Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), the Chair of the Select Committee, of which I am proud to be a member. I am delighted that we are having this debate today, and I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who secured it. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) said, this is the most important issue. In an effort to chip away at my gigantic constituency majority in Richmond Park and North Kingston, one or two local opponents enjoy telling my constituents that I care more about the environment and climate change than I do about Brexit, and they are right—I do, for all the reasons we have just heard. So they can stick that on their leaflets.

This is already a year of records. Last year, we had record snowfall in March in this country. We had the joint hottest summer on record. Two days ago, we had the record temperature in any February ever. Clearly, we cannot attribute individual weather extremes or events to climate change, as that is just not scientific and not possible to do, but the trends do tell a story. The most recent Met Office report, from November last year, tells us that the UK is experiencing an increase in weather extremes: hottest days have become hotter; the number of warm spells has increased; the coldest days are not as cold; and there has been an increase in rainfall levels. None of that, individually, is catastrophic, but it is a sign.

Globally, the signs are even more alarming. The five warmest years in recorded history have been since 2010, with 2014 being the hottest year ever recorded—until 2015. It became the record year—until 2016. In 2016, at the time the warmest year on record, eight of the months were the warmest the individual month had ever seen in history. So the implications of all this, if the science is right, are truly alarming: ecosystems forced through such rapid changes that they are unlikely to be able to adapt; lands becoming harder and harder to farm; and refugees on a scale we have never had to deal with before as a species. We heard in an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) about Bangladesh, which is probably the most extreme and alarming example. We should commit right here and now to trying to secure a debate on the issue—it is extraordinary that we have not debated it—but Bangladesh is just one among other examples. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that an average of 21.5 million people are already displaced each year because of weather-related sudden onset hazards. That figure will only grow if any of these predictions are correct.

Last year’s IPCC report painted the most alarming picture yet. The House will remember that the Paris agreement of 2015 commits the world to a target of limiting global warming to 2°C. The report looked into the difference between what we can expect if we achieve the 2°C target and what we can expect if instead we limit increases to 1.5°C. It tells us that the number of people exposed to water stress would be 50% lower if we kept to 1.5°C. It tells us that half a degree would mean hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in the world’s poorest countries, being at risk of climate-related destitution. The half degree of extra warming would lead to a forecasted 10 cm additional pressure on our coastlines. That half degree is the difference between losing all our corals and managing to hold on to 10% of them.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the IPCC report on a 1.5°C target said that we need to make the necessary reductions to our greenhouse emissions by 2030? Unfortunately, the Government are telling the Committee on Climate Change that they cannot look at that reduction until 2050. That seems to me to be a little bit late in the day.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I will address exactly that point shortly.

Let me conclude my remarks on the IPCC report. If one looks at the trends, one sees that currently we are not heading for that apocalyptic 2°C rise; we are heading towards something that looks more like 3°C, the consequences of which we cannot possibly estimate. In that light, the idea that children missing a few hours of geometry or physical education to ring the alarm bells and wake up our political system is somehow a wasted opportunity or the wrong thing to do just seems churlish. It seems absurd and mean-minded.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend is on the central issue, but of course he is referring to a global problem and it has only a global solution, because we are talking about 2.6 billion people in China and India for the first time in 250 years returning to the historic norm of their occupying half of global GDP, with massive consequences for energy consumption and other things. Does my hon. Friend agree that we therefore need to talk not just about our own activities and those of the west, but about the question of how we restructure the international order, which is probably the biggest challenge facing the western world and the eastern world at present?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. My final remarks will relate partially to the point that he just made, and he is right. It would be madness for those countries that have not yet developed in the sense that we have to develop in such a way that required them to become addicted to the same system that is causing this problem. They have an opportunity to leapfrog into a much cleaner, leaner and more efficient future. The technology is there.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury pointed out earlier, there are still doubters. Of course we can quibble with the predictions, because climate systems are complex. There is not a computer model on Earth that is capable of fully taking on board the complexity of the natural world and the realities of the positive and negative feedbacks that impact on climate. Nevertheless, we are faced with a pretty simple calculation: what happens if we ignore that overwhelming scientific consensus, listen instead to the sceptics, and are then wrong? The IPCC predictions have told us that we would be risking life on Earth as we know it. We would be risking civilisation.

