COP28

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Simon Stiell, the UN climate executive secretary, said at COP27 that we need

“everybody, everywhere in the world, every single day, doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis.”

That is the scale of the challenge ahead of us, and the global stocktake synthesis report has underlined what is at stake. We are falling short on mitigation, adaptation and finance. Current NCDs are 20 to 24 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent short of what is needed to limit warming to 1.5°. The conclusion is stark: there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. Indeed, in meetings I have had recently with climate scientists, they have warned that although they want to cling to the hope of keeping 1.5° alive, they fear we are now in the territory of 2°. At 2°, we lose our coral reefs, for example; that is not a solution that we should be happy to live with. Echoing Simon Stiell, the global stocktake report states that

“much more action, on all fronts and by all actors, is needed now”.

One would not know it from the speech that the Minister has just made, but we do not have a Government who are taking the action on all fronts that is needed now: we have a Government who are not just stalling, but taking us backwards. I thought it was quite a cheek for the Minister to cite electric vehicles, given that the Government have just rowed back from the 2030 ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles. The motor manufacturing sector, including the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Ford motor company, was quite happy with that 2030 date. The only reason that date was moved was that in the wake of the Uxbridge by-election, the Prime Minister wanted to play party politics with net zero. The Minister is quite audacious at times: he said that some countries were seeking to stoke division at COP, but that is exactly what his Government have been doing in recent weeks on net zero.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

The rest of the European Union has set the deadline of 2035. It was right that the United Kingdom Government set the ambition for 2030, but we recognise that things are changing: we have had covid, and there is still a need to roll out infrastructure. I think the hon. Lady is being ungenerous, since we will now be in line with the rest of the European Union, and we have a higher take-up of EVs than many other countries.

[Kerry McCarthy]

In all the conversations I have with businesses, they say that they want certainty and a strategic sense of direction; they want to know where they are going, so we should not move the goalposts. There was no reason to row back from that target, and as I have said, the motor industry itself has expressed concern. That industry needs to develop a market in new vehicles now, so that in a few years’ time, we will have the affordable second-hand market that we need so that people can afford to make the transition. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that the infrastructure is not there, but that is a challenge that we should rise to, getting a comprehensive network of public sector charging points, grid connections and so on. She will have heard that from Labour at its recent party conference.

Let me turn to domestic progress. Again, to listen to the Minister, one would think that everything was going swimmingly. The Climate Change Committee has assessed that the UK is unlikely to meet its NDC to reduce emissions by 68% between 1990 and 2030. The Government’s own carbon budget delivery plan conceded that Ministers only have plans for 92% of our NDC, but they have said that they are confident about delivering those emissions savings—that is something we often hear from the Minister, without any actual detail about how we will get there. In fact, it has been assessed that the Government have credible plans for only 28% of the required emissions reduction. There is a lot of work to be done.

The Climate Change Committee assessed the Government’s policies in October with and without the Prime Minister’s climate climbdown, and found a 20% increase in the proportion of the NDC pathway covered by “insufficient plans” having taken into account the Prime Minister’s intervention. It said that the

“widespread uncertainty for consumers and supply chains”,

is more difficult to quantify, but, as I have said, at all the meetings I have had, people are saying that this has absolutely knocked them off course. There is a huge amount of enthusiasm for going down the path to net zero and I am told that there is a lot of private sector finance ready to invest, but they need a stable economic climate, not a Prime Minister who is U-turning just when action is needed.

Following the disastrous contracts for difference auction, the proportion of the electricity supply pathway with significant risks increased by over 5,000%. The refusal to help renters contributed to a fivefold increase in insufficient plans for buildings. When the Government’s policies are, as the Climate Change Committee found,

“making Net Zero considerably harder to achieve”

and driving up energy bills, how can Ministers go to COP trying to boast about how well things are going in the UK? I do hope for action before COP. We have the autumn statement next week, and we were expecting some plans—I think the Chancellor promised in the spring that he would bring them forward—in response to the Inflation Reduction Act and the measures we then saw in the EU. I hope that we do get something on that front to at least reassure businesses that the Government still have net zero in their sights and see it as an important part of a future industrial strategy for us.

