Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George), and I congratulate the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this long-overdue debate. Surely we have seen evidence of global warning this month in the record high temperatures for February, as well as in the disturbing reports of melting polar ice caps. Collapsing ice at the poles is a powerful indication of a warming world.

Tackling carbon emissions is absolutely a matter of urgency, and achieving the necessary emissions reductions for the world that we leave to our grandchildren will require the collective efforts of all peoples and decision makers on a global scale. Young people recently walked out of lessons at their schools in protest against what they see as the lack of interest in and commitment to green issues. Their action showed how aware communities are of this important topic. We as individuals must all do our bit and show leadership, and our debate on our UK carbon emissions is an important step. We must explore cross-party support and progress towards net zero carbon emissions.

The threat of climate change is more real than ever, and it absolutely must be taken seriously. The Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that to obtain net zero carbon emissions, or carbon neutrality, global society will have to balance its carbon emissions with carbon sequestration by 2050. Failure to limit global warming to 1.5° or less could result in sea levels rising as well as the occurrence of natural disasters such as extreme weather conditions. This in turn would result in the mass displacement of people and the disappearance of entire ecosystems such as tropical coral reefs.

The UK signed up to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 when the EU ratified the Paris agreement in 2016. Under the Climate Change Act 2008, the UK Government committed to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Under their 2017 clean growth strategy, they pledged to work with other countries towards achieving net zero carbon emissions in the second half of this century. The Government have also promised to use legislation to provide legal clarity that this target will be met at an appropriate point in the future. I would like some clarity on that point. Are these plans working?

The Scottish Government’s 2018 Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill raised their commitment on carbon emission reductions to 90% by 2050, a target that the UK Government Committee on Climate Change currently considers to be at the limit of feasibility. In March 2016, the then United Nations climate change secretary, Christiana Figueres, said that Scotland’s progress on climate change had been “exemplary to the world”. We have now established a climate change Bill that will set new statutory targets for reduction by 2050, moving into a net zero emissions target as soon as possible. Scotland has long been recognised for punching above its weight on tackling climate change. Roseanna Cunningham, the Cabinet Secretary, has stated:

“To be successful, we must create an environment in which industries can transition smoothly to a low or zero-carbon future.”

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Mc Nally]

I am very sorry, but I do not have time.

It is worth mentioning that a new stock exchange is opening next week in Scotland, and I am delighted to have been invited to the opening in Edinburgh. Bourse Scot is focusing on social and environmental companies. This new social and environmental exchange will involve rules on the activities of firms, with the staff requiring participating firms to prove what they claim about social and green outcomes. Bourse Scot hopes that the renewables industries will see it as a place to raise funds. For me, the opening of that stock exchange plainly demonstrates that there is long-term certainty and confidence in Scottish ambitions across all parties, and that Scotland is indeed a centre for excellence. I know this cannot be achieved overnight, as it is a generational challenge. We are moving in the right direction, and the quicker we move in that direction, the better.

I think the UK Government are politically and geographically broken. If we want to change the world, we must follow the girl who was mentioned earlier and get busy in our own little corner, and Scotland is doing exactly that.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

This has been a tremendously good, positive and applied debate, and, from my 21 years in this House, I cannot say that has always been the case. I have attended virtually every climate change debate in this House, and it is shocking that we have not had one for two years.

Those previous debates were usually characterised by a claque of climate change deniers who regularly attempted to derail them. This debate is perhaps a reflection of where we have got to now. I thought that one of the last remaining serious climate change deniers in the House, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), would take part, but it turned out he wanted to talk about Welsh tourism, which is a mercy.

We are all together this afternoon, perhaps for the first time, when it is almost too late. Everything that has been said by climate scientists, and that has been said in all the debates I have been involved in during my long time in the House, is coming true and proving to be right. We should perhaps talk not about a climate change debate but about a climate is changing debate.

I am not smug about the fact that what I was saying in our previous debates has been proved right, and what those climate change deniers were saying has been proved wrong; it scares me stiff. We are now at two minutes to 12 on the climate emergency before us. I thank all the hon. Members who, in different ways, have contributed this afternoon on that central point.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing this debate, and I thank the hon. Members, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), who pointed out just how little time we have had for these debates. When we get the advice of the Committee on Climate Change on a net zero future, it might be appropriate for the Minister to make sure that we can have a debate in Government time, for at least half a day—or a whole day, if we want to be ambitious—on that advice and its implications and ramifications so that hon. Members are allowed the proper time to put across what they want to say about this climate emergency and what we need to do to deal with it.

I am scared stiff because I know that the ability to do anything about this climate emergency is on our watch. Members of Parliament over the next 12 years, as mentioned in the IPCC report, will have to get their act together on climate change or forever miss the opportunity to do anything about it.

[Mr Sweeney]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the time constraints, and about how this House has not done nearly enough to debate this issue. Does he agree it is critical that other Government Departments, not just BEIS, focus on the implications of climate change, particularly the Department for Transport, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Defence and so on? We must understand the impact those Departments have on Government policy in shaping a holistic approach to policy making across all parts of Government.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that the action we need to be taking in this House for the future must not just be the province of one Department, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) pointed out. It needs to be something that seeps to the core of every part of government and of this House. Everything we do must be judged by whether we are making progress on reducing carbon emissions and fighting the effects of climate change or whether it is going in the opposite direction.

In that context, I want to draw the House’s attention to what we have done so far and what we are—we hope—going to do for the future, because that is crucial in terms of moving from our current target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 to that net zero target. Of course a net zero target does not just mean doing things that reduce carbon; it means doing things that actually put carbon back in the ground. We are talking about negative carbon emissions, as well as positive carbon emissions. It means planning a whole different system of doing things, as my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and for Cardiff North drew attention to. We need to do things in different ways in order to make that change in our economy, so that we have a permanent low-carbon, sustainable economy for the future.