What happens if instead we listen to that consensus, take action and are wrong? Well, by accident we would end up with a cleaner and eventually cheaper energy system. We would end up protecting more of the world’s forests and ecosystems. We would end up with an economic system that was more circular and less wasteful. It really is not a difficult calculation to make—and that is even more true given that almost everything we need to do to tackle climate change is something that we need to do irrespective of climate change.

The challenge is gigantic and no one doubts that—we are told that if we are to meet that 1.5°C total global emissions target, we need to reach net zero by 2050 at the latest—but we can do it. In fairness to the Government, it is worth highlighting that we are already making progress—not enough, but progress all the same. We have already heard about the world-leading Climate Change Act, on which I am not going to dwell, but since 2010 the UK has reduced emissions by 23%. We have reduced emissions faster than any other G7 nation. I am delighted to acknowledge that the Government have instructed the Committee on Climate Change to look into how we can go further and move to a net zero emissions target. It also needs to be said, though, that at the current rate of progress, despite our having met the early targets and being on course to meet the next one, we are not on course to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, so we do have a long way to go.

Clearly, we will have to change much of what we do not just in terms of how we generate electricity, but in terms of how we use it, how we manage the land, and how we organise our transport, food and industry. There has long been a belief, a fear, that there must be a direct correlation between emissions and economic growth. That has been true. For much of the industrial revolution, there has been a direct link: emissions go up, growth goes up. However, it is not so clear now. Since 1990, we have cut emissions in this country by 42%, even while our economy has grown by two thirds. As we enter this gigantic economic transition, there will, of course, be losers—the polluters—but there will also be winners. Last year saw a record amount of power generated from renewable sources—more than 30% is now coming from renewables.

A much quicker transition to electric vehicles—something on which we really need to push—will mean more jobs and more investment. Supporting new, clean technologies means both jobs and investments. That transition will happen whether we like it or not. It is the old story of the whale oil. In 1850, every home in America was lit by whale oil. Nine years later, Edwin Drake struck oil, and we had the oil rush. Almost immediately, the whale oil sector simply evaporated. There is a cutting in a diary of the biggest whale oil trader at the time who said that he was astonished that he had run out of customers before he had run out of whales. That is what will happen. Old industries and old technologies will give way to new ones, and it is in our interests as a country to lead the charge.

Hon. Members have covered lots of areas on which we need to get going, but I want to focus on just one last point that has been neglected in almost all of the debates that we have had on climate change, and that is forests. Apart from transport, deforestation is the single largest source of emissions. It accounts for around 20%—a fifth—of all carbon emissions. Forests are one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, absorbing around 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon a year and storing many billions more, yet we are losing 18.7 million acres of forests every year, the equivalent of 27 football pitches every single minute. It is self-evident madness that that is happening—not just because of climate change. Forests provide us with clean air, water and soils. We do not fully understand their influence on world weather patterns, but we know that it is defining. They are home to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity. More than 1.5 billion people depend directly on forests for their livelihoods, many of whom are the world’s poorest people, so we need to protect them. That needs to be a priority.

The UK can be proud that we are the only nation in the G7, and indeed in the G20, to hit the UN’s target on overseas aid the year before last—we were the only country to do so. Only a tiny fraction of that aid—as little as 0.4%—goes towards nature, and we can do much more than that. The very existence of DFID is to tackle poverty, but the surest way to plunge people into desperate poverty is by removing the environments, the ecosystems and the free services that nature provides. Those are the things on which people depend. Of course, the world’s poorest people depend much more directly on nature than we do here in this House, but, ultimately, we all depend on the natural world.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is right to say that this country needs to help developing countries. One of the best ways that we can do that is by using our expertise in organisations such as the Met Office. Kew Gardens in his constituency has some of the world’s greatest scientists. We should work with other countries to make sure that they can adapt and indeed mitigate climate change.

[Zac Goldsmith]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I love the fact that he mentioned Kew Gardens and I thank him for doing so. I am trying to push through a private Member’s Bill, but it keeps being blocked by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope)—cue boos from people who happen to be watching this discussion. It would deliver about £40 million or £50 million extra to Kew Gardens without dipping into the public purse, and it would enable the scientists to do exactly the work that he has just mentioned, much of which focuses on helping developing countries, poorer countries, adapt to the reality and the risks of climate change. Those scientists do extraordinary work, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to put that on the record.

In addition to being at the forefront of the new net zero revolution, which is what it is, let us also be world leaders in restoring ecosystems on a scale that finally matches the problem.

[Several hon. Members rose—]