The UK used to be at the forefront of global climate action, and again the Minister was being a bit cheeky when talking about the progress that has been made since 2010. I think he entered Parliament when I did in 2005. Is that right?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. COP28 will be vital, recognising the global stocktake that will be happening, and I commend the Government on the progress they have made, while also recognising, not just in this country but around the world, the necessity of a just transition.

I pay tribute to the Prime Minister, who in his speech a couple of months ago recognised that we have already been doing so well on aspects of the carbon budget. He also recognised some of the impacts that were about to unfold, particularly in rural communities like mine in Suffolk Coastal, including a transition away from oil boilers—something that we all want. He is allowing more time for that to happen, rather than the sudden impact that such measures could have had on many people in my constituency and across the country. His speech was also about aspects of housing and the energy performance certificate. Undoubtedly, in many rural parts of the country, trying to achieve EPC standard C is difficult, because there is pretty old housing—not just from 20 or 30 years ago, but considerably older. Trying to make that change meant that a lot of buildings were at risk of being removed from the private rental sector, which would not be good in terms of housing people in our rural communities.

I also commend the Prime Minister on saying, in a key part of his speech at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh last year, that there is no solution to climate change without protecting and restoring nature. That is 100% right. Again, the United Kingdom should be proud of how it has put nature, and nature-based solutions, at the heart of ensuring that we achieve net zero around the world.

In her 1988 speech, my political heroine Margaret Thatcher highlighted the risk to the world of climate change. She was pivotal in ensuring that the Montreal protocol, and its subsequent amendments, was an innovative way—indeed, the most successful agreement ever reached —to try to tackle climate change. The Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol was ratified by this Parliament in 2017, and I was pleased to be the DEFRA Minister who led that ratification. The critical outcome of that is to try to prevent 0.5°C of warming, which will help. Indeed, that is the single biggest contribution that will be made towards keeping the goal of 1.5° alive.

This is about how we tackle the issue in a variety of ways, in particular how we use hydrofluorocarbons—in the past it was chlorofluorocarbons—and thinking about the global warming power of the different chemicals we use. In my constituency, GAH Transport has been in operation for 30 years. It is a small business, but it is really making an impact with the amount of research and innovation that it is undertaking to try to use more of the sorts of chemical that reduce global warming potential. That will be an important part of the innovation we need not just in this country but around the world. I am delighted that the UK Government are funding, through international climate finance and other aspects of official development assistance, important progress in India and Rwanda. That is important progress in the cooling challenges that those countries face, not only when heating or cooling homes, but also—particularly in Rwanda, working with other African nations nearby—when thinking about the impact on agriculture, and how we can try to reduce food waste. We are supporting that important innovation to ensure that we keep the goal of 1.5° alive.

I have one request for the Minister. The United Arab Emirates, which is taking up the COP28 presidency, has not ratified the Kigali amendment, and I encourage him to raise that with the COP28 President and Ministers for that country to see whether they can do that. We need leadership across the world. The amendment is already in effect because a sufficient number of countries have signed, but it would show further leadership from the UAE to undertake that important ratification.

I admit that I am a bit of a veteran of COPs. I went to COP23 in Bonn in 2017, and to COP24 in Katowice. We had the magnificent COP26 in Glasgow, with our own president, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma). In many ways that was a game changer for nature, and it was strengthened last year at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. Going back to Bonn, nature was really the Cinderella of it all. The oceans—we were already seeing the change, and the impact of climate change; we were starting to see acidification. Although the seas are still alkaline, they are getting more acidic, and it is important to recognise that power and how nature has helped us.

Oceans have effectively been absorbing so much carbon that the impacts—what that is doing to nature—are now starting to become clear. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned the bleaching of coral reefs and the potential loss of those reefs, and it is important that nature goes hand in hand with climate strategy. I am delighted that the UK Government have made that a key part of what we do.

