COP 27: Commitments

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for securing this debate and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Leong, to this place; I very much enjoyed his speech. It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Sheehan. The figures the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has just set out and the commitment she asked for if the UK is to claim any form of leadership require that those subsidies end now. That is a statement of the absolutely obvious.

However, today we are focused on COP 27. At the start of COP 27, there were many reasons to be concerned about what might happen. One of the more minor factors, but rather telling, was that especially for the occasion, the Tonino Lamborghini Convention Centre had been renamed the International Convention Centre for the length of COP 27, which perhaps left a loud throaty echo in the background.

There were 35,000 delegates at COP 27. Of those, more than 600 were oil and fossil fuel industry lobbyists—more than had ever attended a previous COP. There were more lobbyists from the oil and gas industries than from the 10 countries most affected by the climate emergency.

I want to draw on the interesting work of Alix Dietzel, senior lecturer in climate justice at the University of Bristol, who analysed last year’s COP. Men spoke 76% of the time, indigenous communities faced language barriers and racism, and significant numbers of those who could not obtain visas to get into the UK were excluded. I was also at COP 26, just as I have been at a number of previous COPs, and saw for myself how difficult it was for those crucial voices to be heard. But Dr Dietzel was again at COP 27 and found that Africa’s COP was even worse: the high prices, the surveillance concerns, the fears of Egypt’s police state and the extreme pressures on civil society all had an impact.

None the less, when I look back to COP 26, my most memorable recollection is a speech by Jumas Xipaia, from the Xipaya people in the Pará state in Brazil, at an event I chaired on ecocide. That was such a powerful voice that it moved everyone in the room. Voices such as that, which I have often called the “shadow COP”—not the official negotiations, but the gathering of civil society, people, campaigners and indigenous groups from around the world—have an enormous impact. I will come back to that.

An account in the London Review of Books by Laleh Khalili is well worth a read. Wandering around the pavilions she sees PwC, Deloitte and EY—representatives of the financial system that is built on and continues to fund the ongoing oil and gas exploration and exploitation that the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, referred to. She also noted the presence of Agip, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Total. Will the Minister make a commitment? Will the UK agree to push at future COPs to exclude oil and gas lobbyists, just as big tobacco lobbyists are excluded from WHO deliberations on tobacco control? The model is there.

That point is particularly interesting because the next COP will be in the UAE. Your Lordships’ House has just debated the World Cup in Qatar, which has some similar parallels. We have heard how the UK has been lobbying for respect for human rights and an open voice for civil society. Will the Minister commit the UK to pushing the UAE to have as open a COP as it should be?

I have been a bit depressing up until now, so I will get more cheerful. Despite all those barriers and difficulties, there was powerful evidence at COP 27 that campaigning works, although not that it is always very quick. For 31 years there have been calls, pushes and work on getting loss and damage payments—what is, in effect, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said, the polluter pays principle put into action. Finally, it was delivered, or at least started. There is still a huge way to go, but this was a big win for climate justice and, I would posit, a win for something much further. It is a win for the whole issue of reparations and the damage being done by robbing the global south of wealth and resources and the labours of its people to enrich the global north. A principle has now been set. What plans do the Government have to work with others—the G77 plus China and civil society groups—to deliver on loss and damage?

I apologise for now going back to being depressing. Noble Lords may not know that there is one country in the world that is on the path to deliver the 1.5 degrees that the world agreed to at COP in Paris: Gambia. Well done, Gambia. That does not, of course, cover the UK. The practical reality is that talking about net zero by 2050 and all that the Government plan is just kicking climate action down the road. We cannot afford to do that. What the UK has to do is to commit to net zero by 2030. That is the figure that is in line with 1.5 degrees. It should be put out loudly and clearly that that should be our contribution. I do not expect the Minister to commit to that today, but you never know; I will put it on the table, at least.

It is worth looking at the words of Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders, a group of former world leaders, and a very respected, clear voice. She says that

“the world remains on the brink of climate catastrophe … Progress made on [cutting emissions] has been too slow. We are on the cusp of a clean energy world, but only if G20 leaders live up to their responsibilities, keep their word, and strengthen their will. The onus is on them.”

As we stand in your Lordships’ Chamber today, it is clear that the onus is on the UK Government.

