Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion
Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Claire Perry(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Claire Perry
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but despite the rhetoric, the US’s decarbonisation record is very good. In fact, it cut its carbon intensity by 3.7% for the year ending in 2017, which is well ahead of the global average and, indeed, well ahead of the EU’s average. He will know that this is about not just federal actions, but the actions of states, cities and companies. The We Are Still In coalition, which is hugely accelerating work on decarbonisation action—for example, the net zero targets of the state of California—is delivering real change in the United States, and we should celebrate that.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I, too, had the honour of meeting Greta Thunberg at the parliamentary leaders’ roundtable discussions this morning. I would like to put on record my thanks to all the youth climate change activists who have succeeded in putting climate change at the top of the agenda.
Climate change waits for no Government. I travelled to London on the train with Heather Bolton from Gwynedd. She was on her way to attend the Extinction Rebellion protests in Westminster. We talked about Fairbourne on the Gwynedd coast where the whole community has been warned to prepare to move out within 40 years. Climate change is more than a passing inconvenience to the people of Fairbourne. Will the Minister accept my invitation to visit the community and see the economic, social and human cost of inaction?
Claire Perry
I am always delighted to visit installations in Wales—I visited Bridgend with the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and saw the amazing innovation work being led there—so it would be an absolute pleasure. The hon. Lady is right to point out that this is not just a challenge for a few. The Karman layer—the line where the earth’s atmosphere merges into outer space and where all the gases on which life depends are found—is 60 miles deep. I would not get even halfway to her constituency, if I was driving straight up, before I tipped out of the atmospheric layer. That is why this is such an important opportunity and we must work together.