The Climate Emergency

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

At the beginning of last year, I was moved when I visited Calais and listened to the stories of some of the refugees there who had been forced to move from their homelands against their will—some because of violence and conflict, some because of persecution, some because of a lack of jobs and some because of climate change.

It is now acknowledged that climate change is one of the biggest drivers of forced migration. Indeed, the European Union predicts a tripling of refugees for this reason by the end of the century, and the World Bank predicts 143 million climate migrants escaping crop failure, water insecurity and sea level rises. That is why it is essential that the UK’s effort—not just, but primarily through our international development work—focuses on all these matters: on conflict, jobs, and climate change and the impact of climate change.

I regretted the fact that the Green Investment Bank was sold into the private sector. I thought that it was a great institution and could have been developed. That is why I would ask the Government to consider the introduction of a UK investment and development bank, which could put a lot of effort and money into tackling climate change both within the UK and indeed internationally, particularly in developing countries.

One of the most remarkable projects I visited when I was a member of the International Development Committee was the community forestry programme in Nepal, which has been going for more than 30 years. It is a combined effort of the British and Nepali Governments. What I saw there were forests right alongside cities that were not being cut down for firewood or charcoal, but being preserved and providing jobs because they were owned and managed by the community themselves. This is something the Department for International Development should be proud of and should seek to establish in conjunction with local communities elsewhere in the world.

As the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Ethiopia, I have seen that country make remarkable progress in renewable energy—whether hydro, geothermal, solar or wind. In fact, it wants 100% of its energy production to be green. It is through the creation of green jobs, climate-smart agriculture and much else that we can tackle both the shortage of jobs in the developing world and help with the mitigation of climate change.

Locally, I very much agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) on the point she made about school buses. That needs to be tackled immediately, as does the lack of rural and town transport. There I agree very much with what the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said about the importance of such transport to the development of towns.

As a party—I admit that I have been too slow to support this in the past for various reasons—we also need to push onshore wind, which is the cheapest form of energy. I ask the Government to look again at their attitude towards that, and indeed towards tidal. We must also look at planning regulations and at how we can encourage and perhaps legislate for new homes to have inbuilt solar panels and electrical charging points. All those things are much more expensive to retrofit than to put in new.

Finally, I welcome the inclusion of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch in the Queen’s Speech. I have seen the impact of a lack of concentration on patient safety in Stafford. Patient safety is critical, but this is not just about healthcare investigations; it is also about our culture, and I welcome the new culture on patient safety that I see now percolating through the NHS, particularly in Stafford.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) who I believe is one of the few Conservative Members who gets the scale of the challenge before us. Most Members of the House agree that something needs to be done, but the difference between many Conservative Members and Labour Members comes down to the speed, scale and ambition of that change. For example, in 2017 the Government’s manifesto stated that they would plant 11 million trees over five years in their efforts to challenge and tackle the climate crisis. Compare that with Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, which has just planted 350 million trees in 12 hours. That tells us everything we need to know about the scale of the Government’s ambition when it comes to tackling the climate crisis.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and Ethiopia has pledged to plant 4 billion trees in the next year.

[Clive Lewis]

You took the words out of my mouth.

Labour Members are committed to nothing less than the total transformation of our economy—not just how it works, but for whom it works. So many of us who came into politics as Labour Members understand that the fight against the climate crisis is the fight against inequality. Why? Because we know that the poorest 50% of people in this country, and between countries, consume just 10% of the resources and emit just 10% of the carbon. The wealthiest 10% consume 50% of the resources and emit 50% of the carbon. It is therefore clear that the fight against climate change is also the fight against global and domestic inequality. The poor cannot give up what they do not have; they cannot give up carbon that they are not emitting. The people who can are those at the top—the top 10%; the top 1%. Those are the people who must give up their carbon and their use of resources.

My hon. Friend—I will call her that—the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has said that the Queen’s Speech contained just six words about the environment, and there was not a single mention of the climate and ecological crisis facing our planet. That is hardly surprising, given this Government’s track record on the climate emergency. We have had a green light for fracking, and fossil fuel subsidies have been boosted by billions. Onshore wind has been scrapped and solar support axed. The green homes scheme has been eviscerated, and zero-carbon homes abandoned. The Green Bank has been sold, Swansea tidal lagoon stuffed, and Heathrow expansion approved. After 10 years of that, the Government tell us to trust them to tackle the climate crisis, but many Labour Members, and many members of the public, are extremely sceptical about their claims.

Even though we face a climate and ecological crisis, that is not a collapse. This is a turning point—that is what a crisis is—and things may go one way or another. This is a crossroads. That is why Extinction Rebellion, youth climate strikers and all those who understand the scale and urgency of the issue are fighting so hard for the future. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion and I have introduced the green new deal, and why Labour Members are pushing forward the green industrial revolution. If that is to be the future for our economy, we need a transformation in our transport system, housing, heat and energy, and a complete modal shift in the way we live, work and consume. Let us take, for example, electric cars. We know that we cannot build 31 million electric cars. That is how many petrol and diesel cars there are on our roads. There is not enough cobalt on the planet for us to be able to build all those cars, so we will require a complete transformation of how we travel.

I will finish with a quote from someone who has already been mentioned today, Rachel Carson, the author of “Silent Spring”. She was one of the first people to alert us to this environmental catastrophe. She said:

“Humankind is challenged as it has never been challenged before, to prove its mastery—not of nature, but of itself.”

That is the challenge. Can the Government prove mastery not just of themselves but of their ability to tackle the climate crisis? It is time to get a grip.