Climate Change: COP 26

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for raising this subject and allowing us to debate this most important topic in such a timely manner. I want to make some comments about the mitigation aspects of the Conference of the Parties that was held in Glasgow. The conference itself covered many topics, but in four minutes I would not be able to do it justice.

My first comment is that this was a paradoxical COP as in one sense it was a success but in another an absolute failure. How could it be those two things at once? The first thing to say is that our expectations have been so lowered over the last 26 years that we are now facing a situation where the simple inclusion of the word “coal”—one word in the 57 legal documents that were produced—is seen as a success. This has been the effect of a huge amount of lobbying. Other noble Lords have spoken about the fact that delegations can include the very companies that these talks are meant to regulate and control, which distorts the outcome of these meetings.

There is also the fact that the COP process itself is not a healthy one. Alok Sharma and his team deserve a huge amount of praise for bringing this COP to a successful end, but no-drama Sharma was himself reduced to tears. The secretary-general issued a statement that reads more like a statement from an NGO about how disappointed he is and how people have been let down by the process. It is a very opaque process and hugely complex. Some 57 legal papers were negotiated over three different legal fora in the space of two weeks, full of jargon and technical language. Even the lawyers struggled to keep up. How are poorer nations meant to do the same? How is this inequitable system allowed to continue?

To steal the phrase of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter—whom I congratulate on his maiden speech—it seems that the experts have built a “Titanic”. Perhaps it is time now for the amateurs, the observers and those people affected by climate change, to take over and demand more of this process.

In the short time I have available, I want to outline a six-point plan—that seems to be the way of things—much of which will overlap with the noble Baroness, Lady Young. On the global front, the first thing the Government must do is maintain the resources going into the departments that have led to the successful outcome of the COP. We cannot see a shrinking-back of our diplomatic effort at this time. We have another year to land a successful outcome in Egypt. We must keep the pressure on. Please let us see the civil servants being kept in their roles and continuing to push for more.

The second point is that it would be timely, ahead of the global stocktake, for us to do a review of this COP-MOP process to see whether it is fit for purpose. How can it be made more relevant, simpler, more accessible and more representative? How can we make sure that we are focusing the debate and the negotiations on the things that matter most? That is about increasing the pace of ambition in cutting emissions. The wider context could not be clearer. The nationally determined contributions that have been put together to date under the Paris Agreement would have emissions higher in 2030 by some 14% than they were in 2010 and we need to see them cut by 25% to 50% over that timescale if we are to have any chance of staying below 2 degrees and seeking to get to 1.5 degrees. Something is broken. We need a review. This COP-MOP process and the subsequent COPs could be made far more effective.

We should be looking at supportive parallel UN negotiations. We have had pledges on methane; let us turn those into an actual treaty on reducing methane globally. Let us look again at the supply of fossil fuels. A non-fossil fuel proliferation treaty may now be needed to cut back on the exploration and the digging out of fossil fuels.

I am out of time. Very quickly and thirdly, let us turn those pledges into action and NDCs. On the domestic front, we must revise our own net-zero targets and look again at whether we move faster. Symbolically, we need to lead so that others can follow. We must look at our supply-side issues—let us stop Cambo. On agriculture, let us get really quickly into reforming agricultural subsidies and then tell the rest of the world how we did it.

I thank noble Lords for their patience and I am sorry to have overrun, but I would just like to say the words of my friend who said:

“At least 1.5 is alive—just like Elvis.”