G20 and COP 29 Summits

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will have seen the clean power objective—the plan that will be coming out before the end of the year—which I think will address many of these concerns. I understand her concerns about the last COP just gone, but we have to build on this. There are two alternatives: either we give up and walk away saying, “We did not get what we wanted, so why continue?” or we just have to keep going, because each time progress is being made. The noble Baroness will know that nothing happened for 11 years about the issues that were agreed in Paris to proceed on carbon markets; at this COP, we finally agreed the rules, so progress is there. It is not enough, and it is not fast enough, but that is why we have to keep on going. The noble Baroness will see that we are making progress on clean power. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, we have already started working with Brazil about what will happen at the next COP. Perhaps I am just an optimist, but I think we just have to try to make progress at every stage we possibly can.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I heard what the noble Baroness said about the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia. Surely the strategic issue to be squared within the treaty is not the security of the base but the permissions of the US forces stationed there, particularly the B52 bombers, to prosecute operations from there without being subject to any form of a red card from the Mauritian Government. Can she confirm that the wording of the treaty is sufficiently clear that American operations mounted from Diego Garcia will not in some way be prejudiced?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord raises an important point. We are confident that the treaty does provide those assurances. That was part of the discussions which took place during the last Government prior to the treaty being signed.