Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

Albert Owen Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

I will make a little progress, if I may. Today’s debate could not be more urgent. Leading climate scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have warned that unless we take urgent action we have just 12 years before global warming rises above the maximum limit of 1.5°. After that, the risk of droughts, floods and extreme heat increases significantly. Just last week, the independent Committee on Climate Change warned that the UK would struggle to meet its own—not-ambitious-enough, frankly—binding targets on climate change unless the Government act to greatly reduce emissions from buildings, while the UK’s most polluting sector, transport, saw no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2017.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

We discussed these issues in the Welsh debate just now and their effect on Wales—I do not think the hon. Lady was here. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, of which I am a member, took evidence on energy efficiency and was told that the resources invested by the Scottish Government were four times higher than those invested by the UK Government and that investment was twice as high in Wales and one and a half times as high in Northern Ireland. This Parliament and this Government have taken their eye off the ball.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Report after report and evidence after evidence show that the UK is not doing enough to drive down emissions.