Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Main Page: Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Conservative - Berwick-upon-Tweed)Department Debates - View all Anne-Marie Trevelyan's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Sustainability groups and wider civil society are essential partners to the UK presidency with their links to communities most impacted by climate change. That is why we have established the COP26 civil society and youth advisory council, allowing a regular dialogue with those groups as we plan for COP26, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has also launched this week the “Plant for our Planet” campaign to encourage all our constituents, and perhaps my hon. Friend, to think about the natural world and how we can live and work better within it.
Anthony Mangnall
May I ask the President, and indeed the Vice-President, of COP26 to engage with my constituents and the sustainability groups we have? It is incredibly welcome to hear the steps they are already taking, but we would really like to see a Devonian perspective on COP26 this year.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Well managed agriculture will be a critical contributor to our planet’s climate solutions, and the UK wishes to use its COP26 presidency to drive the global transition to sustainable agriculture and land use. We are committed to using our presidency platform to amplify local climate action, so I am delighted to hear about the activity being led in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and COP unit officials would be very happy to follow up and meet with them.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
Devon is not the only area that is leading the way in developing community action plans, and indeed South Shropshire Climate Action has produced the first constituency-wide action plan, which I will be delighted to present both to the President and the Vice-President following this session. Will there be scope for such community groups that are leading the way in finding practical means for communities to help get to net zero to attend COP26 in Glasgow in order to spread this great practice?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We are really fortunate in the UK to have, as my right hon. Friend has demonstrated, a passionate civil society that is among the world leaders in climate action. The UK launched the domestic “Together for Our Planet” campaign to celebrate climate initiatives across the UK and to inspire the public—and clearly they are already inspired—to be more engaged in climate action in the run-up to COP26. So I would be delighted to receive further information on climate action from Ludlow, as well as any other constituency that wishes to submit it, because to be able to share that is absolutely what COP26 is all about.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
As incoming COP President, the UK is committed to reducing all greenhouse gas emissions and is encouraging all countries to raise their climate ambition in nationally determined contributions and long-term strategies ahead of COP26. The UK announced its NDC last December; it is an all-economy target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% on 1990 levels by 2030, and the UK’s sixth carbon budget will require UK greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 78% by 2035. The emissions scope of these targets does include methane.
Sir Robert Neill
A lot of the debate and discussion focuses on reducing the carbon footprint. I am glad that the Minister includes methane; as she will know, over the course of 20 years, 1 tonne of methane will warm the atmosphere about 86 times more than 1 tonne of carbon. Given that the UN and Climate & Clean Air Coalition report demonstrates that we can nearly halve those emissions by 2030 by using existing technology, will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government will make securing commitments to reductions in methane a priority at the upcoming COP?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
In the UK, we are tackling methane emissions domestically by supporting the agriculture sector to reduce its emissions further through the agricultural transition plan. We have made good progress already to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, in our domestic agriculture sector. We produce a litre of milk with 17% less greenhouse gas emissions and a kilogram of pork with 40% less greenhouse gas emissions than in 1990. In our role as COP president, the UK has established a new international dialogue to raise international ambition on the transition to sustainable agriculture, with around 20 countries currently participating.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The Government are introducing legislation to transform our environment, including measures to improve how we manage our resources and waste, through the Environment Bill. We continue to work with other countries to move towards a resource-efficient and circular economy.
Dr Evans
I am grateful for the Vice-President of COP26’s answer. I have had many conversations with passionate young people from schools around my patch— St Margaret’s School, St Martin’s School and South Charnwood School—who are dedicated to recycling. They wanted me to ask: will the Government consider asking for international targets on recycling rates to drive up recycling across the globe?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As in my hon. Friend’s constituency, the schoolchildren in my own constituency are passionate and regularly communicate with me about reducing waste and reusing materials. The Government’s view is that taking action is the best way to drive progress, harnessing that consumer power to drive changes in packaging use in the goods that we all buy. Our children are the ones who are going to help all us parents across the country to drive that. Domestically, we are introducing the extended producer responsibility scheme to ensure that producers cover the full net cost recovery for packaging waste, and a deposit return scheme to increase the recycling of drinks containers. That will help us achieve a 65% recycling rate by 2035.
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
We are exploring opportunities for strengthened international collaboration on innovation focused on the bioeconomy through Mission Innovation, a global initiative to enable affordable clean energy and achieve the goals of the Paris agreement. Leveraging growth of the bioeconomy will support clean growth across multiple sectors and contribute towards achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Rachael Maskell [V]
The climate crisis is turbocharged, as the trajectory of mitigation ever deviates from planet-saving targets while the Government move at a glacial pace to establish a climate economy. BioYorkshire will not only create 4,000 new jobs and upskill 25,000 people but lay the foundations for world-beating research in biosciences here in York and Yorkshire, offsetting carbon and waste. All we ask is for the Government to bring forward the funding already committed ahead of COP26. Will the Minister agree to do that and meet me to discuss the project and the importance of BioYorkshire?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I am always happy to meet new, interesting and innovative projects, and I am very happy to commit to doing that. We are absolutely leading the way on this. Mission Innovation is an extraordinary organisation, driving and shining a light on some of the most forward-thinking processes. One key challenge in helping developing countries move to clean growth is ensuring that the technologies that UK businesses and our scientists invent and take to market can be used in those developing countries.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
All energy-from-waste plants in England are regulated by the Environment Agency and must comply with the strict emissions limits set in legislation. I am aware that Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd has applied for an environmental permit from the Environment Agency to operate an incinerator in Westbury, Wiltshire, and the Environment Agency is considering responses to the public consultation.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We will be launching a new contract for difference auction at the end of this year. The opportunity for a number of smaller sources of energy storage will be available.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)