Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

1. What support his Department provides to help developing countries manage the effects of climate change.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to prioritise (a) tackling the effects of climate change and (b) protecting the environment in developing countries.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to prioritise (a) tackling the effects of climate change and (b) protecting the environment in developing countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

It is clearly true that many of the people who are suffering most are from some of the poorest countries in the world that emit very little carbon, which is why a great deal of our emphasis is on the question of resilience. I have just returned from Kenya, for example, where we are working with pastoralists whose grassland is being eliminated and with people in Lamu who are losing mangrove swamps. Such countries are not emitting carbon but are suffering from its effects.

[Alex Chalk]

On that precise issue, what is being done to improve resilience in water security, to ensure that that does not become a source of conflict, or indeed disease, in future?

[Rory Stewart]

The question of water security is absolutely central. It poses the danger of conflict, for example in the Indus valley and along the headwaters of the rivers that flow into Egypt on the Nile. It is also an area where technology can help, however. We have become much better at preventing water waste. In many developing countries, 50% of the water is wasted; technology is part of the answer to this problem.