COP29: UK Priorities

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, particularly as we come up to COP29 in Azerbaijan, which I am looking forward to attending, and I congratulate her on an excellent speech. At COP28, a historic agreement was reached to establish a loss and damage fund for vulnerable countries. My heritage is from Pakistan, which, like Bangladesh, has contributed the least to the problem yet is among the most vulnerable to it. The compensation will only come into effect in 2025. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK must work with allies to prioritise pushing forward on this fund, to ensure that countries growing more vulnerable to climate crisis have the means to protect their civilians and infrastructure?[Interruption.]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind all Members to put their phones on silent.

[Deirdre Costigan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he makes a good point. As I said, we had a Conservative Government who made promises that they had no intention at all of keeping. I am confident that this Government will come to an agreement that we will stick to and deliver in full.

The climate emergency is not something happening to other people in faraway places. If we do not act now, more people will be killed by flooding, drought, wildfires and extreme heat than by war. Millions of refugees will pour across borders as cities and whole nations become uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Our entire economy will be destroyed, and life as we know it will be changed utterly, as we lose access to basic commodities like food and water. That is the worst case scenario, if we do not take action. It is a scenario that the Conservatives were content to sleepwalk us into.

Under this new, Labour Government we have already shown that we can be world leaders in undoing the harm of climate breakdown and preventing further damage. If we get our priorities right, then this COP29 climate conference is our chance to fearlessly lead the way to a better future, both at home and abroad.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind members to bob if they want to speak, so we can work out the order of speakers and how long everyone has available to speak.

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[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this timely debate. There seems to be an Ealing bias at the top. I look forward to working with her and others across the House as we tackle one of the biggest challenges of our time. I look forward to supporting the Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower, and ensuring that tackling global climate change is a focus for this Parliament. In my previous role, before I came to this place, I worked internationally with cities around the world to tackle climate change, using science-based action.

My remarks will be restricted to setting out the need for the Government to prioritise making progress on phasing out fossil fuels at COP29 this October. It was a privilege to be at COP28 last year, alongside other hon. Members in the Chamber, including the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). I welcome the Minister to her place. She was not a Minister at COP28 last year, so it is great to see her in position now. We were there to see at first hand the breakthrough moment for ending the fossil fuel era. Nearly 200 countries made an historic commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. For the first time ever, language on fossil fuels was mentioned in the final United Nations framework convention on climate change negotiating text. However, since COP28, there has been little progress in this area. Negotiations on the topic stalled at Bonn and, instead of generating momentum on delivering this pledge, the COP presidency, Azerbaijan, has made little reference to it beyond reiterating the original commitment. That should not be a major surprise to us, not just because global climate-negotiation spaces are often undermined by the presence of the oil and gas lobby, but because there has been an absence of genuine political leadership by countries, including our own—until recently—on this issue.

Just weeks after the United Arab Emirates consensus was signed, the previous Government issued new exploration licences to max out North sea fossil fuel reserves, with an attempt to ram legislation through Parliament to grant annual licensing for oil and gas. Just when the UK should have been increasing global ambition on moving away from coal, oil and gas, that Government were undermining confidence in the COP28 agreement and losing trust and credibility among key partners on the world stage.

More than half of the global population lives in cities, and urbanisation is accelerating rapidly due to climate-induced human migration, economic growth and demographic shifts, but many cities around the world are at the forefront of the triple challenge of tackling the climate crisis, building social licence and acceptance for climate action, and fighting the rising climate denial that is fuelled by vested interests.

During the last COP28 negotiations, the G77 president noted that new UK fossil-fuel drilling licences would contribute to failure of the COP28 agreement. The world cannot afford for this agreement to fail. We need Governments in each corner of the world to step up before and at Baku for success to be achieved. It is therefore an immense pleasure to see the reset that this new Government are leading. In under 100 days, the Labour Government have lifted the ban on onshore wind, introduced legislation to establish GB energy, acknowledged that the last Government’s approval of the massive Rosebank oil field was probably unlawful for failing to consider the climate impact and, just last week, secured 131 new clean energy projects to power 11 million homes—the most successful auction round ever. This change in domestic policy is helping to restore faith in the UK as a Government and as a climate leader that others can rely on, and it is providing us with new leverage to generate further ambition from others in phasing out fossil fuels at COP29 and beyond.

