International Mother Earth Day

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, given the decision last week in Scotland, where I live, for Green Party Ministers to ditch their target on climate change, and the concerns raised by the head of the Climate Change Committee that the UK is less ambitious on climate than it had been, does the Minister agree that emerging economies need the UK to be reliable and dependable in planning for climate alleviation policies? It is why I asked the Minister in a debate in January whether the climate finance that he announced and referred to was new money. Subsequently, independent analysis has suggested £2 billion pounds of that has been recycled. What is the point of making announcements when they are reneged on, or indeed when the funding given is recycled?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sorry but I cannot take that. The £11.6 billion, one of the largest commitments by a country, is absolutely solid. If the noble Lord wants me to be completely frank, I suspect that our spending on climate finances is probably nearer to £15 billion or £16 billion if I take into account other things that other countries calculate as international climate finance. The noble Lord really cannot say that we are somehow reneging on this. The Prime Minister and the Government are absolutely committed to this, and we should be proud that we are a country that has halved our greenhouse gas emissions and that we are the fastest reducer of greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the G7.