COP29 and International Climate Finance

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Development (Anneliese Dodds)]

It is a real pleasure to serve in this Chamber with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) for securing this debate and speaking so powerfully. I will do my very best to answer her questions in setting out the Government’s approach to this genuinely critical area, which is so important for all our futures, particularly those of the poorest people in the world.

This Government are getting on with reconnecting Britain to the world and modernising our approach to international development in a spirit of genuine partnership and respect, as I set out in a speech at Chatham House a couple of weeks ago. That speech built on the Foreign Secretary’s lecture at Kew Gardens, in which he reiterated our view that action on the climate and nature crisis must be at the heart of everything that we do. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire for making reference to that; it is a genuine and important commitment. We believe that action on the climate crisis is critical to grow our economy and bring opportunities to people across our country and globally, and we know that our partners around the world share that ambition. When I was in Indonesia, for example, I was pleased to sign an agreement on critical minerals with the Government there, working on the climate crisis and green growth with them. We have a strong shared agenda, and we need to solidify that partnership globally.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) on securing this important debate. We have already heard that the UN has identified a need for £600 billion of additional private finance if we are to tackle climate change. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that in the UK, due to the expertise of the City, we are uniquely placed to lead on that? Does she also agree that the UK delegation to COP in Baku must make an ambitious new goal for private investment in the climate a major priority?

[Anneliese Dodds]

As ever, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on every point. With your permission, Sir Roger, I will come back to the subject of private finance in a moment, as well as to the precise contours of our engagement around leadership in the COP system and, more broadly, in innovation in this area. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points.

We are clear that situations of extreme humanitarian need globally are so often driven by conflict and climate crisis—in fact, they are often driven by the two intertwined. I unfortunately saw that for myself in South Sudan, at the Bentiu camp for internally displaced people. People escaping the horrific civil war in Sudan are managing to make it to the IDP camp, but they are surrounded by floodwater. It is now a permanently flooded area, making an already horrendous situation worse. We need to recognise the fundamental impact that the climate crisis is having right now, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire rightly underlined.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) rightly mentioned the COP system. I will come to the climate COP in a moment, but the UK team is currently hard at work at the biodiversity COP—COP16—in Cali, Colombia. They are working with partners from around the world, from indigenous people to the presidency of next year’s climate COP in Brazil.

[Mr Perkins]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. I have just returned from Colombia with a delegation from the United Kingdom at the biodiversity COP. I can report to her that there was huge support from across the world for the definitive action that the Government are taking and the leadership they are showing on nature and biodiversity. That should give her all the more confidence to make a strong case to those going to Baku.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am glad to hear that. It appears that we are making strong headway in protecting and restoring the wonders of the natural world, both land and sea, including at that COP meeting. As the Foreign Secretary has said, we must consider nature along with climate when we face up to the problems and opportunities that arise from this situation. Nature holds so many of the essential, cost-effective solutions that can help us to meet many shared goals, including building climate resilience. It is important to consider both.

I am very pleased to be heading to Baku for the climate COP alongside the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, who attended previously when in opposition. As well as coming forward with our own ambitious, nationally determined contribution for the UK at COP29, we are determined to support others to scale up their ambition and action. That includes initiatives such as the global clean power alliance, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire may have heard mention of. That is a strong commitment from the new UK Government. We are determined to deliver greater political momentum.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked about the relationship between domestic and international policy. For the first time, the UK is able to speak with credibility on this because of the new Government’s stating that we will not grant new oil and gas licences, removing the ban on onshore wind and introducing other measures. It shows that we are not just talking the talk—we are walking the walk. That kind of credibility is critical in these negotiations.

When speaking with our friends based on small islands and in fragile and vulnerable states, such as many of those the UK Government met with at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Samoa, we hear very loudly and clearly how difficult it is for them to access the finance that they need, especially climate finance. Very little of it is getting to those who need it, particularly fragile and conflict-affected states. The UK is determined to work with our partners to change that. I have prioritised, including at the World Bank annuals last week, trying to push hard for sources of climate finance and adaptation finance to be available. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for mentioning the role of farmers. The proportion of climate finance that reaches farmers in the most fragile and conflict-affected states is minuscule, particularly for adaptation. That must change urgently.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire that we must increase the level of dedicated climate finance from all sources across the causes and impacts of the climate crisis. We are determined to agree an ambitious new collective quantified goal; that is absolutely pivotal to our negotiations and vital to maintaining the global consensus of the Paris agreement and keeping 1.5° of warming within our reach. The UK is working extremely hard on this. The Department I am based in and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero are working closely together and with our new climate and nature representatives. We have been carrying that forward at every opportunity.

