COP26: Limiting Global Temperature Rises

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing this vital debate and for allowing me the opportunity to speak this afternoon.

When I think of my postbag there are two policy issues that dominate the correspondence that I receive from constituents in North East Fife—climate change and making ends meet, whether that be mitigating rising costs or surviving the cuts to universal credit. Some might see those two policy areas as being in contradiction, but that is not how I and my constituents see it. Both areas are about the social contract and our obligations to each other and to future generations.

The publication of the Government’s net zero strategy yesterday ahead of COP26 did bring some good news, not least their formal recognition of the need to limit global temperature rises to 1.5°. But, as other Members have said, there is still a lot missing. I welcome the move to phase out gas boilers, but we know that heat pumps are not perfect, that the grants are not sufficient and that they are only part of the answer without proper investment in home insultation. I welcome the increase in funding for offshore wind, but was disappointed to see nothing on the phasing out of fossil fuels. That needs to be a key focus of all Governments within the UK. We need to ensure that we are accelerating change in the demand profile across all sectors and helping people to do their bit.

We all know that we are in a climate crisis. The real impacts may not yet be evidenced in SW1A—although I am sure that we all saw the flooding in Norman Shaw South—but they are certainly clear to those of us in rural and coastal constituencies. Freuchie Mill in North East Fife has been severely flooded multiple times in the last 18 months and coastal erosion is a real issue for areas of natural beauty such as Tentsmuir. However, that is nothing compared with what is happening in the global south, where people are experiencing the most devastating impacts of a crisis that they had the least to do with creating. I was saddened, but not entirely surprised, to read in the news today about the lobbying by developed nations against shifting away from fossil fuels and committing to the UN’s annual fund to help countries on the frontline of climate change—a fund that was agreed in 2010, but which has never been fully committed to, and that clearly needs to be readdressed at COP26.

The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), who is no longer in his place, called for more positivity. When I look at what is happening in my constituency in terms of community activism, I do feel positive. Last month, I had the privilege of attending, for the second time, the Line in the Sand event at St Andrews, where students, staff, school pupils and others gather as part of the global climate strike. My message to them was the same as my message today: there are hard choices to be made by all of us and it is our duty as parliamentarians to advocate to ensure that Governments make it as easy as possible for people to make that transition. It is about recommitting to our global social contract. I ask the Minister and the Government to join me in making that commitment—truly making it and actually doing what is needed to make tangible change.