I want to point to some positive things and have questions for the Minister. If he is not able to answer them now, perhaps he could write to me. We have seen agonisingly slow but significant progress in just energy transition partnerships, with South Africa at COP 26 and with Indonesia at COP 27. Can the Minister tell me what accelerated progress is expected and what the UK is doing to contribute to more and much broader ways in which we can deliver essential development for the global South with the support of the global North?

I come back, finally, to the point that I made about the shadow COP, and the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about hope and optimism. It is worth noting that, as is often the case, one of the best events at COP 27 was the people’s plenary. During that event, the participants drew attention to the continuing incarceration, as I speak, of Alaa Abd el-Fattah. They chanted, “Free Alaa!”, and chanted his watchword, “We have not been defeated”.

The message that comes from COP 27 is the one that comes from all COPs: that we have a huge societal determination to stop trashing this planet as we are doing now, while also delivering a society that works for all the people on this planet. We have to change COPs and change our politics, and we have to change our society. The slogan that I have chanted on many a street is, “System change, not climate change”. COP is part of this process, but only a small part of it.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

I join other Members in paying tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for bringing forward this debate on the commitments made at COP 27. It has been excellent, and I will endeavour to address as many of the points made as possible.

Before that, I join the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and others in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Leong, on his superb maiden speech. In welcoming him to this place, we can reflect on his excellent business career at home and internationally. We recognise his success in establishing Cavendish Publishing, which went on to become one of the country’s biggest academic law publishers. We also recognise his work in social enterprise and establishing networks such as the Mulan Foundation Network and Future First, all of which work to promote social inclusion and raise awareness of the various issues that he described. I am sure that I speak on behalf of the whole House in saying that we very much look forward to hearing all his contributions in the future. My only regret is that his excellent business entrepreneurial career obviously has not made him a Conservative, which it surely ought to have.

I was also delighted to hear the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. Again, I am sure that I speak on behalf of the whole House in saying how delighted we are to see him back in his place. We can all pay tribute to the enormous contribution that he has made to this important policy area throughout his long and distinguished career.

I also place on record my thanks to the COP unit, and all the other departments in government involved in representing the UK on the global stage, for all their work in representing us at COP and demonstrating the UK’s commitment to keeping 1.5 degrees alive.

Given the broad range of questions raised by noble Lords, I will address them in two halves. I will first address questions regarding COP 27 and then follow that up with some comments on the domestic points raised.

Let me start by disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and, unusually, agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, in saying that COPs matter. They have the convening power of world leaders to make agreements, they bring forward voices from across the world, and they help to put climate at the top of the news agenda. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, suggested that there were perhaps unrealistic expectations for a single event to cover all sectors, and I think that she is right; perhaps placing too much hope on a single instrument is indeed not sustainable. However, as she also reminded us, work is also going on outside this space; to take one example, the UK has signed up to the global methane pledge at COP 26, we published the UK’s methane memorandum, and the COP 27 cover decision reiterates an invitation to parties to consider further actions to reduce by 2030 non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions, including methane.

The UK continued to show global leadership through its COP 26 presidency in Glasgow. As the House will be aware, all 197 parties agreed to the Glasgow climate pact to urgently keep 1.5 degrees centigrade alive, and to finalise the outstanding elements of the Paris rulebook. When we began our COP presidency, just one-third of the global economy was covered by net-zero commitments. Today it is 90%, with 34 new or updated NDCs submitted since COP 26, including the UK and countries such as Australia, India, the UAE and Indonesia.

This represents progress towards implementing the Glasgow climate pact and helps to keep 1.5 degrees centigrade within reach, and these have all been core objectives of the delivery of our presidency year. At COP 27, as has been noted, we had to fight to keep 1.5 degrees centigrade alive, and obviously we were disappointed not to make progress on fossil fuels. The deal in Egypt preserves the historic commitment that countries agreed to last year in the Glasgow climate pact, but we did not make progress. However, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, both reminded us, 1.5 degrees centigrade remains on life support. It is clear that we need to see much more progress ahead of COP 28 in the UAE, and this Government will certainly be working towards that.

