Climate Change

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Brown of Cambridge

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interests as vice-chair of the Committee on Climate Change and chair of its Adaptation Committee. I repeat the thanks expressed by others to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for bringing this important debate to the House today.

This week started with a stark reminder that the climate is changing. We have heard from the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Rees, about the debates at Davos. Tuesday’s City A.M. paper reported on its cover that 2017 and 2018 have been the costliest back-to-back years for economic losses from catastrophic weather events, at a financial cost of over half a trillion pounds and with a much greater human cost. We had Hurricane Michael in the US, Typhoon Jebi in Japan and Typhoon Rumbia in China. The Camp Fire in California was the state’s deadliest and costliest fire on record, destroying the town of Paradise and costing some $12 billion. The California fires have also resulted in the largest corporate bankruptcy to date due to climate change—the Pacific Oil & Gas corporation. Insurers globally are now looking at how and whether they can continue to insure against risks that result from the impact that we are having on our climate. Closer to home, the “Today” programme on Tuesday informed us that a record number of wild flowers were in bloom on New Year’s Day this year. Literally thousands of species in the UK were observed flowering—charming but ominous.

It is good, therefore, to have a debate on the impacts of climate change where we can consider what needs to be done to ensure that we maintain people’s well-being and livelihoods in the face of the changes ahead. We should remember that, even if we could stop all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, which we clearly cannot, the impacts of the emissions and warming that have already taken place will continue to develop over the next century: ice will continue to melt, sea levels will continue to rise and the weather will continue to change.

If that is what 1 degree of warming delivers, we do not want to imagine what the 4 degrees or so of warming that we are currently on track for by the end of the century will bring, and we certainly do not want to leave future generations to cope with the consequences. As people have said, it is critical that we meet our commitments made at Paris in 2016 and make our contribution to keeping warming well below 2 degrees, with an ambition of limiting it to no more than 1.5 degrees. We should take a global leadership role in demonstrating that this can be done and we should support others to do so.

We may not want to think about what 3 or 4 degrees of warming could mean, but that is just what we have to do on the Adaptation Committee. Using the latest scientific evidence and excellent modelling from the Met Office, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, we work with leading academics and consultants to produce the UK climate change risk assessment evidence report every five years. This forms the basis of the Government’s risk assessment for the national adaptation plan.

We hear, as we have in this debate, a lot about the risks overseas—the typhoons and forest fires, and the impact of sea-level rise on small island states. These are all critical but I want to talk about the risks at home. The climate change risk assessment identifies the following six areas of serious risk to the UK: flooding and coastal change; health and productivity effects from high summer temperatures and heatwaves; water shortages for households, farmers and industry; risks to our plants, wildlife and beautiful places; risks to food in respect of both production and trade; and risks, as we have heard recently, of new pests, new invasive species and new diseases taking hold.

I turn now to the effects even closer to home, by which I mean, like the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, at home. One in six properties in the UK today is at risk of flooding: river flooding, coastal flooding or surface water flooding from drains overwhelmed by the increasing incidence of intense rainfall. Yet there is no requirement for property-level flood resilience measures, even in new homes being built on the flood plains of the south-east. Some of our most recent research for the Adaptation Committee shows that a few measures installed during building, at almost zero cost, could save thousands of pounds in damage and get people back into their homes much more quickly after a flood event. As we approach 4 degrees of warming, a tripling of UK flood damage is predicted.

Some 20% of UK homes overheat already in a cool summer, and the Government’s own research shows that all new-build homes are likely to be prone to overheating. But there is no legal requirement to consider overheating in new homes. Average summer temperatures in the south of England have a 50% probability of being 4 degrees higher than today and a 10% probability of being 6 degrees higher than today by 2050—and those are just average temperatures. By 2050, the summer of 2018 will not be seen as a hot summer; it will be the norm. Currently, we have around 2,000 heat-related deaths per year in the UK; by 2050, it is likely to be well over 5,000.

On the current path to 4 degrees of warming, unless we take additional action much of England is predicted to see severe water shortages by 2050. If we reduce our current per capita water consumption from 140 litres per person per day to around 90 litres, as well as addressing leaks and improving industry water efficiency, we can avoid this problem. It can be done. We have some of the highest water consumption per head in Europe; in Belgium, people already manage on just over 100 litres of water per person per day. All these problems can be addressed. We cannot prevent a level of climate change but we can ensure that we have the right measures in place to keep people comfortable and healthy, keep businesses working and keep food growing. Clear objectives are needed from government, with measurable time-based targets supported by committed investment and strong, enforced policy and standards.

I conclude by asking the Minister to ensure that the objectives in the national adaptation programme are clear and measurable. As these objectives are, in the main, those of the 25-year environment plan, I ask that they appear in the environment Bill and other related Bills. While a big step in the right direction, the current proposed indicator framework for the 25-year environment plan has no measurable targets, only directional indicators. We know that the climate is changing, and increasingly we can predict how it is changing, but we are not responding strongly enough.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

My Lords, I am sorry to say this again, but could we please stick to our allotted times?