Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
Main Page: Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Kerr of Kinlochard's debates with the Leader of the House
G7 and NATO Summits
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As the noble Baroness will be aware, China is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases and accounts for more than half of the global demand for coal—so we want to work with China in the run-up to COP to raise its ambition on climate change and find a path to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees at COP 26.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]
I congratulate the Prime Minister on the Cornish weather and on managing not to insult or annoy Canada. The biggest challenge to the G7 was clearly the accelerating pandemic, which has now taken 3.5 million lives across the world, with more dying this year already than in all of last year. The shaming fact is that only 0.3% of vaccine supply currently goes to low-income countries. Some 11 billion doses are needed now—so I am afraid that the G7 failed the challenge. Its aspiration to supply 870 million doses by the end of next year, and our talk of contributing 100 million, is painfully inadequate in both quantity and speed. I am afraid that Gordon Brown is right. Will the Minister please convey to the Cabinet the feeling of very many of us in this House that it would be good if we raised our game on vaccine supply before the G20 meeting in Venice?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his comments. He is right that this is a huge global challenge and we all need to work together to deliver on it. However, I point out that the Oxford vaccine is a very important way of helping tackle this pandemic. Of course, we part-funded it, and it is being produced at cost to low and middle-income countries and at scale through manufacturing partnerships across the world. This is already ensuring that more than half a billion doses of the vaccine are available across the world. Of course, we have to ensure that we continue to roll it out, but it is also worth remembering the huge contribution that we have already made through the Oxford vaccine.