Climate Change: COP 26

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I join those congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, on securing this debate. I add my congratulations to the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Exeter on his excellent maiden speech. We are looking forward to hearing many more contributions and I hope I can work with him on rural areas. I declare my interests: I am a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water, a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities, president of National Energy Action and a member of the rural action group of the Church of England synod.

I join those paying tribute to the president, Alok Sharma, who came into his own in securing the agreement that was reached during COP 26. I warmly congratulate our own Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, hot from his triumph and excellent work on the Environment Act, on being able to build on that at COP 26. Glasgow and Scotland also came into their own by hosting and rising to the occasion.

One of my regrets is that population growth did not really feature at all in the procedures and processes of COP 26, yet it is generally recognised to be one of the greatest challenges that we face. A number of speakers have alluded to this in the debate so far. I hope we can grasp the nettle on that, certainly next year—not just in terms of communities being displaced but the rise and explosion of population growth globally, which contributes hugely to climate change. What will the test of the success of COP 26 be? Will it be the effects being reduced on the remote island communities? Will it about the cost and impact on the competitiveness of rich nations in helping to reduce those incidents of climate change? In recognising the effects of climate change globally and at home, I would like to focus on those four areas that were targeted for progress at COP 26.

My own experience, certainly domestically, is that of flooding in North Yorkshire. On the floodplains of the Vale of York, indeed in the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber, along with parts of Cumbria and many parts of Gloucestershire—and in the rest of the UK —flooding is something that we experience on an annual basis. On mitigation and adaptation, we can learn to work with nature: to plant trees intelligently; to value the role that farmers have to play in putting food on our plates; and by encouraging them to become more self-sufficient and not putting barriers in their way.

I decided to be environmentally friendly and attend COP 26 only remotely. I was very impressed by one of the sessions I attended on reimagining the future of water, by bringing together communities not just from across the EU but from the island nations. The cost of flood resilience, especially at home, and of installation—alluded to by my noble friend Lord Bridges—bears closer examination. We need to ensure that we give them the tools for what they have to produce. Here I praise the work of the report I was associated with, Bricks & Water, for its sensible recommendations that seem so simple yet are so hard to implement.

Finally, I echo the thoughts of all those who want to see rich and developed countries working with poorer developing countries to ensure that pollution is reduced so that we can, in the long term, tackle climate change.