UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am afraid this is far beyond my brief, given that my focus is on international poverty alleviation, environment and climate change, but I will ensure that her question is noted and that there is a response.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, one thing about the SDGs is that they are not about ODA; they are about all countries making a commitment to address these vital goals for the future. One of the goals that will impact on poverty is goal 13 on climate change and the action that we need to take, not only domestically—I am not going to talk outside his brief. What are the Government doing to ensure that climate change and SDG 13 are a major priority for the international community? Will the Minister commit to making steps to ensure that the UN adopts climate as the fourth pillar so that we can actually see the world address this issue to safeguard our future?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, it is widely acknowledged that COP 26, of which we were president, was a diplomatic triumph. We did not achieve everything that we wanted to achieve, but by the time we completed the conference—we remain president until we hand over to Egypt—90% of the global economy was signed up to net-zero commitments; it was 30% when we took on that role. As to broadening the agenda at the climate conference beyond merely counting carbon and looking at the impact on the natural world—forests, mangroves and so on—I think it is recognised that COP 26 was the turning point that we needed. We remain president of COP and continue to maintain and nurture the diplomatic capabilities that we built up for COP 26. All our climate environment attachés are still working hard to ensure that, as we hand the baton to Egypt, we hand over something that can be properly built on by the new president. We are also using the same network to advance global ambition in relation to the biodiversity COP, which is happening in Montreal at the end of the year and is no less important than the climate COP.