UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. Like the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), I must draw the Chamber’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—not that I am aware of any way in which the outcome of this debate or the issues raised in it could affect my well-being through those interests.

I admit that I was not a member of the Select Committee when it drew up the two reports that we are considering, so I cannot claim credit for them or share in any blame. I put myself forward for the Committee precisely because I was concerned about the rather over-cosy relationship between it and the Government, which has allowed them both, and the whole intellectual establishment in this country, to live in a dream world on energy and climate change issues. Mercifully, through the operation of a secret ballot, I was elected to the Committee.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. One of the early signs of madness is an indulgence in compulsive displacement activity, which could not be a better description of the whole COP process. Tens of thousands of people are displaced across the globe to an environment where they are cut off from reality and the rest of the world, where they can indulge themselves in demonstrating their lack of realism and reality, and where the original objective of obtaining a legally binding agreement between nations to reduce worldwide emissions has itself been displaced by the alternative objective of reaching an agreement to meet again—and to agree to reach an agreement at some distant future time. That is displacement activity on a massive scale, and it involves a massive degree of hypocrisy, given the huge emissions incurred by these eco-warriors as they swan across the globe in jets and hire fleets of limousines, so emitting more CO₂ than a small African country.

The aim of displacement activity is of course to avoid facing up to reality, so I will just point out a few facts that have not found their way into the report or into discussions of such matters, but seem to me to be rather pertinent. The original aim of the Kyoto protocol and the agreement in 1992 was to reduce emissions by the contracting parties by 5% by now—or by last year—but world emissions have actually gone up by nearer 50%. By happy chance, the rise in the world temperature over that period was much less than anticipated, despite the fact that the supposed cause of that rise in temperature was even greater and more powerful than anticipated.

Since the Kyoto agreement was signed, Canada, Japan and Russia have resiled from it. Far from making progress in getting countries to sign up, we have lost three very important world players. The US will not sign up to Kyoto or its successor, or to any legally binding agreement, as long as developing countries are allowed to continue to increase their emissions unconstrained. It was not President Bush who prevented America signing up, but the Senate. Senators refused to sign up to Kyoto by 98 votes to zero.

That situation has not changed since President Obama’s election: there is no chance of America signing up to legally binding restraints on its emissions as long as developing countries are not also bound by them. But the developing countries want to grow, and I want them to grow. I do not like seeing hundreds of millions of my fellow human beings wallowing in misery and living lives that are stunted relative to what their material living standards might be if they achieved economic growth. But growth requires energy—it is almost synonymous with the rise in the use of energy—and the growth in energy use needed to raise their living standards will absorb much of their capacity to invest and much of the capital available for them to invest in future decades.

Fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy. Renewables cost two or more times as much as fossil fuels to produce a given amount of energy. If developing countries were forced to use renewables, they could only afford less than half as much energy as they would otherwise be able to bring on stream. That means they will not use renewables; they will continue to develop by exploiting the use of fossil fuels.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had the chance to go to any developing countries, but I had the opportunity to go to Tanzania last year and saw for myself at first hand how communities, which do not have access to any gas or electricity on grid, were successfully harnessing the power of the sun via solar panels to provide whole villages with energy.

[Mr Lilley]

The hon. Lady may seriously believe in the use of renewables in places where it is sensible to use them. If an area is a long way from the grid, it may be sensible to use a windmill or a solar panel, even though it will not provide light at night or electricity when the wind is not blowing.

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[Mr Lilley]

The hon. Gentleman said that we were living through the biggest extinction since perhaps the Palaeozoic era, and he implied that that was through climate change, but he has been unable to cite a single species that has been rendered extinct through climate change. I invite him to do so, or to give me a source where I could find that information.

[Luciana Berger]

rose—

[Barry Gardiner]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I was able to do some research on my iPad during those interventions, and I was able to identify just one such species—the Ecuadorian harlequin frog.

[Mr Lilley]

That is the one that I was referring to—I said there was one.