Now, as raised by many Members of the House, including again by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, action on loss and damage matters, and it is not something that developing countries can solve themselves. Crucially, COP 27 saw a breakthrough on funding arrangements for loss and damage, with an agreement that a fund will be created to support the most vulnerable. This deal responds to the concerted calls from the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

In response to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, I can assure the House that the Government will continue to work with other countries on the details and design of the fund and wider funding arrangements. These will be worked up next year through a transitional committee. A range of sources and contributors are to be considered, with parties affirming that funding for loss and damage comes from humanitarian development and climate communities. The UK would assess the value of providing a contribution once the modalities of the fund have been agreed. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Desai, for his question about the level of funding for the new loss and damage fund but reiterate yet again that no level of the fund has yet been agreed.

We all know that we must continue to support climate-vulnerable countries—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord St John—by making sure that these commitments on adaptation and loss and damage are honoured, driving real, practical action on the ground. A key part of making progress has been to ensure that the views of those at the front of tackling climate change are part of these crucial conversations. This was something that the noble Lord, Lord Leong, raised—the importance of youth in climate. This was also a view held by the COP presidency, which supported indigenous youth attending COP 27, and the Climate Youth Negotiators Programme helped young negotiators from the global south across those climate change negotiations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also raised the issue of the exclusion of some voices within COP and fears about the limits on civil society. We expect that the discussion of lobbyists will have new momentum behind it. The UK’s priority, as always, is on ensuring that the voices of important non-party stakeholders such as indigenous people, women and young people are heard in addressing and responding to the important issue of climate change. At COP 26, the UK was pleased to fully fund an indigenous people’s pavilion, which proved to be an important space for indigenous-led events. The Glasgow climate pact also saw strengthened language on the role of indigenous peoples. During our presidency year, we worked closely with Egypt to stress the important role played by indigenous peoples and young people in civil society in calling for higher levels of ambition.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, raised the important human rights case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah. The UK Government remain deeply concerned about this case, and we continue to work hard to secure his release. We continue to raise his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian Government. The Prime Minister raised the case with Egyptian President Sisi, and COP 26 president Alok Sharma followed up with Egyptian Foreign Minister Shoukry. We continue to use all channels to raise the gentleman’s case with the Egyptian authorities.

COP 27 was hailed as an implementation COP. As the outgoing presidency, we were clear that targets needed to be underpinned by real progress on the ground. At COP 27, the UK presidency demonstrated that the UK is once again leading global efforts and decarbonising faster than any other G7 country. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, raised, the UK led, with other world leaders, the launch of the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership to accelerate momentum to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.

Although I accept the point raised by my noble friend Lord Howell and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about coal and fossil fuel phase-out not being included in the cover decision, I remind the House that we have made progress. We have accelerated the clean energy transition, maximising the implementation of and opportunities from commitments made at COP 26. The pipeline of new coal power projects has continued to collapse, with 76% of planned projects cancelled since 2015. Countries have delivered robust policies on financing fossil fuels. We have announced over £65 million of investment to help speed up the development of new green technologies; that funding is much needed, and it responds to the point made by my noble friend Lord Howell.

The breakthrough agenda launched at COP 26 will have tangible actions taken forward by countries accounting for over 50% of global GDP. One of these will be creating standards for green steel, which I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, will be delighted to hear. The noble Lord, Lord Leong, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, both discussed the important issue of green jobs. Again, here the breakthrough agenda will make clean technology affordable, available and accessible to all, and in so doing create millions of those important green jobs worldwide. The noble Lord, Lord St John, raised the need to address emissions from buildings—something close to my own heart. We are delighted that France and the Kingdom of Morocco are planning on launching a buildings breakthrough under the breakthrough agenda to help address this.

Of course, none of these actions will be possible without mobilising climate finance. We continue to work with countries, international financial institutions and private financial institutions to meet the commitments they have made and help secure greater access to finance. The Prime Minister announced at the world leaders summit that the United Kingdom is delivering on our commitment of £11.6 billion of finance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also raised the issue of the slow progress on energy transition projects. We were delighted to see strong progress with South Africa, which presented its just energy transition partnership investment plan at COP 27. The new Indonesian transition plan was also launched at the G20 in Bali, and that will mobilise $20 billion over the next three to five years. The UK once again continues to lead, and there are EU efforts towards a similar agreement with Vietnam.

I turn now to some of the points raised about our domestic policy, starting with those of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I can say that the Government remain committed to nuclear energy as a key part of our energy security strategy, providing the baseload energy which many noble Lords talked about and which is required to keep the lights on, even when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. In last week’s Autumn Statement, the Government announced that we will proceed with the new plans at Sizewell C. With respect to the enormous potential of solar energy, including from countries such as Morocco, I can confirm that we have had early-stage discussions with the Xlinks interconnection project.

