COP26

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), all the more so because I think he just said he supported the proposal for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty—a new commitment to leave fossil fuels in the ground. If I heard him right, I would be delighted to work with him to help to achieve that.

COP26 is arguably the most crucial global summit in recent history, so it will be vital that the COP26 unit receives all the support and funding necessary to deliver a successful COP, even if that goes beyond the £260 million it has already been allocated. The world is watching and the stakes could not be higher. I welcome the fact that the COP26 President-designate is now full-time, able to dedicate all his efforts towards the COP, but if we are to achieve the results we so desperately need the whole of Government needs to be oriented towards a successful outcome from the negotiations. That means greater consistency and ambition across Departments if we are to show credible climate leadership, and it means having the plan that the Public Accounts Committee clearly identified as conspicuous by its absence.

It also means addressing the weakness and incoherence of our domestic climate policy: the Government’s failure to call in the recent decision to allow a new coalmine in Cumbria; the £27 billion road building programme; the freezing of fuel duty for the 10th year; the approach whereby air passenger duty is apparently to be reduced; the absence of serious climate action in the Budget; and the lack of a guarantee that measures such as the super deduction tax break will not be available for high-carbon investments. The list goes on, and with a record such as that it is no wonder we are off course to meet both our fourth and fifth carbon budgets. Not only that, but of course those budgets are based on an 80% emission reduction target by 2050, not net zero. No wonder, either, that the latest annual progress report from the Committee on Climate Change highlighted that the Government have failed on 17 of their 21 progress indicators and that just two out of 31 key policy milestones have been met.

When presented with facts such as those, Ministers like to say, “We have reduced emissions by over 40% since 1990”, but let us have some honesty here, because that is true only of territorial emissions, not imported emissions. It has been achieved only by offshoring so much of our manufacturing—in essence, outsourcing our emissions to countries such as China. As well as greater ambition at home, we must also use our presidency to redouble our diplomatic engagements to reinforce the need for strong Paris-aligned climate ambition.

On the arrangements for Glasgow itself, I appreciate that discussions are still ongoing about whether it will be physical attendance, online or a hybrid mode, but however the negotiations take place, everything must be done to ensure full and equal participation of the global south and of civil society. That, of course, means equitable access to vaccines, and on that I echo the words of the Chair of the BEIS Committee. Countries in the global south have already expressed concern in response to the call by António Guterres for preparatory negotiations to take place online. Any online negotiations must be inclusive and all countries must have the technical and financial support they need to participate on equal terms.

Moving on to outcomes, the UN is reporting that only 75 countries so far have brought forward new NDC commitments and that together they would reduce emissions by only about 1% by 2030, which is far from the 45% recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are on course for climate catastrophe, yet a successful COP26 will not be defined by emission targets alone, crucial though those are; it will also mark the start of a process to set a specific target for climate finance beyond 2025. On this, the Government talk a good game, with the Prime Minister repeatedly boasting that the UK has doubled its commitment to £11.6 billion, up from £5.8 billion. While it is true that the UK performs well in some areas—for example, providing the majority through grants and allocating 50% to adaptation— all is not as it seems, as is so often the case with this Government.

The entirety of the UK’s climate finance commitment comes from the aid budget, which the Chancellor is cutting from 0.7% to 0.5%. That is despite the fact that, under the UN framework convention on climate change, climate finance was negotiated by all parties in good faith as new and additional finance. It was understood to be additional to the long-standing commitment to ODA, not taken from money that developing countries were set to achieve anyway. Not only is this morally wrong, it will also undermine the trust that we so desperately need as we head towards the negotiations in November.

As an immediate step, I call on the Government to reverse the cut to the aid budget and to ensure that the finance is genuinely new and additional. As COP26 host, the UK must also call on other countries to bring forward new and additional commitments to climate finance, including at least 50% allocated to adaptation; grants, not loans; and a significant increase in the finance provided to the least developed countries and small island developing states. Just 3% of climate finance reported to the OECD for 2017-18 went to small island developing states—countries that are on the frontline of the climate emergency.

Loss and damage is an overlooked area of the Paris agreement but is profoundly important for vulnerable countries—so important that failing to address this pivotal issue could lead to the collapse of the talks at COP26. Currently, no financial support has been agreed for loss and damage, despite the most vulnerable countries having to take on the debt to deal with consequences of global heating. In January this year, Mozambique was hit by Storm Eloise, which killed more than 1,000 people, destroyed 100,000 homes and flooded thousands of hectares of crops. At that point, the country had yet to recover from Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in 2019, which pushed its public debt to almost 110% of its GDP.

We cannot let vulnerable countries be pushed further into debt by the climate crisis. The UK must put its pre-existing position, which has been to block loss and damage, to one side. It must use its role as a neutral COP26 president to thoughtfully and effectively facilitate a way to progress action on loss and damage finance and to stand in solidarity with communities that are suffering the worst impacts right now. At the heart of COP26 is the issue of climate justice, and as summit hosts, we will be judged on our ability to deliver it.