[Luciana Berger]

Forgive me. Well, I just found that first one; I will endeavour to find some more species during the course of our debate. That was the first one that came up in my Google search.

[Barry Gardiner]

I think that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden will not dispute the fact that we are living through the greatest period of extinctions that has been known in the fossil record; he has not disputed that. What he has sought to dispute is whether it is in any way linked to a change in climate, and therefore whether it is in any way linked to the rise in the use of fossil fuels. He should look at the way in which species are migrating—he talked about a loss of habitat, but the reason why there is a loss of habitat in many parts of the world is, of course, because of the change in climate, which has actually destroyed the habitat that used to be there. I do not think that he can separate out, in the way that he seeks to, the effects of climate change from the effects of habitat destruction. To do so is precisely to ignore what is going on.

We have to understand that 50% of the GDP of the poorest people in the world is dependent on their immediate environment, and it is that immediate environment that is under such significant threat. In parts of Africa, we have seen whole habitats destroyed. I sometimes wonder why we spend millions of pounds protecting our vessels as they pass the coasts of Ethiopia and Somalia but never give a thought as to why the pirates that we are protecting them from are there in the first place. Of course, they are there in large part because of the desertification that has taken place in that part of Africa—because of the loss of agriculture and of economic opportunities there. Not to link what is happening with climate change to the sustainable development goals would be a serious error indeed.

Let us consider the Durban platform for enhanced action that has been established, and let us look at the way in which, by 2015, we are to try and arrive at an agreement between countries as to what will happen in 2020 in respect of the commitments made there. Many hon. Members have talked of the difficulty in securing those commitments and the difficulty of some countries agreeing their programme of action without certainty and knowledge of what other countries are prepared to do. Russia, Canada and Japan have been mentioned as examples. These are extremely difficult negotiations because, as the Committee’s report acknowledges, every country will act in its own national interest. During the negotiations, we have been true to form and have very often acted in our national interest as well.

I would challenge the Minister on some of the positions that our country has adopted in the negotiations. Let us consider the position that we have adopted with respect to Russia. We have been saying, “With all the hot air that they had after the demise of the Soviet Union, they have arrived in a much more fortunate position, and we want now to discount that.” But in that negotiation any Russian with common sense would say simply, “Look, our economy suffered an enormous transition—an enormous hit on our domestic economy. We’ve paid the price for being in the position that we are now in, with that hot air, with those emissions credits.”

The original intention of Kyoto was simply that we should see the reduction below 1990 levels. Perhaps due to the collapse of the old Soviet economy, Russia has achieved that reduction, but it has not achieved it without substantial cost. That is just one example of the way in which the negotiations that we believe we are entering into in good faith may be perceived by the other side as negotiations that are not being conducted in good faith. Sometimes we have to look much more carefully at the principles of equity when we consider how one reaches a just settlement in this area.

For example, in discussions that are often entered into about what is happening in China and India—we will debate China more specifically later—we often say, “These are the emerging economies and emerging powers and, of course, China is building so many more coal-fired power stations and its emissions are growing at a tremendous rate.” Yet somebody in India will say, “Yes, but let’s look at our population and let’s see what our emissions per capita are.” They will say that, in India, the emissions are approximately 2 tonnes per capita, whereas in this country they are well into double figures and in America they are probably 10 times what the average Indian would expend.

We have all entered into the negotiations at the UNFCCC from a position of national self-interest. Unless we understand that this is genuinely a boat in which we all either sink or float, we will not arrive at a resolution that is fair and has any chance of success.

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[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), for the way he introduced the debate and congratulate the Committee on producing its report.

We have heard some insightful speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North West (John Robertson), for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) and for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). Members will not be surprised to hear that I do not necessarily share the views of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley).

As the Chair of the Committee said, events have moved on somewhat since the report was produced, not least because COP 18 has taken place. During the conference, four Gulf states—Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates—announced that they were ready to submit emission reduction plans to the UNFCCC. I listened to what the right hon. Gentleman said about the developing world, but I am not sure whether he knows that, last month, the group of 49 least developed countries also announced they are now prepared to commit themselves to binding cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.