On other aspects of nature, the Minister and I have attended a variety of international meetings. Most recently we were together in India for the G20, and I was with the former Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), in Japan at the G7. It has been an important part of that journey that we work globally with partners. To some extent, that has been the secret of what made the Montreal protocol work so well. Funding was given to try to help countries around the world with that innovation and transition. Some of those things are not straightforward. For example, right beneath us we have the tube system, and the way that some of these chemicals or gases were used in the past has been a key part of some of our own infrastructure. We need to change away from that, in particular by not using sulphur hexafluoride any more, or by reducing it and phasing it down as far as we can. It is important that we share our understanding and technology, and that is why what I said about India and Rwanda is an important part of making that happen.

Thinking a little more broadly, I will briefly touch on my time at the Department for Work and Pensions. I do so because I know that a lot of these measures will need financing. We made an important decision to make reporting to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures mandatory when it comes to pensions. If we think about the trillions of pounds of assets that are in global business and being invested, it makes sense for businesses to think ahead about the impact of climate change, and for investors to do so as well. That does not mean that things will happen overnight. Businesses must be conscious of what the impact of climate change will be, and frankly they need to start financing to try to mitigate that impact or adapt towards it. As a slight aside, I welcome the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, and I hope I can persuade the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions to adopt that in future as well.

In order to ensure that we achieve net zero by 2050, we do have to think of the planet—of course we do—and we have to think of people. A lot of this is quite an uncomfortable transition and a change to a way of life, and we must make it as straightforward as possible. I also know that we can be prosperous as a consequence of these changes, whether that is through green jobs in the UK, or ensuring that instead of spending lots of money on having to adapt, mitigate or deal with crises in different parts of the world, we build such measures into our systematic way of growing globally in terms of our prosperity. That is why it is so important that the £11.5 billion of international climate finance is still a key part of the Government’s strategy.

My constituency contains a nuclear power station, Sizewell B. It was home to Sizewell A, which is now being decommissioned, and planning consent has been given for Sizewell C. It really matters for our energy supply that we have a mix. There is also a lot of offshore wind in the southern North sea. The impact on the onshore infrastructure required to bring that into our network is a source of much concern in Suffolk, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister is well aware of that. I will not dwell on that—I intend to bring it up another time—but to take the national and global position, we need to work out how we will make that transition fair, thinking of the impact on communities and on nature. I know that my right hon. Friend is wise about those matters.

The shadow Minister referred to the greenhouse gases inventory. I agree that we should look to bring saltmarsh, woodlands and so on into the inventory. I am delighted that DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser, Dr Gideon Henderson, is undertaking that work. I wish him well and hope he will be able to work at pace. I will shortly talk about mangroves—my favourite, they are magic and it would not be a speech from me if I did not talk about them—and we have to recognise that saltmarsh is our equivalent of mangroves. In my time previously in DEFRA and in the past year, I tried but did not quite get there—I really need the Marine Management Organisation to work much more collaboratively with Natural England and the Environment Agency to make it more straightforward to plant saltmarsh. There have been too many complications with licensing in different ways, and it is very frustrating. Like mangroves, saltmarsh is multipurpose. It can sequester carbon, it can be a good flood defence, and it is a brilliant habitat for many of the migratory wading birds that come to our shores. I am very keen that we make good progress on making that happen.

On emissions, I want to thank Robert Caudwell who did a report for DEFRA on lowland peat and the impact of farming and agriculture. I wrote the foreword to the Government’s response earlier this year and welcomed the investment towards tackling the emissions, because it is a significant amount. It is of course important that we have food security, but we also need to tackle emissions from agriculture in a measured way. Wider work on the restoration of peatlands has been a passion of mine for several years.

