Climate Change Conference

Debate between Duncan Hames and Christopher Chope

Thursday 18th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead a debate on the 2010 climate change conference at Cancun. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for its excellent judgment in allocating time for this debate.

I thank Green Alliance and Christian Aid for answering questions as I researched for the debate. I also thank the many constituents who impressed upon me their concerns and priorities for the Cancun conference, especially the climate activists I met as part of the Big Climate Connection. Their representations were a great encouragement. I do not have to choose between being an advocate for some of the most climate-vulnerable people in the poorest countries and representing my constituents, because the former is exactly what my constituents want me to do.

When applying to the Backbench Business Committee, I said that a third of Members are new and have not yet had an opportunity to debate climate change policy. Some of them are keen to take part in this debate; I particularly look forward to the contribution of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who speaks for the Opposition; like me, she joined the House of Commons this year.

I start by acknowledging the leadership of the last Government and the former Prime Minister, and the role played by the current Leader of the Opposition, in achieving a world first with the Climate Change Act 2008. I also acknowledge the contribution made by Members of Parliament from both sides of the House, many of whom are no longer Members, to strengthening that legislation. It is a record of leadership of which they can all be proud, and one that the new Government must build upon, not only with ambition and commitment but, crucially, in terms of delivery.

The Foreign Secretary has described climate change as perhaps the 21st century’s biggest foreign policy challenge. The Cancun conference is critical to the international response to that challenge. Not only has action become increasingly urgent, but disappointment about Copenhagen has led many to question the ability of the international frameworks of the United Nations to address that challenge. Prior to the Copenhagen conference, public expectations had reached fever pitch despite the opaque nature of those negotiations and the difficulty that many had in foreseeing the obstacles—and, for that matter, exactly who was putting those obstacles in the way.

The Foreign Secretary acknowledged in a recent speech in New York that Copenhagen had not delivered on these high expectations because of a “lack of political will”. Sadly, it seems that the easiest lesson to be learned from Copenhagen was how to manage expectations for Cancun. At Cancun, the world needs to make progress in making binding undertakings for mitigation and in funding commitments for adaptation. The best approach to undertakings for mitigation is to bring on board everyone that you can, and to make as much progress as possible, even if some parties are unwilling to come to the table. I hope that continuing progress in engaging the Chinese Government, as exemplified by Ministers in recent weeks, will allow substantial progress in that regard, even if some in the United States Congress continue to set their faces against the country’s global responsibilities.

I am sure that others will want to speak about mitigation and to suggest ways forward. However, in the time available to me I shall focus on climate finance. A report earlier this month by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing—the AGF—sets out a number of innovative ways to deliver the substantial Copenhagen target of $100 billion of climate finance a year by 2020. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on his role on the AGF and his contribution to the report.

The advisory group report called the $100 billion commitment “challenging but feasible”. We must take on that challenge in Cancun, however gloomy the sky that heralds the conference. After all, feasible means achievable: we must not live down to expectations. That finance must be truly additional to aid. Global aid transfers amount to about $120 billion a year. Redirecting the bulk of that money would have disastrous effects on humanitarian provision across the globe.

We cannot fund climate adaptation by diverting and repackaging aid, or by cutting vital funds for urgent programmes such as the fight against malaria. Similarly, initiatives to harness private-sector expertise and finance in tackling climate change are welcome; they are critical to the solution and should be welcomed, but they should not be credited to the developed countries’ accounts. Their task, and their responsibility, is greater than that. What is more, many small-scale climate adaptation projects show no financial return, and remain stubbornly unattractive for private investment. I hope that the Minister will agree that although leveraging private finance is indeed important, public finance remains irreplaceable in meeting the climate needs of the poorest people.

I have already mentioned eye-watering sums. The accountant in me might stray into the sometimes dry subject of financial commitments; instead, I shall illustrate what this climate finance is for, and the difference it can make.

More than half of rural households in India still lack electricity. Fast-start finance funds off-grid, locally managed renewable energy schemes that deliver electricity to rural villages. Kasai village in Madhya Pradesh is not connected to the national grid. Since 2005, a small 10 kW biomass plant has generated electricity for Kasai. The plant provides lighting for houses, streets and the school, power for entertainment, and the electricity to run a flour mill, a milk-chilling unit and a water-pumping system. Kasai has biomass in abundance—wood, crop residues, oil seeds and cattle dung—and it is gathered by villagers. There is a maintenance fee and a user charge, and the scheme is overseen by a village committee of six men and five women.

The benefits of that scheme are manifold. Every house has piped water; far fewer residents migrate; agricultural production has trebled with the availability of water for irrigation; villagers can sell milk that previously went bad in the heat; and the new mill allows people to process wheat and rice and to sell the flour. The urgent need for a reliable energy supply is met, and the use of renewable energy means that growth in carbon emissions is limited. Those double wins are just one example of a fast-start-finance climate project allowing a village to thrive that once was dying.

At Copenhagen, developed countries pledged $30 billion in short-term finance for projects like that between 2010 and 2012. Of that $30 billion, $10 billion was pledged by the European Union, which has so far delivered about $7.8 billion through existing channels such as the World Bank and the EU’s global climate change alliance. When will the Government set out the timing and the delivery mechanisms for allocating the remaining fast-start finance that the Government have pledged? Is the £1.5 billion pledged for fast-start finance in the comprehensive spending review additional to the Government’s overseas development assistance commitments? If not, will the Minister at least assure the House that that is not a reflection of the Government’s attitude to long-term climate finance?

Developed countries can now respond to the progress of the advisory group, and to the menu of recommendations that it has made; they have clear practical choices on how to meet their obligations. This is a key opportunity for the Government to show leadership at Cancun, plotting the road map for mobilising finance and turning these innovative sources into a reality. The advisory group identifies a menu of options—the auctioning of emissions allowances, carbon taxes, levies on international aviation and maritime transport, multilateral development banks, and even a financial transactions tax. Those are realistic options that can generate serious revenue. I invite the Minister to give some indication as to which of the innovative sources of finance, identified by the UN advisory group, are priorities for his Department ahead of Cancun. Will he support a levy on international aviation and shipping? Will the British Government show leadership through the EU in co-ordinating a critical mass of developed countries to make possible a financial transactions tax?

Developing countries suffer more than 90% of the effects of climate change despite having done the least to contribute to its causes. Some 250 million people are directly affected by desertification and 1 billion are at risk. Another 135 million people are at risk of displacement due to the effects of environmental deterioration. Many of those people are the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Countries such as Malawi, Bangladesh and Sudan are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change despite having done the least to contribute to rising carbon emissions.

This is all our doing, but it is the most vulnerable people in the world who face the consequences. We have a responsibility to them. That much was acknowledged at Copenhagen. Action on climate finance now is not some kind of vague add-on, something that would be nice to achieve, or even an apology for failing to reaching binding agreements on mitigation. It is an essential component in reaching an internationally just settlement as part of the response to this global challenge.

Our Secretary of State has clearly made good progress with his colleagues on the advisory group in pointing to how climate finance can be delivered. Now the world needs to move forward. We need concrete proposals and the Government to show leadership at these negotiations. We must seek to build international consensus; to co-operate and to get the negotiations back on track. It is too late to stop now.

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Before calling the next speaker, may I say that it is the wish of the Backbench Business Committee that this debate continues only until 4.30? Therefore, I hope to call the Front Benchers at about 4 o’clock, so that we can give sufficient time to the second debate on our agenda.