While some progress has been made, many challenges remain. Canada, Japan and Russia have all said they will not be part of the extension of the Kyoto protocol, and yesterday the International Energy Agency warned that the continued global reliance on coal and the rapid development of emerging economies meant that despite

“a boom in renewable energy over the last decade, the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago.”

In some ways, that is depressingly familiar, but it reinforces the point that any solution to climate change requires a global agreement that limits carbon emissions, as well as a rapid expansion of low-carbon energy generation. In that context, the main consensus on the proceedings at Doha was that they were a modest step forward.

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On resuming—

[Luciana Berger]

During the Committee’s special evidence sitting following the conference, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West commented:

“If it was a road map, the car is still on the road”.

There was not the forward movement we hoped for. Only one country—the Dominican Republic—signed up to new carbon emission targets. Although I welcome the fact that four Gulf states made a commitment to submit reduction plans, that has yet to happen. The most important thing was that the conference agreed an extension of the Kyoto protocol and re-established a timetable for agreeing a global deal in 2015.

As to the substance of the report, Labour Front Benchers support many of the Committee’s recommendations. We have supported and will continue to support the Government’s efforts to secure a global, legally binding framework to cut CO₂ emissions. We agree with the Committee and the Government that the UNFCCC is the forum that offers the best opportunity for securing such an agreement, and that there is a need for a single transparent accounting regime, but this is the point at which I want to hold the Government to account.

We also support an EU target of a 30% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. Anyone reading the Government’s response to the Committee’s report would be led to believe that the Conservative party supports that as well, yet proposals to introduce a 30% target have come before the EU Parliament twice in the past two years, and have twice been defeated because Conservative MEPs voted against them. I hope that the Minister might share with us his thoughts on why they did that, or, more to the point, why the Prime Minster did not do anything to stop them.

Will the Minister also tell us why this week 21 Conservative MEPs voted against attempts to rescue the EU ETS by back-loading 900 million carbon allowances that were due to be auctioned later this year? That was despite the fact that the Secretary of State told the Select Committee:

“We have the proposal for back-loading on the table. We do not think it is ambitious enough. We think we want to see both back-loading and cancelling, because that could make a significant difference to increasing EU ambition almost in one leap.”

Given that the Secretary of State clearly stated that the Government support back-loading, why did Conservative MEPs actively scupper the proposals?

The UK is responsible for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions. We have a responsibility to reduce them, for all manner of reasons, but on our own we cannot solve the problem of global climate change. Part of the leadership role that we can play in international climate negotiations will be as part of an EU bloc, so why are the Minister and the Prime Minister allowing the UK’s credibility to be undermined by Conservative MEPs? I know from previous exchanges on such matters that the Minister has a habit of dismissing anything that he does not want to hear, or that highlights the shortcomings of the Government, as partisan rhetoric, but it is not partisan to point out that the view of the UK as a climate change leader on the international stage is diminishing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West said during the Committee’s hearing following Doha, the message that he heard from our European partners was that they felt the UK was backing off from the leadership it had shown in the past.

In an ideal world, between now and 2015 the Prime Minster would go around Europe and the rest of the world championing Britain’s low-carbon progress, but we know that he cannot do that. He can try, and I hope he will. He can go to China, the United States and our European neighbours, and I am sure they will listen politely to his spiel about how the Government are the greenest Government ever, and nod as he tells them how personally committed he is to combating climate change. I am equally sure that they will then disregard what he says, because they read newspapers, too, and they know the Government’s record as well as we do. They know that under this Government investment in renewable energy has halved, and that the Prime Minister barely talks about climate change any more—he has not yet attended an international conference on the matter, and cannot get his own MEPs to support an increase in carbon reduction, let alone ask them to do more. No matter what the Prime Minster says, he cannot change the reality.