My right hon. Friend mentioned deforestation, which was one of the key elements of COP26 in the leaders’ pledge, various declarations and the coalition of ambitions. I am known for wanting to make sure we turn ambitions into action, and I know that the House will share that thought. I was, therefore, delighted that we were able to contribute to the Amazon Fund, which will help Brazil in particular. That was announced by the Prime Minister earlier this year. Progress is being made on getting the forest risk commodities legislation ready, and I hope it will be laid before the House before too long. It is important that as we make these changes we do our best to reduce deforestation and our demands through supply chains, and I commend the companies that have already made those changes. There is more to do, and I hope more will be done very shortly.

Nature-based solutions can be symbiotic and provide much more value for money in achieving what we want to achieve. It has not always been the case that actions taken to reduce carbon have been beneficial to the environment. That is not a criticism. The dash for diesel had other impacts, especially with particulate matter 2.5. People did not know at the time, but we should recognise now that the dash for diesel had an impact on other aspects of the environment and it is important that we consider both as we make further changes.

I have a particular passion for mangroves. I tried to brand them “blue forests” to make them a bit more accessible around the world, but they are magical. They are magic because, bang for buck, they are better at carbon sequestration than the Amazon forests. They have been in place for a long time, but they are also under threat, because they make brilliant wood for building homes and boats. I commend countries such as Mozambique that have put in national protections. We should think about how much of the Commonwealth has mangroves, because at the moment they do not get rewarded for the protections they have put in place.

Communities do understand; it is not just about carbon. What is magic about mangroves is that they provide a brilliant place to develop aquaculture. The fishing industries locally can be sustainable because of the opportunities for the growth of fish stock and protection from other predators, just by the nature of the mangroves. They also have an impact on coastal erosion and protection. Haiti in the Caribbean suffered a devastating hurricane some years ago, but, while the areas with mangroves were still damaged, they were the quickest to recover. That is why I am on a mission, and will continue to be so as long as I have breath, to champion mangroves whether in this House or as I regularly did in ministerial meetings around the world.

The magic of mangroves needs to be recognised more, and that is why I was pleased that for COP28 the UAE made a commitment to plant more mangroves. My right hon. Friend the Minister and I went different ways after the G20 in Chennai, and I had the privilege of visiting the second largest mangrove forest in the world at Pichavaram, and it was exceptionally special. I love that the community also recognises how special the forest is and how important it is to protect it. I am conscious that other parts of the world have had a slash and burn approach in the past to generate other aspects of the economy, but now Governments and communities have recognised the importance of stopping deforestation, as my right hon. Friend mentioned.

On the history of climate change, I give credit to the Labour Government who introduced the Climate Act 2008, and we took a generally cross-party approach to it. David Cameron introduced “vote blue, go green” and was really behind the change. The Act legislated for an 80% reduction by 2050, and it was actually my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), when she was Prime Minister, who made the change to a 100% reduction by law. Those legal targets matter. We should also recognise that it was Boris Johnson who really made a difference at COP26. He brought nature and the world together to make sure that we would keep up the momentum.

There is no doubt in my mind that covid was a bit of a body-check to progress on many environmental matters, but it is important that we keep accelerating, and I wish my right hon. Friend the Minister well at COP28. I know that several Ministers are going, including Lord Benyon from DEFRA and my successor as the Secretary of State. It matters that we are there. We need to bring others with us, but they will not come with us if we just attack what they do.

Just last week, I was in Beijing where I met Minister Huang, the president of the Committee on Biological Diversity that led to the immense global biodiversity framework agreed last December in Montreal. We have to work with China and with other countries—I think in particular of Minister Yadav in India. I was able to explain what I thought was the Prime Minister’s just transition, but we certainly cannot reduce our ambition; we have to work with other countries, and challenge them but bring them along, because it matters that everybody makes their commitment.

