Climate Change: COP 26

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for raising this subject and allowing us to debate this most important topic in such a timely manner. I want to make some comments about the mitigation aspects of the Conference of the Parties that was held in Glasgow. The conference itself covered many topics, but in four minutes I would not be able to do it justice.

My first comment is that this was a paradoxical COP as in one sense it was a success but in another an absolute failure. How could it be those two things at once? The first thing to say is that our expectations have been so lowered over the last 26 years that we are now facing a situation where the simple inclusion of the word “coal”—one word in the 57 legal documents that were produced—is seen as a success. This has been the effect of a huge amount of lobbying. Other noble Lords have spoken about the fact that delegations can include the very companies that these talks are meant to regulate and control, which distorts the outcome of these meetings.

There is also the fact that the COP process itself is not a healthy one. Alok Sharma and his team deserve a huge amount of praise for bringing this COP to a successful end, but no-drama Sharma was himself reduced to tears. The secretary-general issued a statement that reads more like a statement from an NGO about how disappointed he is and how people have been let down by the process. It is a very opaque process and hugely complex. Some 57 legal papers were negotiated over three different legal fora in the space of two weeks, full of jargon and technical language. Even the lawyers struggled to keep up. How are poorer nations meant to do the same? How is this inequitable system allowed to continue?

To steal the phrase of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter—whom I congratulate on his maiden speech—it seems that the experts have built a “Titanic”. Perhaps it is time now for the amateurs, the observers and those people affected by climate change, to take over and demand more of this process.

In the short time I have available, I want to outline a six-point plan—that seems to be the way of things—much of which will overlap with the noble Baroness, Lady Young. On the global front, the first thing the Government must do is maintain the resources going into the departments that have led to the successful outcome of the COP. We cannot see a shrinking-back of our diplomatic effort at this time. We have another year to land a successful outcome in Egypt. We must keep the pressure on. Please let us see the civil servants being kept in their roles and continuing to push for more.

The second point is that it would be timely, ahead of the global stocktake, for us to do a review of this COP-MOP process to see whether it is fit for purpose. How can it be made more relevant, simpler, more accessible and more representative? How can we make sure that we are focusing the debate and the negotiations on the things that matter most? That is about increasing the pace of ambition in cutting emissions. The wider context could not be clearer. The nationally determined contributions that have been put together to date under the Paris Agreement would have emissions higher in 2030 by some 14% than they were in 2010 and we need to see them cut by 25% to 50% over that timescale if we are to have any chance of staying below 2 degrees and seeking to get to 1.5 degrees. Something is broken. We need a review. This COP-MOP process and the subsequent COPs could be made far more effective.

We should be looking at supportive parallel UN negotiations. We have had pledges on methane; let us turn those into an actual treaty on reducing methane globally. Let us look again at the supply of fossil fuels. A non-fossil fuel proliferation treaty may now be needed to cut back on the exploration and the digging out of fossil fuels.

I am out of time. Very quickly and thirdly, let us turn those pledges into action and NDCs. On the domestic front, we must revise our own net-zero targets and look again at whether we move faster. Symbolically, we need to lead so that others can follow. We must look at our supply-side issues—let us stop Cambo. On agriculture, let us get really quickly into reforming agricultural subsidies and then tell the rest of the world how we did it.

I thank noble Lords for their patience and I am sorry to have overrun, but I would just like to say the words of my friend who said:

“At least 1.5 is alive—just like Elvis.”

Antarctica: Centenary of Scott Expedition

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on securing this most timely and important debate.

Much has changed in the 100 years since Scott and Shackleton’s epic journey to the South Pole. In 1912 the polar regions were an unknown wilderness, a hostile environment that thwarted man’s efforts to conquer it. We now know much more about these unique features of our planet and have a much greater understanding of their importance and how human activities are impacting them, largely thanks to the work of the British Antarctic Survey.

The year 2012 may be remembered not just as the centenary of Scott’s epic achievement but as the year in which the polar sea ice melted at such an alarming rate that the scientists studying it began using phrases like “shocking”, “staggering” and “scary”. Predictions about the rate at which the warming of our world would lead to losses of Arctic ice have been proven woefully optimistic; the pace of change is far faster than models predicted and the impacts of climate change are happening far sooner than we had thought.

In that context, the work of scientists at the British Antarctic Survey should be being praised, encouraged and supported. It is they who have been monitoring the west Antarctic ice sheet, which is suspected to be dangerously unstable and which over time could ultimately lead to a rise in sea levels of more than three metres if it collapsed. Instead, I find it absolutely astounding that BAS should have recently lost its director and now be facing a poorly thought-through merger for which no clear business case appears to have been provided.

I have been investigating the background to these proposals and have been told that NERC’s initial proposal was to inflict swingeing cuts on BAS, but the ring-fenced funding arrangement put in place by the Foreign Office effectively stopped this, on the basis that BAS provides an important strategic presence in the South Atlantic. This so infuriated NERC that it in effect sacked the then director and came up with another plan to cut BAS down to size by merging it with the National Oceanography Centre. I wonder why NERC is pursuing a campaign against BAS. What has it done to deserve the threat of dissolution? BAS’s history of world-leading science does us proud, and it has produced many important findings of global significance, not least the discovery of the ozone hole by BAS scientist Joe Farman.

The consultation on the proposals closed last week, but many experts will have been loath to comment, given that NERC essentially holds the purse strings for many of them. To step out of line and criticise could mean funding being withheld. As if to add insult to injury, the documents setting out the vision for the proposed merged organisation illustrate a marked departure from the principles currently embodied by BAS. Instead of focusing on the pursuit of pure science, the emphasis is to be on the national interest, the UK economy and the derisking of investment in the polar regions.

At times, I have the sense that I have stepped through the looking glass into the surreal world of Alice in Wonderland precisely when science is telling us that the burning of fossil fuels is having a far faster and more dramatic effect on our global ecosystem than we could have predicted, and that our scientific institutions are being co-opted to assist in the extraction of ever more fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels unabated should now be viewed as a reckless, immoral act. Our generation’s challenge is to rid ourselves of this dangerous addiction and to leave the reserves in the ground, if necessary, not to support the discovery of more. Faced with a raging inferno, we should not be asking our firefighters to help pile on more wood.

What a squalid period of history we are living through if pure scientific endeavour is not deemed in and of itself worth while and where scientific institutions must be harnessed to further commercial interests. The people behind this vision statement ought to be embarrassed. NERC must be urged to reconsider, and I hope that the Government would, if necessary, intervene to restore confidence in BAS and its scientists.

With each passing year, it becomes clear that human society is on a collision course with nature, and there will be huge repercussions. Explorers such as Scott and his men embody the human drive to increase our understanding and extend our dominion. However, there are some forces too powerful for us to conquer and control. During this debate, I ask that we reflect not just on Scott’s bravery and the UK’s undisputed scientific achievements but on human frailty, for that is an important part of this story. Continuing on the collision course with nature that we are now on imperils the lives of millions of people alive today and billions of people yet to be born. If our polar regions do not survive, neither will society as we know it. In this centenary year, we must protect and enhance our scientific capacities in the polar regions, and this means retaining BAS as a centre of excellence.

Perhaps I may humbly suggest that if reforms are needed, let us start with a review of NERC itself, because in this instance it appears to be acting as an extremely poor and short-sighted guardian of our world-leading scientific institutions.