Rio+20 Summit

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

As this debate has shown, there is considerable scepticism about the prospect of getting much change. The hon. Member for Gower (Martin Caton) said that in recent evidence sessions there has been a downbeat response about what has happened over the past 20 years. The media coverage of the build-up to Rio has revealed concern about the fact that the summit will last for only three days, rather than the 14 days of the original summit. Many people are saying in insistent tones that this must not just be a talking shop, which points to the horrible possibility that it might end up being precisely that.

We must ask why we always seem to end up in such a situation when addressing these issues. We feel very optimistic and set great targets, but a few years down the line we find ourselves wringing our hands and asking why nothing has happened. I am a great believer in the UN and I think it is fantastic that we can pull countries together to discuss common challenges, but we must also be honest with ourselves about some of the UN’s limitations. It can bring people together to agree goals and targets, but it cannot take final decisions on policy or implement policies in individual countries.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) talked about the idea of holding a summit of global legislators. I support that, and wish him the best of luck in making it work. There is something more fundamental that we need to try to do alongside that, however: we must lead by example. We must come up with good ideas, implement them and demonstrate that they can work so that they become, as it were, contagious and spread around the world and other Governments adopt them, too.

[Mr Spencer]

One of the major challenges that we, as a western democracy, face is that some of the things that we are trying to achieve are not very popular. For example, we are addicted to consuming, but we need to reduce our consumption. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that education of the next generation to ensure that they are better than we have been in such regards will be key?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I absolutely agree with that, and I was going to discuss it, because we do not spend anywhere near enough time addressing these issues of our environment and biodiversity, and that is a great shame.

The green campaign groups have been so incredibly successful at highlighting the problem of climate change that there has almost been an unintended consequence that has been unhelpful to the cause: the creation of a sense of resignation among people that there is nothing that they can do, there is huge impending doom and no person on their own can make a difference. That is a dangerous thing to encourage.

The over-emphasis on climate change in the environmental debate has been in danger of eclipsing other equally important issues, such as biodiversity. I have encountered green campaigners who say, “Yes, but tackling climate change is the key to improving biodiversity. If we solve climate change, we solve a lot of other things.” That is true up to a point, because climate change is a factor in undermining biodiversity, but we must recognise that a range of other issues, such as sustainable farming and deforestation, get neglected and overlooked.

The danger of focusing too much on climate change in this debate is that it will not energise the public in a way that other things can. Fundraisers at bodies such as the WWF do not put complicated issues to do with carbon footprints on the front covers of their magazines; they use pictures of baby tigers under threat of extinction, and there is a reason for that. People care about our environment and about issues such as species extinction and biodiversity, so we are missing a trick by not broadening the debate out to engage people more.

For those reasons, I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State and the Government have put the idea of valuing our natural capital front and centre in their approach to this summit, because that is the key message we should get across. There are lots of other conflicting messages, but the one thing we can do is highlight how we can place a value on our natural capital, and some marvellous ideas have been set out in the natural environment White Paper. One example cited has been that pollinators can be worth £400 million a year to our economy. As a former fruit farmer, I can vouch for that, because without the honey bees, the crop cannot be pollinated.

Emotionally, I have a slight problem with some of these ideas, as I think that we should value the intrinsic things about nature and the natural environment. An element of me thinks, “Isn’t it sad that it all has to be about bean counters trying to add up how much money a sparrow might be worth, rather than just valuing it intrinsically?” That said, when the limits of regulation have been reached and innovative solutions are needed, sophisticated ideas of offsetting and environmental plans to mitigate damage that might be caused in other areas can play an important role. There is huge potential in this area.

That is why I wish to finish by outlining one idea that tries to combine all these things. How do we demonstrate that individuals can do things, so that people can see that they can make a difference? We heard a fascinating suggestion in a Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs evidence session on the natural environment White Paper. Professor Hill, one of the leading authorities in this area, suggested that we try to link some of the ambitions of the White Paper with current proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy, because some of the criticisms of the White Paper’s objectives are that there is not really enough money to make it work on the scale required, yet there is a huge amount of money in pillar 1 of the CAP. We could have discussions about how that might be “greened” and it should not be beyond the wit of man to design a clever system—a market in environmental obligations—whereby some farmers might be able to transfer their environmental obligations to others. That may lead, in some of the more marginal land in less favoured areas, to a critical mass of wildlife and wildlife corridors. We might, thus, create the habitats that will allow wildlife to flourish in a much larger number than we will with a piecemeal approach.

We have heard some interesting ideas and I welcome the fact that the Government have put this idea of valuing capital at the heart of their proposals. The really important thing is for us to implement something that works. We will then be able to go back to other countries and not just talk about goals, but demonstrate how they can achieve those goals. That is what will be needed to move things forward.