said, yes I did support - you'd
have come on to me saying, do you think it's right to sack him when you
said you supported him. It's not for me to make that decision. It's a
decision for the Board. If it was a nationalised industry it would be
a proper one for me...
HUMPHRYS: ...alright, let me just
ask you a straight-forward question then, do you have confidence in the
existing Board, given that it's now got a new Chief Executive, who's an
accountant, and not a railway man, do you have, do you have - hope you
can hear me alright - do you have confidence in the existing Board of Railtrack
to do what is needed in the time that it is needed in?
PRESCOTT: Well I've asked Sir Alastair
to go in and talk to them about their ideas they want for change. Now
I would certainly want to hear what's said about that before whether I've
got an agreement with the Railtrack Board. Let me give you an example.
The Railtrack Board under Sir Gerald Corbett, went to, Gerald Corbett,
went to the Cullen Enquiry and said they want to keep completely safety
in their hands. I disagree with that. There's got to be some independent
safety authority in this. It's a matter of debate. Now I don't know whether
the Board still agrees with that statement that was made there. I'm entitled
to ask, and when I get the reply back from Sir Alastair and other discussions
I'll give you an answer to that judgement, to that question.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, many thanks.
PRESCOTT: Thank you.
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