Jeremy Corbyn
Main Page: Jeremy Corbyn (Independent - Islington North)Department Debates - View all Jeremy Corbyn's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
Yes. I thank my hon. Friend. I should have renewed my thanks for the Italian presidency of the G20 and co-presidency of COP, and to Mario Draghi, who did an outstanding job throughout the period. My hon. Friend is totally right on the green industrial revolution. In the year since the 10-point plan was put forward to business around the world, £15 billion of investment in green technology has been secured in this country and many tens of thousands of high-wage, high-skilled jobs. That is the future.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
New Delhi is now heading into a pollution lockdown because of the emissions affecting the people there. The poorest people in the poorest places all around the world suffer the worst from pollution. Will the Prime Minister tell us what he is seriously going to do to bring China, Russia, Australia and others on board to get rid of their coal production? The answer he gave to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) was less than clear. Will he now be absolutely clear that there will be no British financing whatever for any new fossil fuel industries anywhere in the world?
The Prime Minister
On the right hon. Gentleman’s last point, yes, of course that it is right. We are abandoning export finance—I made that clear earlier—for the hydro-carbon industry. That massive change has been difficult because businesses in this country have benefited from export finance for many years, but we are making that change because we want the world to move away from hydrocarbons.
As for what the right hon. Gentleman said about India, I accept the points that he made, but, as I think I said, we will help the Indian Government in any way we can to move beyond coal as fast as they can. Of course, it was disappointing to see the language changed from “phase out” to “phase down”, but we have never had any commitments whatever on coal in COP before. I think that what will now happen is that the global peer pressure on countries to move away from coal will intensify very rapidly and the change will happen much faster than people think.