Things do not have to stay that way, however. The Government should act now to improve their record and give the UK a stronger negotiating position in the run-up to 2015.

[David Mowat]

From the tone of the hon. Lady’s remarks it would seem as if the UK were among the higher producers of carbon in the EU, whereas, according to EU figures, we produce 8.8 tonnes per capita. That is among the lowest in the EU and 30% lower than countries such as Germany, Holland, Ireland and Poland. I find her remarks odd in that context.

[Luciana Berger]

I am not sure how that point relates to mine about our responsibility to continue in our leadership role on the international stage—a role for which, in the past, we have been held in high esteem and taken seriously—and about remarks recorded in the report that show a diminishing in our standing, and therefore our effectiveness, on that international stage. As I said, 2% of global emissions come from the UK. We have a responsibility, domestically, to reduce them, but we cannot solve the problem alone.

[John Robertson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that leadership from this country is important in the international arena, mainly because we were the country that set the pace, with the first ever Bill that had climate change in it?

[Luciana Berger]

We were, proudly, the first country in the world to do that, when we passed the Climate Change Act 2008, with a view to reducing our emissions by 2015 in relation to 1990 levels. The Act is held in high regard in countries that I have visited, but legislation is not enough if it is not acted on and if the Government’s actions do not match it. That is why it is important that the Government do all they can to live up to their ambition to be the greenest Government ever, and not slip behind. Then they would be held in high esteem on the international stage.

[Mr Lilley]

The hon. Lady’s party has abandoned unilateralism in nuclear weapons on the ground that setting an example would not stop other countries following a policy of obtaining nuclear weapons, so why does she favour unilateralism in this sphere and argue that inflicting pain and damage on the British economy will encourage other countries to do likewise?

[Luciana Berger]

I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s comment.

[Mr Lilley]

It was a question, not a comment.

[Luciana Berger]

We were the first country to introduce a climate change Act, but other countries, such as Mexico, have followed suit, and many others are considering how to reduce their carbon emissions. I agree with the Chancellor’s comments back in 2007, when he said that investment in low carbon could go hand in hand with growth and support our economy. We have seen global trade in low carbon surpass growth in all other fields. Without domestic investment in low carbon in the UK, our national growth figures last year would have been much worse. I believe the two go hand in hand.

What should the Government do? First, they should back the cross-party amendment proposed by the Chair of the Select Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, which would put an explicit target for decarbonising the UK energy sector by 2030 in the Energy Bill. That would give businesses the confidence and certainty they are crying out for to invest in low-carbon and renewable generation, and would signal to other nations that we were serious about meeting our climate change targets and moving to a low-carbon economy.

Secondly, the Prime Minister should get a grip on his MEPs and force them to vote in the European Parliament in accordance with the UK Government’s position. That is the only way to regain our lost credibility in the eyes of our EU neighbours. Thirdly, the UK should renew its role as an international political leader on climate change.

[David Mowat]

The hon. Lady refers to lack of credibility with our EU neighbours. I could accept that if our carbon emissions were higher than those of our EU neighbours, but, with the exception of France, they are significantly lower. Surely actions drive the issue, not words.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I referred first and foremost to the actions of Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament who have twice contradicted and been in conflict with British Government policy. There has been a reduction in our emissions, but we must ensure that we meet our ambitious emissions reduction target in the long term. We have made significant progress in the short term, but we must make significant investment in the short and medium term to ensure that we meet the long-term targets.

This month, Lord Stern, author of the world famous Stern report, said that the only thing missing in the efforts to tackle climate change “is the political will”. There are signs that that is beginning to change. In his second inaugural address, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to tackling climate change. Even emerging economies such as China—we will discuss this in more detail in our next debate—are making progress.

We must seize this opportunity for our planet and for the jobs and growth that it will create. It is time for Minsters, especially the Prime Minister, to stop talking about showing leadership and get on and do it. I hope the Minister will take note of my suggestions, and I look forward to hearing his explanation of the vote by his party’s MEPs this week.