UN Climate Change Conference: Government Response

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. It would be good to hear from the Minister on that exact point.

In the light of yesterday’s Brexit vote, we need to keep in mind our role within the European Union and the importance of our being a full EU member. The EU has become the global environmental standard and regulation setter, and it has used its significant influence in trade to tackle climate change. Last year the EU announced that it would refuse to sign deals with countries that did not ratify the Paris climate agreement. That meant a huge shift in how the EU was perceived and in the action it is taking. Brexit also threatens to have hugely negative consequences for our climate action here in the UK. The loss of EU funding and leaving the EU emissions trading scheme would all mean a significant weakening of our ability to take action.

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

Will the hon. Lady accept an intervention on a factual point?

[Anna McMorrin]

I will.

[Claire Perry]

I know that the hon. Lady is extremely knowledgeable, so I am sure that she will be aware that since 2000 the UK’s reduction in carbon intensity is 60% higher than the EU’s. That is enshrined in domestic legislation. Therefore, I am sure that we will continue to overachieve relative to our EU partners. I would hate for this exceptionally important global debate to be narrowly focused on Brexit.

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the Minister for her intervention. I think that it is a wider point, and a very important one, to talk about the impact that Brexit will have on our domestic legislation here in the UK. For example, the loss of EU environmental legislation, which covers roughly half of the UK’s emissions reductions up to 2030, and losing our place as a key advocate of bold action within the EU, will demolish, at a single stroke, Britain’s role as a key player on climate change. We cannot solve this climate crisis as a single nation; climate change recognises no borders.

As I saw with my own eyes in the Arctic recently, climate change is already wreaking havoc on our world, our communities and those who need us most, and it is only set to get worse. It is time for the UK Government to face up to the imminent risks and show leadership. Our response to climate change will define us for years to come. It must be a bold part of the work of every single Government Department, leading the way from the top down to the bottom up. We are rapidly reaching crisis point, and we need to start acting like it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

Thank you for your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Betts. I have been asked an awful lot of questions and I have limited time to respond, but I will be happy to try to answer them further later. I will instruct my officials to write to hon. Members, particularly in answer to the factual questions asked by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner).

As always when we have this conversation—perhaps this is a little reminiscent of the debate going on in the main Chamber—I feel as if we are looking at two different sets of facts. I accredited the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) to attend the Katowice talks and I know that she was disappointed that she could not go, but I am a little saddened by her accusation that my officials were not prepared for those talks. It remains the case that our civil servants—more than 150 people in the international climate finance team and in my excellent negotiating team—go to conferences of the parties extremely well prepared. We are perceived to be one of the most effective negotiating teams in the world. Because the negotiations often happen late at night, I was privileged to sit with that team—

[Anna McMorrin]

rose—

[Claire Perry]

Let me finish please, because I am concerned about the time.

I was privileged to sit with that team in the room and see the impact of our responses, both on the EU and on the global climate proposals. Although the hon. Lady could not attend, as an expert in the area she will know that we were never going to have a change of individual or collective ambition at this COP. We have set out a very clear pathway for what the COPs are expected to achieve. COP 2020, which I have expressed interest in hosting in the UK, will be the one at which we show our national determined contributions, but we cannot manage what we cannot measure. One of the great points of controversy in the COP process has been whether collectively we can agree an inventory calculation mechanism and a rulebook to assure ourselves that the world is on track. Despite the low expectations, I think we achieved that at COP by levelling the international playing field, which is particularly important for our UK businesses, and by building trust.

The hon. Lady rightly referred to points made early on at COP. There were concerns from some countries, but as is often the case, I saw a coming together at the end, with an enormous amount of collective action and a rulebook that is more than sufficient for its purpose and flexible enough to allow for the differential between ambitions in different parts of the world. I pay tribute on the record to our superb civil servants who led the negotiating team. It was particularly poignant because in Katowice we could taste the coal on the air that we breathed—a reminder of one of the challenges of the whole process.

