Paris Climate Change Conference

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and the Backbench Business Committee for not only initiating this debate, but putting on the parliamentary agenda an issue that will be the defining test of our generation of politicians and people.

In just a few days’ time, the world will meet in Paris, which has, in recent days, been the site of so much distress and despair. The attacks that took place at the weekend were acts of hatred, designed to divide us, crush people’s hopes and destroy lives. At the landmark summit, the UK will have the opportunity to show real leadership, to give hope to people around the world and to take real action, collective action, on one of the most pressing issues of our times.

This is urgent. For years, Governments around the world have agreed that temperature rises should be limited to no more than 2°. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) said, this month we have learned that the world is already half way to that critical threshold.

Last year, scientists at NASA said that global temperatures have risen to their highest recorded level. With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years on record have all been since the turn of the century. Humanity’s greatest scientific minds have warned us time and again that the warming trend is now unmistakeable, and that climate change is no longer a distant threat; it is already happening.

We are running out of time. This is a direct threat to our national security. Global warming is already worsening extreme weather, putting at risk homes and livelihoods across our islands from worse and more frequent flood events. After the most intense period of rainfall in the record books caused Britain’s worst-ever floods last winter, the head of the Met Office warned that

“all the available evidence suggests there is a link to climate change.”

Climate change is a threat to our broader economic prosperity and to the families and businesses that depend on a growing economy. New research for Aviva Investors found that if temperature rises of up to 5° of warming occurred, it could result in $7 trillion of losses, which is more than the total market capitalisation of the London Stock Exchange. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) reminded us some moments ago, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has said:

“Climate change will threaten financial resilience and longer term prosperity”.

He warned:

“Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.”

Climate change is also a threat to public health. A major commission by British doctors, published in The Lancet earlier this year and backed by the World Health Organisation, found that rising temperatures constituted a threat to people’s wellbeing because of heatwaves, the spread of infectious diseases and crop failures.

Launching the commission’s findings, Hugh Montgomery from University College London told reporters:

“Climate change is a medical emergency. It demands an emergency response.”

This is an issue of social justice. All of us have a duty to protect some of the poorest people in the world, and here at home, from threats to their security. That is why I do not believe that we or anyone else can afford to turn our back on the issue.

Pope Francis was right when he called action on climate change

“a matter of justice...a question of solidarity.”

He said:

“It is the poorest who suffer the worst consequences.”

When world leaders meet in Paris for UN talks to try to finalise a new global agreement, it is imperative that the outcome keeps the goal of climate safety within reach. Nobody expects that the Paris summit will completely solve the carbon problem, but it is a moment when we will stand at a crossroads. We have a real chance to establish a pathway to the ultimate goal of a global economy that does not rely on destroying the world’s rainforests and burning highly polluting fuels, and that seizes on the opportunities presented by modern clean energy technologies.

The Government should know that they have our full support in the UN talks to strive for an agreement that includes ambitious climate plans from all countries towards the ultimate goal of a completely carbon-free global economy in the second half to the century. It was encouraging to see the Prime Minister and other G7 leaders back this target when they met in June. I hope this will now become a truly international commitment when Governments meet in Paris in a few days’ time.

As the cost of clean technologies continues to fall, the Paris accord must include an important commitment to strengthen national plans every five years towards achieving this global long-term goal. I had an exchange this morning with the Secretary of State and I was pleased to hear her express her support for this.

We should start from where we are. Some climate change impacts are inevitable as a consequence of the carbon pollution that is already in the atmosphere, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to direct substantial aid towards the poorest and most vulnerable communities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) knows and reminds me so often, we must take steps to adapt to worsening extreme weather and rising seas through the hurricane-proofing of schools and the building of sea walls.

The UK goes to the Paris summit with a proud history of action on climate change. It was Tony Blair who put the issue on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council and the G7. It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North and his brother who passed into law the world’s first-ever Climate Change Act. It was Gordon Brown who took action in Copenhagen to win agreement from other world leaders to set up the UN’s global climate fund to help the poorest countries in the world to protect their citizens from the impact of stronger hurricanes and rising seas.

I am proud that we doubled renewable energy generation and put in the work to make sure that the UK was a global leader across a range of clean energy technologies. I am proud of the jobs and the opportunities for young people that those projects have created across the length and breadth of Britain, including in my own constituency. Two thirds of the renewable projects that came online in the past five years started under the Labour Government. But as we were told by my right hon. Friends the Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who did so much to keep this on the agenda in the previous Parliament, we cannot ignore the fact that the legacy of the UK’s leadership at home and abroad is now at risk.

We cannot make progress towards climate change safety while we are unravelling all the policies at home that will help us shift towards a low carbon economy. Let us consider what they are. Solar energy support has been cut by almost 90%. The only nuclear power station on stream has been delayed yet again—delayed twice under this Government; delayed yet again. Energy efficiency programmes are being cut in real terms. Carbon capture and storage projects have not been delivered. Onshore wind farms are being blocked, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) said, even where they enjoy local support. The Green Investment Bank is being sold off without a proper mandate to invest in new green clean energy.

The Energy Secretary was right yesterday when she said that ageing coal-fired power stations would be closed within the next decade and should be replaced with more modern technologies, but new cleaner power stations are not being built at the rate required to replace them and to secure our energy supplies. I will take no lessons from Government Members about Labour’s record on this. We delivered a record number of gas power stations. The nuclear projects that the Secretary of State is working on were initiated under Tony Blair. They have twice been delayed on this Government’s watch. When this Government came to power, they inherited a 16% power surplus. It is now down to 5% and National Grid is having to use emergency measures to safeguard our energy supply.

The Government do not appear to have any kind of plan to ensure a just transition that protects the communities that are dependent on those industries for their livelihoods and to ensure that the workforce remain in good, skilled jobs. Only yesterday the Secretary of State acknowledged the role that coal miners have played in this country, doing dangerous and difficult work that changed lives here and boosted our national prosperity. As we move into the future, the skills, the patriotism and the work ethic of people in coalfield communities ought to be our greatest national asset, but where is the industrial strategy that will safeguard jobs and skills in those communities and help us build a new, clean energy system?

The present chaotic, contradictory approach to energy policy has been criticised by the CBI and by Ernst and Young for causing serious confusion. It puts off investment that we badly need for our energy security, and it sends a hugely damaging signal at a time when Britain must harness the momentum that exists internationally to get a deal to tackle the threat posed by climate change. This will be the defining test of our generation. It is a test that we cannot afford to fail. It is right that the Secretary of State has come to respond to the debate herself. I applaud her for doing so. She will have heard what hon. Members said today. She will have heard the words of Pope Francis. I urge her to change course, and if she does so, she will have our full and guaranteed support.