Queen’s Speech

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am deserting foreign affairs today in favour of the environment because of the importance of climate change to all of us. I also declare my interest as a farmer and NFU member, especially because my family is committed to rewilding and biodiversity—amid the hailstones in west Dorset. Here, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, on his achievements as a Minister; he has done really well and I look forward to the Environment Bill. I welcome my noble friend Lord Morse to the Cross Benches; and I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who is a great campaigner against modern slavery.

Today I will focus on this Government’s international policy on the environment. The Covid pandemic is teaching us some urgent lessons about sharing the world’s resources. These lessons apply as much to poverty reduction and climate change as they do to vaccines. In fact, the two are closely entwined through the Covid fund and through climate finance, which is becoming the major concern of environmentalists in a world of chronic indebtedness.

The UK’s COP 26 January statement says that developed countries must come forward with an ambitious post-2020 climate finance pledge list to achieve and surpass the $100 billion a year goal. The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said on 28 April that we would be doubling our international climate finance to £11.6 billion by 2025 and that we would commit at least £3 billion of it to protecting the natural world. These are impressive figures. The Government are right to be proud of them and of the UK’s record; but what do they mean in practice?

Alok Sharma says we need to drive up global collaboration. Are we doing this? Are we sharing green technology and providing expertise in, for example, east Africa and Nigeria, which have become priority areas? All our trade agreements must surely reflect this necessity and become spurs of action against climate change. How will the Government end their support for fossil fuels overseas? Can the Minister give examples? He will know that much of eastern Europe has long been dependent on brown coal and coal-fired power stations. I saw two of them outside Pristina in Kosovo, smoking away. Will the UK put climate finance into finding alternative sources of energy in the Balkans? My noble friend Lord Broers points the way with hydrogen.

Then, on our own doorstep, we have the Cumbria project, a genuine dilemma for this country, which is setting an example to others. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned incentives and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said that we need more imagination. Surely, we now have politically to decide to phase it out, even if it takes years to achieve. How else can we hold our heads up?

The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, has said that

“The UK is the first major donor nation to commit to making its entire ODA portfolio compliant with the Paris Agreement.”—[Official Report, 28/4/21; col. GC 559]


This is a remarkable claim, even if the amount of ODA has fallen, and I hope that the Government can stand by it. However, does it mean that even less is going into other forms of aid? The poorest countries are not the culprits. Someone has worked out that the entire carbon consumption of sub-Saharan Africa is less than that of one small country in Europe. What we should be concerned about is the proportionately far higher cost of climate change in the LDCs than anywhere else. They know this, but we are slow to realise it.

Let us not characterise ourselves as good Samaritans handing out money to developing countries. Global Britain need not remain a nation of shopkeepers and consumers, making money out of the poor, importing cheap products, condoning corruption and, in many cases, failing to meet environmental labour and human rights standards. We now need to look outwards to spread more ideas on green technology, alternative fuels, diversification and the engagement of the private sector. We have an obligation to share our resources, just like our vaccines, spreading common knowledge and helping other countries to develop their own climate change strategies.

Finally, I am glad to see that Parliament is now taking climate change seriously. The IDC has launched an inquiry about climate change in time for Glasgow. There are at least three other Commons committees and a new one in the Lords following climate change, so all government departments will have to cope with their recommendations.