Climate Change and Flooding

Callum McCaig Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

Certainly. While we are on the subject of sorry sagas, I am afraid that one of the other sorry sagas is the CCS competition, which is a recipe for how not to make policy. It was started, believe it or not, nearly 10 years ago by the Labour Government. I think it was started under Alistair Darling. I then pushed it forward before this Government cancelled the competition, then restarted it and then cancelled it again.

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

It has been an incredibly sorry saga, but I do not think that the previous Labour Government can have anything positive to say about CCS, given how badly they treated it when it was going to be introduced at Longannet.

[Edward Miliband]

I am not saying it is glorious from anyone’s point of view. What I put in place was a mechanism to provide four projects. At the time, the Conservative Opposition said, as Oppositions do, that four was not enough and that there should have been six. Then they cancelled the mechanism, then they said there would be public funding, then they cancelled that competition and then they restarted it. I think we can all agree that it has not been a glorious episode.

The third reason that I think the world has changed is the five-year ratchet mechanism in the agreement. It is a mechanism to ratchet up ambition so that the pledges that countries make meet the aspiration. At the moment, we are saying 1.5 °C, but the pledges add up to 3 °C. We argued for the mechanism and the EU said before the summit that it wanted its emissions to be reduced by at least 40% by 2030. As I understand it, “at least” meant that if there was a stronger agreement, we would ratchet up the EU ambition. I ask the Secretary of State and the Government: what is the mechanism to make that happen? The world has changed, because we have a strong agreement, and the EU said at least 40%, so how are we going to ratchet it up? In his closing remarks at the summit, President Hollande said that he wanted to raise French ambition. I would be interested to hear the Secretary of State say, either today or in the future, how she thinks we can raise that ambition.

A fourth and final thing has changed since Paris, and it relates to the Secretary of State and her role in Government. I want to say something personal to her about that. I think that the thing that has changed after Paris is her negotiating power. Anyone who has been a Secretary of State knows that not all the decisions go their way—that was certainly true when I was Secretary of State. I am sure there have been a number of times over the past few months—obviously, the Secretary of State is not going to say this at the Dispatch Box—when she wanted a decision to go one way but it went another way. Successful Secretaries of State, however, recognise their power, and I say to her that she is empowered by the Paris agreement. She is empowered by it to tell the Prime Minister that he cannot just use warm words abroad and then not follow them through with deeds at home. She is empowered to tell the Chancellor that British business is, frankly, furious at the neglect of a crucial and growing sector of the economy. Above all, she is empowered to be the Cabinet champion for tackling climate change. If the Secretary of State does that—if she is that champion—she will get support from those Members on both sides of the House who believe in this cause, as I know that she does, too. They will support her in her endeavours.

In conclusion, whatever the Secretary of State does, we need to match the high ambition coalition in Paris with a high ambition coalition at home. That high ambition coalition has to combine trade unions, business and civil society. I do not see Paris as the end in any sense; it is merely the beginning—it gives us a new beginning on climate change. In the interests of future generations, we have to seize that moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Floods are clearly devastating at any time, but never more so than at this time of year. We have heard a number of eloquent speeches about the devastation that the floods have wrought, but we also need to remember that we are in a fortunate position, as a rich advanced nation, in that we can afford to rebuild, to rehouse and to protect those who are affected by flooding. Those who are affected by climate change in other parts of the world will not be so fortunate.

For me, the stand-out aspect of the Paris agreement was the $100 billion for the mitigation of climate change. That will allow the poorest nations access to the finance they need to develop in a way that will allow the planet to be protected. It will also give us the opportunity to lock in low carbon emissions without locking in poverty. That is fundamental to the way in which we deal with what has rightly been described as the greatest threat that humanity is facing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr) mentioned the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund, and we as a party are rightly proud of that. This is not a devolved matter, but we have sought to put our money where our mouth is. That money has to be seen as an additional contribution, however; it cannot be taken out of the pot because of what we have done. That needs to be respected nationally and repeated internationally.

We have had many debates in this place on the changes that have been made to the renewables obligation and to the green economy more widely. It disappoints me to state that our target in Scotland of a 100% renewable electricity generation is under threat because of changes to the renewables obligation and the prevarication over contracts for difference. There has also been much slower progress over heat, which represents a bigger challenge in relation to carbon reduction. It is pleasing that there will still be some form of support through the renewable heat incentive, but in the context of what we are dealing with following Paris, the £700 million that has been taken out seems like yet another short-sighted move.

Speaking of short-sighted approaches, the decision on carbon capture and storage is one of the worst that we have heard, and I will continue to bang the drum about that. There has been prevarication over CCS for a number of years. This process just needs to be done. We are talking about spending billions of pounds to prevent the symptoms, but we are not trying to tackle the cure. If we were to put £1 billion into carbon capture and storage, the reduction in the impact of flooding would be a potential game changer. Using carbon capture and storage is the most straightforward way of dealing with the matter. It also has the least impact on our economic model. It allows us to extract the fossil fuels that we discussed—shale, North sea oil or whatever—without having to invest. We will still have to invest in other technologies, but this gives us an opportunity.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Did the hon. Gentleman share a sense of comedy yesterday when the Secretary of State spoke on this matter? She said:

“I believe that CCS is going to play an important part in decarbonising in the future”.—[Official Report, 14 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 1297.]

She then went on to say that, just for now, the Government are cutting the £1 billion subsidy towards it.

[Callum McCaig]

It was comedy of the blackest sort. It is short-sighted and it does not take into account how we can target the reduction at industry, as has been ably suggested.

The action here falls very short of the rhetoric, and very, very short of what is required to deliver and protect those people, both at home and abroad, from the impact of climate change. We need to up our game. It is time that we reset the reset button. I am happy if we in the Scottish National party join the high ambition coalition of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) here in the UK. The SNP is more than ready and willing to play our part in achieving that ambition.