It does not matter if the United Kingdom or any other country is the first to reach net zero—what matters is when the last country hits net zero. We need to ensure that as many countries as possible achieve that by 2050, if not before, and I wish my right hon. Friend the Minister well in the negotiations. I know there is ambition in our thinking about some of the different approaches that need to be taken. I hope that he will also be key to the Commonwealth playing its part. At the UN General Assembly, I was delighted to chair the first meeting of Commonwealth Ministers for environment and climate, and there was certainly ambition there. Let us turn that into action. I have great confidence in my right hon. Friend making that happen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I will start with a short reality check. Climate scientists are forecasting with near certainty that 2023 will set a new record as the hottest year. October global temperatures soared 1.7°C above the late-1800s average for that month. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, September 2023 surpassed the average July temperatures from 2001 to 2010. Those records are not merely being broken but being shattered. Heatwaves, droughts and floods have resulted in significant human suffering, claiming thousands of lives, disrupting livelihoods and displacing scores of people.

The burden of these climactic shifts falls disproportionately on those regions and communities that have contributed least to the crisis. East Africa, a region with minimal contribution to global carbon emissions, has faced devastating drought and famine, with estimates earlier this year suggesting that two lives were being lost every minute. Meanwhile, low-lying nations such as Tuvalu facing the real threat of extinction in the coming decades are creating digital back-ups of their entire existence and culture, complete with ancestral knowledge and value systems.

As we approach COP28, it is therefore encouraging—although long overdue—that the conference will focus more on frontline communities, and especially those in least developed countries and small islands. That emphasis must translate into tangible financial support. That is an area where Scotland has set a precedent as the first country in the global north to commit funds to climate loss and damage, pledging £2 million at COP26. Last year, the Scottish Government allocated an additional £5 million to non-economic loss and damage, supporting initiatives preserving the heritage of affected communities. Those sums are, of course, small compared with what is required globally. Finance provided by rich countries to help the poorest deal with climate change remains woefully inadequate. However, the Scottish Government’s action has encouraged others to follow, with about $300 million thought to have been pledged globally to address loss and damage.

At COP27, a landmark agreement was reached to establish a dedicated fund aimed explicitly at supporting vulnerable nations and communities who are grappling with the irreversible effects of climate change. That action must be accelerated, and the finance offered must be additional to that already available for mitigation and adaptation—and it must be in the form of grants not loans. Support for adaptation initiatives is simply inadequate.

Countries of the global north not only bear a substantial responsibility for the destructive consequences of climate change through our emissions but have benefited from the competitive advantages that the early adoption of fossil fuels and industrialisation provided. Therefore, surely wealthy nations have a moral obligation to recognise that historical responsibility and lead by example. First Minister Humza Yousaf and Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition Màiri McAllan, who will represent Scotland at the conference, will make that case to delegates.

Action to address loss and damage gets to the heart of what we mean by climate justice. It is a principle that is equally important at home as it is globally. The Scottish Government are committed to ending our reliance on fossil fuels in a way that is fair and leaves no one behind. That is exemplified by the just transition fund: the Scottish Government’s 10-year, £500 million investment to support projects in the north-east and Moray as those regions transition to net zero. The principles of a just transition are also enshrined in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2019, emphasising the creation of green, sustainable jobs and addressing economic inequality.

The actions needed to reach net zero by 2045 will transform all sectors of our economy and society, and will require rapid structural change. In Scotland, and indeed throughout the UK, we have seen how unplanned structural changes in the past have left intergenerational scarring and deprivation, most notably in our former coalmining communities. Our transition to net zero must be managed differently.

In October alone, we have experienced two extreme rainfall events, including Storm Babet, which disrupted transport, destroyed infrastructure and crops, led to the evacuation of communities, and tragically took lives in Scotland and across the UK. The health of our environment, economy and society is interlinked with how well we mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts. That is why the Scottish Government are making an extra £150 million available in this parliamentary term on top of £42 million annually for flood risk management, and £12 million on coastal adaptation.

