COP29: UK Priorities

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK priorities for COP29.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I feel very lucky to have secured my second Westminster Hall debate as a brand new MP, and on this very important subject. I am also delighted that members of the all-party parliamentary group on climate change are here today and I look forward to hearing contributions from hon. Members from across the House.

It sometimes seems from the TV or the internet that the climate emergency affects other people. Floods, droughts and food shortages are certainly becoming more common, but the threat is often seen as only hitting those in far-flung places. But when I knock on doors in my constituency of Ealing Southall, as I do regularly, people tell me that they are worried about the climate emergency and the damage being done to nature, our environment and our economy right here in the UK.

Already, climate breakdown has seen more extremes of weather in the UK. Flash flooding is an increasing risk to homes, businesses and even lives. Food shortages are becoming more regular as UK and European farmers struggle with a climate that we can no longer rely on, and hotter summers have led to a health emergency, with an estimated 2,500 people in the UK killed by heatwaves in 2020.

My constituents in Ealing Southall are worried both about how climate breakdown is affecting them right now and how it might affect their children in the future. Given that more than half my constituents were born outside the UK, many are also concerned about friends and relatives at the sharp end of climate breakdown, whether from rain-induced landslides in Pakistan or heatwaves in India.

So what is the world doing? The COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan in November is a crucial moment for countries across the world to work together to prevent further climate breakdown and to try and undo the damage done so far. The conference will ask countries including the UK to sign up to new, more stringent targets to reduce harmful emissions that cause climate change.

The conference will also try to agree new funding to help developing countries pay some of the costs of reducing and adapting to climate breakdown—funding, primarily from developed countries like the UK, which have been responsible for so much of the historic emissions from industrialisation. It will also look at further steps to end our reliance on oil and gas, which are a big part of the causes of the climate crisis. It is vital that the new targets are robust enough to keep global temperatures down and that the funding agreement is fair to developing countries.

But we have been here before. In 2021, at the COP26 climate conference, the UK agreed to targets that we have not delivered. Indeed, the Climate Change Committee found that the previous Conservative Government only had plans in place to deliver about one third of the targets they had agreed to, with almost all targets off track. Although the UK agreed to pay £11 billion over five years to help developing countries, the former Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith resigned when it became clear that the Conservative Government planned to ditch that promise, having delivered just half of the money. On top of all that, despite signing up to start to end our reliance on oil and gas, the previous Government instead granted 27 new licences to dig for oil and gas in the North sea.

I am sorry to say that it is not at all surprising that the previous Government would make agreements that they did not intend to honour, sign up to targets that they had no plans to deliver, and shake hands on a funding deal that they did not intend to pay for. Their entire approach to the climate emergency is to stick their heads in the sand and hope it goes away.

For example, in the UK we have the leakiest homes in Europe—homes that are too cold in winter, but too hot in summer and cost a lot more money than they should to heat. We desperately need a massive retrofitting programme to insulate millions of homes, to stop so much precious energy being wasted as it escapes through walls and roofs, and to reduce energy bills as a result. However, the previous Conservative Government effectively halted home retrofitting programmes and completely failed to take the need to insulate homes seriously. They stopped the growth of renewable energy through a moratorium on wind farms—a self-destructive move that has only kept British families more reliant on Russian gas.

When the Conservative Government did not have their head in the sand, they lost their head entirely. Like headless chickens, they continually changed their mind and U-turned on key promises. They backtracked on the 2030 deadline to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and did similar with the phase-out of gas boilers. It is bad enough that our lungs will continue to be assaulted by toxic fumes for longer, but car and boiler manufacturers also wasted millions of pounds getting ready for a deadline that was then pulled out from under their feet. And guess who pays the bills—the consumer of course, so our first priority for COP29 must be to undo the damage done by the previous Conservative Government. We must showcase the clear evidence that under Labour, the UK can again be trusted to deliver on the international agreements that we make.

Where the previous Government failed, local authorities often stepped in. Ealing council has done amazing work in finding ways to reduce flash flooding by using natural solutions and more innovative approaches. Concrete verges have been replaced by wildflower rain gardens in many places across my constituency. In Dean Gardens—a small park in west Ealing—six street drains have been connected to a huge underground container, made of sustainable material, that is covered by a new wetlands area where water can slowly be released throughout the year. That should significantly reduce the regular flash flooding on Uxbridge Road. Work is currently under way at Lammas Park, also in my constituency, to create seasonal ponds that will help to protect properties around the park from flooding during periods of heavy rainfall. Ealing has also planted tens of thousands of new trees, which offer shade in summer and provide space for birds and other wildlife.

However, after 14 years of austerity, councils struggled to fill the gap left by a Conservative Government who had virtually left the stage, so there was a collective cheer across the country when this new Labour Government took power and immediately showed their commitment to taking action on what is the biggest threat to our health and prosperity. The new Secretary of State straightaway announced an end to our reliance on expensive and unreliable oil and gas and has backed that up by setting up Great British Energy. That will see massive investment in renewable energy, ending our addiction to fossil fuels, increasing our energy security and reducing bills for families.

Already, the new Government have doubled investment, resulting in 131 renewable energy projects coming forward to power 11 million UK homes, demonstrating that business has faith in Labour’s commitment to clean energy. That is a huge contrast to the situation a year ago when no energy companies at all expressed interest when the Conservative Government went out to tender. The new Government have ended the moratorium on offshore wind farms and we have gone even further—we have committed to becoming a world leader in floating wind farms. Our warm homes plan will see the Government work hand in hand with local councils to insulate leaky homes, and we will move swiftly to decarbonise public buildings.

Finally we have a Government who are serious about climate breakdown here in the UK, so a further priority for COP29 must be to develop new targets for reducing our own country’s emissions over the next five-year period. We have an opportunity to set the pace globally by making those as robust and stretching as we possibly can, and if we can sketch out our ambitions in advance of the November conference, we can establish a high bar for others to aim at. By February we will need detailed plans on how we will deliver on the targets, so that we do not repeat the Conservatives’ approach of promising everything and delivering little. It will be important to include detailed plans with local authorities and regions—key delivery partners on the ground that were often ignored by the previous Government. In fact, in 45 pages of targets agreed by the Conservatives, there were just six sentences on what local councils could do.

Finally, we need to come to an honest agreement on how much we can commit financially to repairing the damage done to many developing nations. I am confident that, unlike the Conservatives, this Government will stick to the agreement we make and will deliver it in full.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, particularly as we come up to COP29 in Azerbaijan, which I am looking forward to attending, and I congratulate her on an excellent speech. At COP28, a historic agreement was reached to establish a loss and damage fund for vulnerable countries. My heritage is from Pakistan, which, like Bangladesh, has contributed the least to the problem yet is among the most vulnerable to it. The compensation will only come into effect in 2025. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK must work with allies to prioritise pushing forward on this fund, to ensure that countries growing more vulnerable to climate crisis have the means to protect their civilians and infrastructure?[Interruption.]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind all Members to put their phones on silent.