Queen’s Speech

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish. I do not agree with everything he said, but people’s suspicion of experts is something that I know about from my time running the Met Office. I shall focus my remarks on a very significant point towards the end of the Queen’s Speech regarding the Government’s continuing support for measures to deal with climate change. I want to make a point about how such action should relate to other programmes to do with the environment and its effect on people.

The present position is that there is an upward trend in global warming which is now predicted to exceed 4 degrees over the land areas of the world and continue to produce very considerable effects in terms of disasters such as cyclones, droughts and heat waves. One can see this in many countries. The number of deaths, for example, in natural disasters per year is of the order of 100,000. As for other environmental factors in the world—matters such as air pollution—the World Health Organisation estimates deaths from these will exceed 1.5 million people per year.

Even more serious now is that air pollution affects the youngest of children in Asian cities. There was a rather famous Chinese young lady who lived on the crossroads near Beijing and died of lung cancer. This country is concerned with lung cancer and smoking, but that is a voluntary disease. When children face that kind of situation, it is something that we have to consider. The fact is that there are connections between these natural and human disasters which are worsening as a result of the effects of climate change. One of the effects is to produce longer periods of static wind or conditions such as very high or very low temperatures. There is much evidence to that effect.

One of the other features of the Queen’s Speech is that the Government are continuing their programme of investment in low-carbon power, including nuclear power. I commend the Government on moving ahead on nuclear power and these other programmes. I would point out again that it is important to have an overall system of both nuclear and non-nuclear power because there are periods—as commented on in Germany this winter, and in this House in 2010—when the wind stops, the clouds appear and back-up sources of power are needed.

The UK is working within the international community to minimise climate-related threats. As this debate is focused on international work, I should comment on how we and other countries work with the United Nations agencies and monitor that work. The UK contributes significantly in terms of both finance and expertise to the UN agencies, including the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Programme and the programme for climate change. A worrying point made to me recently by a World Bank official was that although the UK is the second-largest contributor to the World Bank, we have a very much smaller number of experts there than other countries do. As the Germans have large numbers of experts there, what happens when a question on, for example, an urban railway arises? Lo and behold, the World Bank will support a big project proposed by Siemens. Equally, however—as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out—the UK has great expertise in education, science and business, and it is important that we should have the right number of people there to make our contribution. I also support the noble Lord’s remarks on disability and environmental hazards. Many disabled people are particularly vulnerable, for example in floods in cities.

Next year there will be the regular 10-yearly United Nations international disaster reduction meeting. This will take place in Japan and should lead to further scientific and technical improvements. The UK plays a very important role through our insurance industry. Equally, however, we have to use our expertise to provide warnings to communities which might suffer badly.

I feel that progress on some scientific issues is moving rather slowly. It has always been said in the West, and in the United States, that earthquakes are impossible to predict. We heard in a seminar in London that the Russians have two or three institutes that are doing remarkable work in this respect. Earthquakes are now regularly being caused by fracking. The United States Geological Survey—not a very left-wing organisation—has commented that the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by 300% at the sixth level on the Richter scale. We should consider this at the United Nations meeting. We should also consider—the issue has been raised in debates in this House—the social and economic consequences of natural disasters.

This year and next year will be important for building on the commitment on climate change made at Durban. The targets for the reduction of carbon emissions should be agreed at the meeting in Paris in 2015, with a view to all countries finally agreeing and implementing them by 2020. It is remarkable that at Durban the Chinese agreed to this, and we are expecting Chinese participation.

At the most recent meeting of legislators—in Mexico City this week, which I attended—it was interesting to hear Governments and their delegates expressing their belief that it is important to demonstrate more visibly their commitment to urgently tackling climate change, sometimes through simple means. One example, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, mentioned, is the use of smart meters in cars to indicate the level of their carbon emissions; or, as in France, to inform drivers on motorways that driving at high speeds is not only dangerous but causes higher carbon-emission levels. I have had no joy in talking to the Department for Transport in this country. It would be progress if people could be shown that they add to the carbon in the atmosphere when they drive fast on motorways.

The recent IPCC report on the social and economic impact of climate change now recommends that national and international policies on carbon reduction should be connected to policies covering the environmental benefits of tackling it—I have mentioned air pollution—as well as the benefits in terms of reducing poverty and vulnerability more generally. Security is also important. The Pentagon takes a strong view on this, to the fury of Republicans in the United States.

There is also the question of the preservation of biodiversity. A number of economists, some of whom are distinguished Members of this House, have the strange idea that we can put off dealing with climate change for decade after decade because—according to their strange calculations—it will become cheaper and cheaper to deal with. In the mean time, however, we are losing biodiversity.

If we are to have an integrated approach it is important that we consider all these factors together. That will be a challenge for the Government. From my time in the Met Office I know that we need to have an integrated approach through international bodies, Governments and civil societies. These integrated measures must first be formulated—universities can play a role in that—and then implemented and then, finally, reviewed by Parliament. In the 14 years that I have been a Member of this House we have had two debates on the United Nations agencies, and I led both of them. It is important that we should review this development and I hope that the Government will support it.