I know that these debates exist for hon. Members to make political points, but many Opposition Members are far more intelligent than some of the points they tried to make. On the issue of just transition, as the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) will know from her constituency work, persuading the world to create immense job losses in primary industries and tax people more to invest more Government subsidy in areas that will help to drive that transition is a non-trivial challenge. On an issue so vital to the world, I would have hoped that we might one day have a tiny measure of cross-party consensus, but I guess we all live in hope.

[Anna McMorrin]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I will try to leave the hon. Lady a moment to wind up, as it is her debate.

As hon. Members pointed out, the conference was rooted in the IPCC report, which is very much supported by our superb UK science base—another area in which we have led the world in this space. The report gives a very stark warning on what the risks would be. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who is no longer in his place, referred to the challenge that small islands face. The subject was discussed at length at the Wilton Park forum, which we are proud to co-host with New Zealand and at which we discuss the issues facing countries looking down the barrel of climate change—an existential threat to small island nations.

Of course, it is entirely right that collectively we need to do more. Again, we seem to live in a world of different facts. We were the first Government of an industrialised country to address how we will get to a zero-carbon future. It is not about setting some kind of target for when we will all be long gone—I am sure none of us will be in government by then, and some of us may even be six feet under. It is about “how”. The difference with this Government is that it is not just about empty targets, uncosted numbers or a promise to bring back the proposal for the Swansea power station, which would have been the most expensive ever built in the country and would have created 30 jobs and taken two months of Port Talbot’s steel supply—I can think of much better ways to spend taxpayers’ money. It is about actually setting out a detailed action plan for “how”. That is important because our policy making has to survive the travails of politics and successive Governments.

We have a Climate Change Act that was strongly supported across the parties, and we have budgets—I am not going to go through the debates again. On our current numbers, we are 3% and 5% off the budgets that will end in eight and 10 years’ time, and I am pretty confident that we will get there. We have a Prime Minister who is committed to it, and we have clean growth as a fundamental part of our industrial strategy.

It was suggested in this debate that we have somehow rowed back on our climate diplomacy. The reason we are so successful is that this is a fundamental part of who we are and what we do. Our offer to the world is premised on clean growth. The almost £6 billion of taxpayers’ money that I spend on their behalf as part of international climate finance is focused 50% on adaptation and 50% on mitigation, but we are also thinking about how we can take brilliant British inventions such as the solar fridge funded by the Department for International Development and change people’s lives in the developing world.

[Chris Law]

Will the Minister give way?

[Claire Perry]

Very briefly, but I want to leave the hon. Member for Cardiff North a moment to wrap up.

[Chris Law]

I thank the Minister for giving up such precious time. She makes valuable points about international investments, which is all well and good. However, I would really like a response to my earlier point that in the countries most directly affected by climate change, we have multi-billion pound investments in oil and gas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I find it odd to hear an SNP Member, who represents a country that claims that its entire independence policy is based on oil revenues, being dismissive of the same activities in other countries.

Moving on to climate action, I agree that we can only ever be credible when we talk to other countries if we try to lead from the front. We have reduced our emissions more than any other G20 member over the past 20 years. We have published our clean growth strategy—a very detailed set of actions. We had our first ever Green Great Britain week. From listening to some hon. Members, one would think that we were still massive coal emitters, but we are at over 32% renewables—we hit a monthly high of 54% in August. As hon. Members know, I have set a challenge for us to have the world’s first net zero industrial cluster by 2040. I have held a conference on carbon capture, usage and storage that was considered to be the most senior and committed gathering in the world. We are driving global action—we should be proud of what we are doing, and we will continue to lead from the front.

It was nice to hear, on a point of consensus, that the Labour party supports our bid to host COP 2020, where the rubber hits the road. I pay personal tribute to the hon. Member for Wakefield for her Committee’s work—I know that yours is doing fine work too, Mr Betts. Giving evidence to hon. Lady’s Committee and looking at its reports and recommendations is vital. That is the sort of cross-Government and cross-party consensus that delivers results.