We continue to be grateful to the Climate Change Committee for its analyses. It has agreed that our net-zero strategy and the British energy security strategy represent comprehensive and viable plans for reaching our world-leading 2050 net-zero target. To answer the questions on climate adaptation raised by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Lord, Lord St John, the Government accept the Climate Change Committee’s view that more action is needed to improve the UK’s resilience to climate change, and Defra is currently working across government to develop a third national adaptation programme which we expect to be published in summer next year.

To address my noble friend Lord Howell’s question on the importance of technology and carbon capture to reduce emissions—which was also echoed by the noble Lord, Lord St John—we are committed to this domestically, and we announced the phase 2 shortlist for CCUS in August. We will use our strengths as an innovative nation and the net-zero strategy committed at least £1.5 billion-worth of funding to support net-zero innovation between 2022 and 2025. Internationally, I note the announcement of £65 million-worth of support to the Clean Energy Innovation Facility to accelerate a deployment of clean technology globally. The Government will of course continue to look carefully at the full range of technologies available to meet our net-zero targets, and we will carefully consider the points about tidal power raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.

On the issues raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Birt—I expected nothing else from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman—the Government recognise the importance of onshore wind to our energy mix. As one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, we will undoubtedly need more of it. However, the Government understand the strength of feeling that some people have about the impact of wind turbines in England—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Birt—so we will consider all options for increasing deployments in Wales that local communities will support.

In response to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on the issue of the proposed Cumbria coal mine, I am sure that she will understand that I cannot comment since a government decision is due in a couple of weeks. However, I stress that our net-zero strategy makes it clear that we are phasing coal out from our electricity mix by 2024.

On fossil-fuel subsidies, the UK supports international efforts to reform inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and to promote greater transparency. Moreover, in response to points made on fossil fuels by my noble friend Lord Howell and others, no other major oil and gas-producing nation has gone as far as the UK has in addressing the role of oil and gas in their economy. Our signal on the withdrawal of international fossil fuels, our transformation of the North Sea transition deal and our new checkpoint for licensing all provide a global example of the shift away from hydrocarbons. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, will know that the point I continue to make is that it makes much more sense to gain gas as a transition fuel, which we will continue to acquire from our own resources, rather than importing carbon-heavy liquid LNG on tankers from across the world.

To answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, our 2050 net-zero target was considered in line with advice from the Climate Change Committee as the earliest feasible date for achieving net-zero emissions.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about the Procurement Bill, your Lordships will be aware that the national procurement policy statement covers climate change and will be put on a statutory footing in that legislation.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, we are introducing three environmental land management schemes that will help reward farmers for delivering public goods.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, talked about EV infrastructure. The Government have committed £2.5 billion of funding towards electrical vehicle transmission since 2020, over £1.6 billion of which will be used to support charging infrastructure. I quite understand the noble Lord’s frustration that it is not always available in the places where we would want it immediately, but we are making progress.

On home insulation, reduction in energy demand is obviously a national effort. That is why the Government have announced a new long-term ambition, which noble Lords will have seen from the Chancellor’s Statement, to reduce the UK’s final energy consumption from buildings and industry by 15% by 2030 against 2021 levels. We have also announced the establishment of Energy Efficiency Taskforce.

To address the question from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, on the judicial review ruling: we of course accept the court’s judgment on the levels of detail provided and will respond in due course.

In answer to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on the net-zero strategy, it remains government policy and has indeed not been quashed.

As I have set out today, the Glasgow climate pact remains the blueprint for accelerating climate action in the critical decade to keep 1.5 degrees in reach. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, raised an excellent point about the balance of optimism and hope. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, again—twice in one speech—that the UK has been and will continue to be a leader in tackling climate change, with the Prime Minister’s attendance at COP demonstrating this. The UK’s ground-breaking presidency year has been a pivotal moment when we redouble our efforts, resist backsliding and ultimately go further and faster. We cannot collectively retreat from that and achieving our net zero target must be a shared international endeavour requiring action from all of us and everyone in society.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I welcome the Minister’s celebration of the contribution of indigenous people and civil society to successive COPs, but I asked whether the UK would work to exclude oil and gas lobbyists from future COPs?

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

May I request that the Minister writes to me about tidal stream energy?