Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to work with his counterparts from other countries to ensure that global temperatures do not exceed 1.5 degrees C.

One hundred and eighty one of the 197 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have now ratified the Paris Agreement, and I am proud that the UK is one of them. The UK is fully committed to working with other countries to achieve the Paris Agreement goals including limiting global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. We are actively involved in the UNFCCC negotiations and are fully committed to finalising the rulebook that will underpin the Paris Agreement at COP24 this December. We drive the work of several progressive groups, comprising developed and developing countries, such as the High Ambition Coalition. We are one of the largest contributors of international climate finance, helping developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change through coalitions and partnerships, and we will spend at least £5.8bn on this between 2016 and 2020. Additionally, we are promoting global alliances to encourage clean growth, such as the Powering Past Coal Alliance, to reduce emissions from the most polluting fuel, which I launched last year, and which now has over 70 members. We are also working to build on the progress made at the UK Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Summit, hosted by the Prime Minister in September 2018, to help the development of the ZEV market around the world and tackle carbon emissions. The UK is also showing leadership through domestic action, between 1990 and 2017 we have reduced our emissions by 43% whilst growing our economy by 71%, demonstrating that it is possible to grow your economy while reducing emissions.