Climate Change: Impact on Developing Nations

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, it is an extremely hard act to follow the noble Lord, so I shall not. My thanks today go to the noble Baroness, who over many years has been a stalwart of international development in this House and, more recently, on the effects of climate change in developing countries. My particular interest is in Sudan and South Sudan, because of the continuing conflict and genocide there. I am especially concerned about migration, like my noble friend Lord Alton, and the limits of international aid in that region.

Climate change is one of the drivers of migration and therefore concerns us directly as we attempt to reduce the numbers coming across the channel. The Government have got wound up over these numbers, and in my view are not doing enough to slow the original causes through our aid programme, to address the trafficking problem in north Africa as a whole, or to publicise what we and other European countries are already doing. The result is that the country’s concerns seem to be entirely insular, concerned with our backlog and lack of hospitality, and we are even donating some of our limited aid to the Home Office. We have, on the other hand, pioneered the international response to climate change, as we have heard, and our efforts towards climate finance need more recognition and evaluation. I will come back to that.

The situation in north Africa and the Sahel has become more chaotic. Libya in particular is now one of the main sources of trafficking via a string of unsafe detention centres, despite EU funding. France is withdrawing from the Sahel countries where Russia or the Wagner Group have provoked changes of government. The UK’s involvement in the Sahel is minimal, yet the instability and threats from jihadi groups there are bound to rebound on us, as on other European countries. We need to pay more attention to those areas.

It is often impossible to separate climate change from conflict, since the two go together. A well-known example is the long border dispute at Abyei, half way between Sudan and South Sudan, where pastoral interests have clashed with settled farming for years, even within the Dinka people. Exceptional floods and droughts have recently exacerbated this conflict, and now civil war in the north has caused thousands to flee south into that area. International intervention has failed and will probably fail again, but—I note the experience of our new Member on the Benches of the right reverend Prelates—civil society, especially local churches, is struggling to resolve it. The Minister may confirm that the FCDO has been behind some of these efforts. Christian Aid, for example, helps church leaders in Sudan to represent grass-roots voices in advocating for peace and to lay the groundwork for reconciliation. I live in the Salisbury diocese, which is also supporting this effort through its Sudan partnership. Other NGOs work on conflict prevention.

That leads me back to climate change. The ICF, our international climate finance programme, is currently spending £5.8 billion over a five-year period. I am glad that ICAI, the watchdog, has been following the ICF’s progress quite closely and positively. It is going to report to Parliament soon in a rapid review; in particular, it will explain how the ICF contributes to enabling global climate action. It may help to sort out the confusion in my mind about the use of our aid programme. For example, one of the FCDO’s oldest projects is the productive safety net programme in Ethiopia. Much of it is being recategorised, yet that will do nothing to improve Ethiopia’s global response. Is that really the intention? Can the Minister explain this when she answers the similar criticism from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone?

I have no time to talk about Sudan. I say to the splendid remarks from the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, that we must keep trying. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that we are doing soft power.