The Scottish Government’s climate change plan update outlines nearly 150 policies, setting a pathway to meet our ambitious emissions targets by 2032, including a 75% reduction by 2030. We have reached significant milestones. In 2020, almost 100% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption in Scotland was generated from renewable sources. Although the Scottish Government have met targets and missed others, at the last count the Government missed their annual emissions target by only 1.2%. That tells us two things. The actions of the Scottish Government are helping us to track very closely to where we need to be against the backdrop of some of the most stretching targets in the world. Equally, there is a great deal left to do.

Of course, the delivery of Scotland’s climate ambitions is also contingent on action by the UK Government in reserved and shared areas, and that certainly has not been helped by the Prime Minister’s recent abandonment of key net zero commitments. The sheer scale of his policy reversals may have a significant impact on Scotland, not least in the preparation of our own draft climate change plan. I am afraid that the King’s Speech only deepened those concerns. The problems with the announced new licensing system have been highlighted by both climate scientists and anti-poverty campaigners, so I do not need to go into them, but analysis from earlier this year showed that new oil and gas fields in the North sea will produce only enough gas to meet the UK’s needs for a few weeks a year. If the Government were serious about strengthening the UK’s energy security and bringing down people’s energy bills, they would start by announcing robust measures to incentivise investments in renewables. I think in particular of tidal stream—I speak about that regularly in this House—similar to what we are seeing from the EU and the US, as well as matching the Scottish Government’s £500 million just transition fund.

People in Scotland are rightly asking how it is possible that they are facing unaffordable energy bills when in 2020 Scotland produced enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of every household in the country for more than three years. They are also wondering why in a country where we produce six times more gas than we consume, Age Scotland’s figures suggest that a scandalous 50% of people aged 55 to 64 are living in fuel poverty.

We are also seeing the damaging impact of Brexit on environmental protections and standards, which Members on the SNP Benches warned of repeatedly. The Tories’ Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 threatens the high standards that Scotland enjoyed as an EU member, before we were removed against the wishes of the clear majority of people in our country. Just this week, we heard the UK Government’s plans to reduce the safety information required from chemical companies to register substances to an irreducible minimum. The UK’s registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—UK REACH—is already falling behind the EU’s regulations, and that move will only heighten the risk of toxic substances entering the environment.

In the realm of national security, the Defence Committee’s recent report on climate change found that the Ministry of Defence could do much more to measure and reduce its carbon emissions without eroding military capability.

[Dr Coffey]

I hear what the hon. Lady says about chemicals; the Government are planning to produce a new chemicals strategy. She may not be aware that the European Union refused to allow the United Kingdom access to all the information on REACH. The cost of replicating exactly the same information is huge. She needs to be mindful that we are trying to support business, while recognising that the European Union could have given us access and refused to do so.

[Deidre Brock]

That is just another complication caused by Brexit, which has been a disaster for the UK.

As I mentioned, in the realm of national security, the Defence Committee has taken a close interest for some time, so it seems that some sort of environmental audit would be appropriate for Ministry of Defence activities.

Whoever wins the next election faces a long road to rectify the decisions of the current Government. Hon. Members should not take my word for it, but it does not bode well for the UK’s standing on the climate crisis ahead of COP28. Lord Deben, the former chair of the Climate Change Committee, said in the summer that by failing to act decisively in response to the energy crisis and building on the success of hosting COP26, the UK has lost its claim to global climate leadership.

To restore influence and authority ahead of COP28, the Prime Minister should take heed of the letter from the all-party parliamentary group for climate change, which Members from different parties across the Chamber have signed. It calls on the Prime Minister to appoint a Secretary of State-level UK climate envoy ahead of COP28, after the Government scrapped the role of special representative on climate change within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. We want the UK Government to support climate-vulnerable countries by committing new and additional grant-based finance to the loss and damage fund, and championing a just global energy transition by engaging with affected workers and supporting other countries to fairly move away from fossil fuels.

As we all know, the Paris agreement binds countries to stop the planet heating by 1.5° by the end of the century. However, current policies are set to heat it by about 2.4°. That trajectory spells disaster for the planet. We must play our part in reversing it immediately.