There is always more room to be bold. I encourage the Government to consider positive steps that would not just support the delivery of UK climate targets, lower household bills and boost energy independence, but support workers and accelerate a just transition away from global fossil fuel production at a time when climate change presents a code-red emergency for the planet.

First, we must end new oil and gas licensing. The 2024 Labour manifesto was arguably the most ambitious climate and clean energy manifesto that any Government have ever been elected on, and I am proud that it includes a world-leading promise which, when realised, will make the UK the first producing nation in the G7 to end exploration for new oil and gas. That is a huge and important first step on the path to ending oil and gas expansion and aligning the UK policy with meeting the 1.5 goal.

I understand that the Government will soon be consulting on how to implement that position, and it is my hope that they will lock it into law through a legislative ban. That would send an unmistakeable message that new fossil fuel projects are not welcome, provide much-needed certainty for the industry, and ensure that the move has longevity, surviving long into the future.

Secondly, we must engage in a just energy transition. The just energy transition is well under way, and the number of jobs supported by oil and gas have halved over the past decade despite hundreds of new oil and gas licences being issued in that period. Workers and communities were let down by the last Government. The transition must be managed fairly. To provide workers with certainty, we cannot pretend that new licences will provide them with secure employment. It is critical that we put them at the heart of the journey towards a clean-energy future. Unions, workers and communities must have a voice in the transition, and they are right to demand a detailed, coherent plan that uplifts their concerns and ensures that they benefit from the transition to renewables.

The UK can lead the way in delivering an energy transition that is just and fair for the workers and communities dependent on oil and gas if it puts those workers and communities at the centre of transition planning. If done successfully, the UK’s efforts to move away from fossil fuels can be a model for other coal, oil and gas producers—and if other countries adopt it, then this must be popular. Putting fairness at the heart of the journey is not only the right thing to do but key to making that happen

By the same token, the UK must work with climate-vulnerable countries to ensure they have the financial resources, technical expertise and ability to fairly transition. Indeed, some of the cities in the global south are absolutely leading the way in the best and fairest just transitions the world has ever seen. That is why supporting the adoption of a new collective quantified goal for finance is crucial at COP29.

Thirdly, the Government must include commitments to phase out fossil fuel production in its updated nationally determined contribution. The final thing for the Government to consider at COP29 is working more closely with others to put cities at the heart of the just transition. Cities are leading the way in climate ambition around the world, and they are reducing omissions at a faster rate than their respective national Governments. They are the doers, greening housing, planning, transport and waste, and preparing for the impacts of climate change. According to the Local Government Association, local climate action can achieve net zero for half the cost of a national approach, and deliver three times the growth in jobs, skills and health benefits. London has been a world leader, and has been acknowledged by the United Nations and the Secretary-General not only for its action but for its ambition.

At COP28, 72 Governments recognised the transformative potential of collaboration between national and local Governments by joining the coalition for high ambition multi-level partnerships, known as CHAMP, committing to integrate cities into their national climate planning and strategies. That is how crucial the next round of climate targets and NDCs will be in 2025. I hope the UK will consider joining CHAMP and following the number of Governments around the world working with their cities—as soon as we bring Britain back as an international climate leader.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I will call the first of the three Front Benchers by 10.28 am, and I want to allow Deirdre Costigan time to sum up. The last two Back Benchers were not on the list that was submitted to the Speaker’s office, but if they stick to five minutes each, everyone will get in.

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[Deirdre Costigan]

Thank you for your excellent chairship of this debate, Dr Huq. I also thank all the Members who spoke in the debate for their valuable contributions. I do not have time to respond to all the points made, but I will pick up on a couple. I was very interested in the remarks by the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) on moving away from fossil fuels. I wonder, however, if she has spoken to her co-leader of the Green party, the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay), who says he is in favour of clean energy and wind energy, but wants to block the only viable way of bringing that clean energy on to land and to the homes that need it.

I would also like to respond to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), and thank him for his helpful words. He said at the beginning that people had voted the Conservatives out of power because of their lack of action on climate. That was refreshing honesty, and I thank him very much for it.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. At 11 o’clock, we start the next debate.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).