[Ellie Chowns]

Will the Minister put a number on what she is talking about?

[Anneliese Dodds]

Of course, that collective quantified goal needs to be agreed. From the UK’s point of view, we are determined to exercise leadership. I am delighted that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, who was engaged in this 16 years ago and managed to achieve great things then, is working with my Department, our representatives and so many contacts from all across the world to say, “How can we put forward the overall figure that is needed?” It has to be jointly agreed, as the hon. Member knows. The most important thing is that we get a figure out at the end because if those negotiations do not succeed, we will be taking a step backwards when we are in a situation of such urgent need.

[Ellie Chowns]

Might the Minister be able to put a number on what she would consider UK leadership to be financially?

[Anneliese Dodds]

As the hon. Member rightly mentioned previously, the UK has traditionally been a funder in this area, focusing particularly on the quality of climate finance and ensuring that there is sufficient grant and concessional finance. That is something we are determined to continue to do.

I go back to the fact that it has to be a collectively agreed goal, but the hon. Member could not see a team working harder on this matter. We want to ensure that we get to an agreement. Of course, many forces do not particularly want to see the global north agreeing with the global south on this—we believe we can come together. In fact, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting we saw the agreement within the Commonwealth around plastics pollution. We need to take that same spirit forward when it comes to this goal.

For our part, as well as co-chairing the global green climate fund, we are working towards making good on the UK’s pledge to get help to those who need it. We want robust roles to be agreed for article 6 on how countries co-operate to reduce emissions. We need real follow-through from the global stocktake on commitments such as tripling renewable power and doubling energy efficiency globally by 2030, and we need implementation of the national adaptation plans as we scale up finance in support. We have committed £100 million to the taskforce on access to climate finance that the UK co-chairs with Rwanda, and we are working with the World Bank and the board of the new fund for those facing devastating loss and damage; the hon. Member was right to mention that as being important.

There is a huge amount to do. A few days ago, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor headed to the International Monetary Fund, I was at the World Bank in Washington pressing it to shoulder more risk so it can do more to unlock hundreds of billions of dollars and help the poorest and most vulnerable. To go back to the point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous), that has to include unlocking private finance, which is incredibly important, and we need to see innovation, too.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire rightly referred to the fact that we need to be front-loading this funding right now. There is interesting innovation going on with some of the multilateral development banks, and we are pushing them to deliver on making that finance available as quickly as possible; when it comes to mitigation in particular, now is the time we need to be acting. We are championing financial innovation, including insurance and guarantees. Under the new Government, the UK has been pushing particularly for climate-resilient debt clauses.

I will finish on that subject of debt, which I know is of huge concern to many, and my hon. Friends the Members for Southgate and Wood Green and for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) were right to mention it. We have been pushing the G20 process for more action on debt. It is positive to see Zambia going through that process, but we need to see more action. That is why we are pushing hard on this and in the Paris club because it cannot be acceptable that we see such high levels of spending on debt rather than on health, education and, indeed, the kind of issues we are talking about.

[Ellie Chowns]

I refer back to the figure that the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) mentioned—the UN’s finding that we need £600 billion of international climate finance per year to address the challenge that we face. That is actually the same amount that is invested in oil and gas every year. Does the Minister agree that we must put a complete end to all public subsidy or support for fossil fuel industries right now? Can she comment on the role that the UK could and should play in ending all such subsidies?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. She may have heard the Chancellor state today that this new Government will ensure that what was described as a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, but did not operate as one because of the numerous loopholes, will be tightened up. We will ensure that support for decarbonisation is incentivised, rather than disincentivised, as it was under the previous approach to taxation, so big changes are taking place.

Now is the time for the global action that the hon. Lady rightly focused on. I was in New York for the UN General Assembly with some representatives of small island developing states, which are particularly hard hit. They said that their slogan used to be, “1.5 to stay alive,” but it is becoming, “1.5 and we might survive”. This really is urgent, and the new UK Government are determined to do all we can to exercise leadership, working in partnership with others.

Question put and agreed to.