Climate Change, the Environment and Global Development

Debate between Andrew Stephenson and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

I disagree with the hon. Lady. We have seen billions of pounds spent on flood defences across the United Kingdom. There are areas where we want to go faster: the Environment Agency has just finished a £1 million project in Earby in my constituency, and I am lobbying for it to do even more in the area. I am aware that many right hon. and hon. Members would like us to go further and faster on flood defences. I will happily raise the issue with my colleagues in DEFRA, but we are investing in ensuring that we are resilient in the future. We can do more, and we need to do more, but we are making some good progress.

Let me turn to the issue of international climate finance. Many of the interventions so far have been about our domestic record, but I want to steer us back to our international obligations and what we are doing to help some of the poorest in the world.

Let me give the House a sense of the ways in which the UK is supporting developing countries with the climate challenge. The UK uses its international climate finance, a growing part of our UK aid budget, to support developing countries to move on from business as usual to: adapt and be more climate resilient; take up transformational low-carbon development; and tackle deforestation and unsustainable land use. The Department for International Development, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and DEFRA work together to deliver that support, which is making a difference in over 100 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Two quick points. At the launch of the “People and Nature” campaign in Parliament on Monday, we discussed the fact that there is not much point in DFID adopting these very admirable principles if UK Export Finance is supporting fossil fuel investment. Secondly, we have heard reports recently that in Brazil, parts of the Amazon the size of a football pitch are being deforested every minute. The current President’s approach suggests that he wants to continue that deforestation. Where does that fit? We hear that Government Ministers are going to Brazil to talk about fossil fuel exploration. There seems to be a lack of consistency between what DFID and other arms of Government are doing.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the hon. Lady for those points. There has been a clear trend in UK Export Finance to move away from support for fossil fuels and towards significant additional resources going into funding renewables. Where fossil fuels have been supported they have been fuels such as gas, which is widely seen as a transition fossil fuel, and away from high-polluting fossil fuels such as coal, which UK Export Finance has not financed for well over a decade. I will touch on Brazil in my speech, so if she will allow me I will come on to that shortly.

Through programmes like the Climate Investment Funds, we are: climate-proofing road and canals in Zambia; mainstreaming climate resilience into Government planning in Malawi and Mozambique; supporting climate-vulnerable small island states to manage climate risks; and helping to drive investment in some of the largest solar power complexes in the world. Through programmes like the Renewable Energy Performance Platform, we are mobilising private sector investment in solar homes systems and small-scale renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing clean power to those who need it most.