Climate Change

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I too welcome the excellent maiden speech of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. We welcome him most sincerely to the House of Lords. My thanks go also to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for initiating this important debate.

I shall focus on food and food security. We are all aware of the effect of global conflict on food supplies, not least because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has already identified Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan as facing acute food insecurity. However, it stresses the impact of climate change, quite apart from the conflicts in that part of the world.

Due to excessive heavy monsoon damage to crops, India has very recently banned the export of 10 million tonnes of rice. This follows on from the monsoon damage in Pakistan the year before. Those 10 million tonnes of rice would mostly have gone to Africa—a stable crop that it will not now receive.

The extremes of weather that we see around the world should not just be dismissed as the norm for certain parts of the globe. Global commodity prices will affect us all, and scarcity leads to increased prices at best, starvation at worst.

In the UK, home-produced food production stands at 60%. I believe that we face a long-term challenge, because our attitude is that if we do not produce it here, we can always get it somewhere else. We had some experience of that last winter with winter vegetables, when the shelves in the supermarkets were actually bare.

Recent history tells us that severe flooding, wildfires and extreme weather conditions have always occurred, but not to the extent that they do now. Increasingly, we experience microclimates that did not occur before. I have had some experience of that; my home was flooded twice—a house that had stood for 200 years had three feet of water through the ground floor twice in 10 years—and the Environment Agency told me that I was subject to a microclimate.

Add to this the impact on food production of what is happening to water supplies, as access to water is the most important factor in agriculture. As temperatures rise, rivers, reservoirs, aquifers and the water table drop. Can my noble friend say what is being planned here? In line with what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was asking, can we have a timetable for when these matters will be addressed, not just for outcomes?

Global warming and sporadic extremes of climate have already shown us that this is not a uniform process. Where things will happen is not always predictable; we need science to give us more of a steer. There will also be changes in biodiversity. Animal and plant diseases will begin to appear in areas where previously they were not a threat, which will have a big impact on food and agriculture. What contingency planning is being done? The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, mentioned human health, but this will apply equally to animals, plants and our most important food-producing industries.

I am disappointed that the Government in their food strategy in June last year did not take Henry Dimbleby’s advice to be much bolder in protecting food security and the environment. I hear people talk about 2030 or 2050; I am worried about next year and the year after. An old tune—I will not sing it—keeps going through my head:

“Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think”.