COP29: UK Priorities

Lee Pitcher Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this debate. I refer Members to my declarations of interests in respect of my former career.

Our world is facing dramatic change. Too little water, too much water, or water that is too dirty leads to floods, droughts and pollution in our rivers, streams, ditches, dikes, seas and oceans. Not too long ago, I did some work with the Rockefeller Foundation, Arup, the Stockholm International Water Institute and the University of Massachusetts, and with wonderful projects such as Living With Water. We looked at the 100 resilient cities around the world and found that for 60% of them the biggest shock or stress that could impact them at any one time was having too much or too little water—droughts or flood.

Of course, it is not just about the economy: it is about animals and people as well. The great legend that is Sir David Attenborough tells us that right now our animals are dying out at 100 times the normal evolutionary rates of extinction. When it comes to people, I think about some of the research I have seen. When children who have experienced flooding go to sleep hearing rain outside, they no longer dream about the wonderful things that could happen to them the next day, and playing with their friends in the playground—they have nightmares. That means they cannot sleep and sometimes then cannot go to school the next morning. During those nightmares they think about how they could lose not just their possessions but their mum and others as well. That is the kind of impact that climate change and flooding can have on us as people.

I spoke as a keynote speaker at COP26 and at the World Water Congress in the lead-up to COP27. I talked about how we need to think about a future that is all about co-creation—working with communities, families and schools to think about the future. We need to think about how we turn the world’s greatest threat into the world’s biggest opportunity, because that is what it is, and we see rays of light in every area of the country right now. For example, in my constituency of Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, we have in Keadby the largest inland wind farm, owned by SSE, which I went to see the other day, and we have innovative carbon capture ideas. We also have youth parliaments and student councils, made up of passionate children who want to make a difference to our world, which is just amazing. We need to harness that passion. I even have residents writing to me who want me to come and work with them in places such as Westwoodside to try to solve some of their key flooding issues.

Now is absolutely the time to act; now is the time when we need to work with children and communities, because we need to create a sustainable future together. COP29 should not be called an opportunity: it is a must-do place to take action. It is a place where we can work together and co-create at a local, national and global level. We in this country can do that as leaders to facilitate a much better, cleaner and greener future for everybody.