COP 26

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. The UK presidency marked Ocean Action Day at COP, championing a call for action to protect and restore ocean health and resilience. For instance, more than 100 countries have now signed up to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030. My noble friend Lord Goldsmith is obviously very heavily involved in this work and will continue to lead international action in this area.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I was surprised that the Prime Minister rather bravely referred to Aristotelian virtue in the Statement. Four essential characteristics of virtue, according to Aristotle, are prudence, temperance, courage and justice. There is no provision in the Glasgow agreement for loss and damage payments—reparations for the fact that the global south is already suffering deadly horrendous damage because of the emissions of the global north. The Statement says that Alok Sharma will push countries to go further. Will the UK lead in putting in funds for loss and damage, as Scotland has already done, reflecting the fact that the most vulnerable nations made it very clear at COP that they expect this to be fully sorted out at Sharm el-Sheikh?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am surprised that the noble Baroness did not realise that this was, in fact, the first COP decision that included a position on loss and damage, which is a recognition of how seriously developed countries are taking their obligations. The Glasgow dialogue was launched better to co-ordinate financial support for extreme impacts, and it agreed that there would be a dialogue between parties, relevant organisations and stakeholders to discuss the arrangements for funding activities to avert, minimise and address loss and damage. We also established the functions of the Santiago network, which will provide technical assistance to developing countries to address loss and damage. So progress was most certainly made.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Viscount. That is why we were so pleased, for instance, with the 140 leaders representing over 90% of the world’s forests pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. We also had 45 nations pledge action and investment to protect nature and to shift to more sustainable ways of farming and, as I mentioned earlier, there was action on the global ocean. The noble Viscount is absolutely right, and that is why we put this front and centre and included it in COP in a way that had not happened before. My colleague, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, is leading this: he is passionate about it and will continue to talk to global colleagues in order to keep this agenda going forward.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement says that we have seen countries that really should know better dragging their heels on their Paris commitments. The Minister will be aware that the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance has launched, led by Denmark and Costa Rica and also involving the states of California and Quebec. Given that we are committed to 1.5 and one of the commitments of the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance is 1.5, meeting Paris commitments, are we not dragging our heels by not signing up to this alliance?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

No. We have been central to action in this area. For instance, we were central to setting up the Powering Past Coal Alliance which now has 165 members, including national and subnational Governments, businesses and organisations. We will obviously continue to look at this area but we are certainly leading the way. In fact, the transition is already under way. In OECD countries, the share of coal in power generation has fallen from a peak of 40% in 1990 to a low of 23% in 2019. As we have said, although perhaps we had watered-down language, as we have all accepted, the end of coal is in sight, and that is what we want to continue to work to.