Climate Change and Flooding

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Edward Miliband

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who plays a very important role in the GLOBE organisation of parliamentarians. This debate comes at a timely moment after the Paris agreement, and after the tragedy of the floods that we have seen. I know that many hon. Friends want to talk about the effects on their constituencies, so I will try to keep my remarks reasonably brief.

I want to focus on the question of what the Paris agreement means for UK domestic policy. In doing so, I praise the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who played an important role in the talks. She was the host of the high ambition coalition between developed and vulnerable countries, and her office was its headquarters. She deserves credit for the very constructive role that she played. Having said that, when I listened to her statement yesterday, I felt, while I do not want to be unfair to her, that her position was somewhat to say, “Everything has changed and nothing has changed.” In other words, internationally everything has changed, with high ambitions, zero emissions and all that stuff, but for the UK things are the same as before. I want to make the case that that cannot be right, for four reasons, three of which are to do with the agreement itself.

First, on 1.5°, no previous agreement has enshrined a commitment to try to commit to

“efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5 C.”

This is a higher ambition than there has been in any agreement before. The Secretary of State knows that, because she was one of the people who helped broker the agreement. The reason it was brokered is very interesting: it was because of the case put forward by countries like the Marshall Islands that will disappear with warming of more than 1.5°. Some people fear that the high ambition coalition was a ruse to break up the G77 and China grouping in order to put pressure on the Chinese to get an agreement. I do not believe that it was a ruse. However, we cannot just say, “Our domestic policy will not change,” because if we suggest that our attitude to a 1.5° agreement is the same as to a 2° agreement, countries like the Marshall Islands will conclude, “Hang on a minute—were these people serious after all?”

The Committee on Climate Change picked up on this point in its release yesterday, saying that it would make it even more important—I am paraphrasing somewhat but I do not think I am misrepresenting it—that we met its recommendations on carbon budgets, and that it might be the case that further steps should be taken. It said that it would come back to the Secretary of State on that in early 2016. I would be interested to hear what she thinks are the implications of this more exacting target—because it definitely is more exacting.

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very strong case, which I appreciate. Surely the difference that 1.5° makes means that we need to think again about aviation expansion. In yesterday’s aviation statement, which came right after the climate statement, nobody even mentioned climate, and yet aviation is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

[Edward Miliband]

When we were in government, I played one part in the rather unhappy saga that is Heathrow. In response to the demand that we should approve Heathrow, I pushed for a separate target for aviation emissions. Of course that must also be looked at as part of the 1.5° target. There cannot simply be unconstrained expansion of aviation. The hon. Lady makes a good point.

Secondly, the agreement contains not just the 1.5° aim but a long-term goal of zero emissions. When I asked the Secretary of State about this yesterday, she said that she was happy pursuing the existing targets in the Climate Change Act. I think that those targets are very important, because I helped legislate for them, and I am very happy that she wants to make sure that we meet them. However, when I was Climate Change Secretary we had not had a global agreement for net zero emissions. We cannot possibly say, “We’ve got this global commitment to zero emissions in the second half of the century but it has no implications for UK domestic policy.” Of course we have to look at what it means for the UK.

My case to the Secretary of State, which I hope she will consider—I am not asking for an answer today—is that when the Energy Bill comes back to this House in the new year she amends it to ask the Committee on Climate Change to do something very simple, which is to look at this issue and make a recommendation to Government about when we should achieve zero emissions. That would do a number of things. It would send a cross-party message that Britain is determined to be a climate leader; the Secretary of State has talked eloquently about the impact that the Climate Change Act had, with cross-party support. It would also reduce, not increase, the costs of transition, because it would provide a clear trajectory to business and, indeed, to future Governments.

I say to Conservative Members, who have understandable concerns, that it would be supported by business. I am not the most radical person on this issue. The most radical people are, believe it or not, Richard Branson, Paul Polman of Unilever and Ratan Tata. They want not just what I am suggesting, but something much more radical—they want zero emissions by 2050. Perhaps that is what the Committee on Climate Change will concede, but my approach is much more pragmatic, as is that of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart). Let us not pluck a figure out of the air—such as 2050—without having the experts look at it; let us look at what the implications of the global goal of zero emissions are for the UK. That is a very reasonable suggestion.