Rio+20 Summit

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I share in the compliments that many Members on both sides of the House have paid to the Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who has done an excellent job in that role over the past year. I also apologise to her and to the Front Benchers for missing the opening speeches. I am afraid I was delayed elsewhere, so I welcome the opportunity, nevertheless, to make a few points in the debate.

The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said that prior to his contribution the debate had been pessimistic in terms of the seriousness of the situation that people had portrayed, but I feel that people were being a little optimistic, because there is a danger of striking the wrong balance—between on the one hand not being so pessimistic that people are discouraged from taking action, and on the other not recognising the seriousness of the position that we all face. I know that the hon. Gentleman recognises that seriousness, but, although we must always try to be positive and see a way forward, we should also look at the underlying realities, particularly when discussing what has happened since the conference 20 years ago, when an agenda was set out on how the world might address its many environmental challenges.

Members have already said that although there has been progress things have, in many ways, gone backwards very badly over the past 20 years. The examples of climate change, deforestation, water shortages, melting ice caps and biodiversity have been mentioned, and in most respects things have become a lot worse, rather than better, over the past 20 years, so it is worth understanding where we are if we are going to think about how we move forward.

That point needs to be made before, dangerously, we forget the pessimism because we want to be positive. I understand that that is important politically, but we must consider the underlying reality, because we have to work out how we get the world community back on the path to making the fundamental changes and securing the fundamental international agreements that are essential if we are to address the challenges faced by our environment.

We know that Rio is not going to end with any massive, great, super plans, or with any great international agreements. Since the failure to secure comprehensive and legally binding agreements in Copenhagen, the world community has undoubtedly gone backwards, and Rio is not going to reverse that movement, but what Rio can do—and not just Rio, but the other meetings that take place over the next few months, of which Rio is just a part—is to go for relatively modest objectives and to set out future pathways that, at the same time, put back on the agenda our attempts to secure the wider international agreements that we need.

Rio can, for example, address the food and agriculture issues to which Members have referred, and encourage the exchange of technologies and ideas on the green economy worldwide, an issue on which we in the UK have an opportunity to set an agenda from which other countries can benefit. We can try to ensure that the climate finance funds that were promised at Copenhagen, at Cancun and then at Durban are delivered, and we can look for progress on deforestation. Some progress has been made, but in many areas matters are going backwards not forwards, and we certainly need to push action on deforestation much higher up the international agenda.

We should not, however, delude ourselves into thinking that such changes and progress are going to be enough. Pathways, road maps and signposts are all important, but at the end of the day we need to secure the type of internationally binding agreements that were sought at Copenhagen on climate change, on tackling deforestation, on food, on agriculture and on land use.

These kinds of changes are essential. It is not going to happen this year—it may not happen for some years to come—but we must try to get the world to move in the right direction if we want to save the planet from irreversible degradation. Rio can point us in that direction. If we can start to move forward after a few years of delay and backward movement internationally—not because of this Government, who have played a fairly good role in these issues following the work of the previous Government—then at least Rio will have done something. I hope that we can approach the negotiations at Rio and the other international events over the next few months in that spirit.