Sustainable Development Goals

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that 2015 is an historic year for development as the countries of the world come together to negotiate the binding climate change agreement at the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals; believes it is unacceptable that more than one billion people still live in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day; notes that the effects of climate change will be most severe in some of the world’s poorest countries; further recognises that the UK has a leading role to play in these negotiations; regrets that the Government failed to bring forward legislation to enshrine in law the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income on international aid as set out in the Coalition Agreement; further regrets that this Government has failed to support standalone Sustainable Development Goals on health and climate change; and calls on the Government to show global leadership on tackling the causes of poverty inequality and climate change.

This year, 2015, is an historic year for development. The countries of the world will come together at the United Nations in September to agree the sustainable development goals, and in Paris in December we will agree a framework to tackle climate change. These agreements would be priorities for a Labour Government. We have called today’s debate—the first since the debate on Burma in 2008—to set out the differences that we see between this coalition Government and Labour on these vital issues.

Fifteen years ago, a Labour Government led global efforts to tackle extreme poverty, which led to the millennium development goals. These goals have produced fantastic results. Every day, 17,000 fewer children die. Nine out of 10 children in developing regions now attend primary school and we have halved the number of children who die before their fifth birthday. In 2002, just 700,000 people received treatment for HIV. The last Labour Government helped to found the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. Today, 13 million people access life-saving HIV treatment. We cancelled debt, increased aid and outlawed cluster bombs, and when my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the UK became the first country in the world to put into a law a target to reduce carbon emissions. Other countries, such as Finland, Denmark and Brazil, have followed that lead.

But, today, more than 1 billion people still live on less than $1.25 a day, so the new sustainable development goals must go faster to eliminate extreme poverty and, vitally, tackle growing economic inequality.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I appreciate the call that the hon. Lady is making for UK leadership on climate and poverty issues. Does she recognise that her party’s support for things such as maximising oil and gas extraction in the Infrastructure Bill, agreed just a few days ago, is undermining the pledges she is now making to tackle climate change?

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady continues to seek division, which is regrettable.

Those goals have been welcomed by the NGO community, and the UK Government have said that we support the breadth and the balance of the open working group report. We recognise, though, that the post-2015 framework needs to have the universal appeal that made the MDGs so successful. Developing countries were able to take those goals in their entirety and integrate them directly in their national development plans. The deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Jan Eliasson, said clearly to me the last time we met a couple of months ago when he was in London that that was one of the unintended impacts of the MDGs—countries used them as their development strategy because they felt that they could work with them. That is why the UK has been strongly advocating a shorter, more inspiring and more implementable set of goals and targets that resonates with people around the world. We want to keep the breadth and the balance of the open working group’s goals and targets, but we want to ensure that we get a framework that can truly improve the lives of the poorest people in the poorest countries.

We know that, for the poorest people in our world, we cannot allow this discussion, process and debate to be kicked around as a political football. We should be steadily building consensus. In December the UN Secretary-General published his synthesis report “The Road to Dignity by 2030”. He called on member states to strive towards the highest level of ambition and he set out six principles that member states should strive towards: dignity, people, prosperity, planet, justice and partnership—working together. He also called on member states to look at targets and to ensure that these are measurable, implementable and in line with the level of ambition that we want to see. I have spoken to the Secretary-General on a number of occasions about the post-2015 framework and about the need to make sure that, like the MDGs, it is compelling and transformative. He is right that these principles must be taken forward in negotiations.

In his synthesis report the Secretary-General made a clear link between the post-2015 framework and the outcome of the climate change conference in Paris. I agree that the two are fundamentally connected and that 2015 is a unique year and a unique opportunity to bring the two agendas together. As I argued at the UN General Assembly last year, it is the very poorest who will be hit first and hardest by climate change. Our objectives for the Paris meeting are clear and ambitious. We want an outcome that delivers the ultimate goal of the UN framework convention on climate change, which is to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting the global average temperature increase to no more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels. We are one of the few countries arguing for this to be explicit in the SDG framework. The most cost-effective and reliable way to achieve that is through an international, legally binding agreement with mitigation commitments for all.

Our approach to the 2015 framework can support that in two ways. First, it will ensure that climate is truly integrated in, and demonstrably an integral part of, the final framework of goals and targets. Secondly, if we can secure agreement at the September summit, it will help to boost multilateralism ahead of the Paris meeting in December.

[Caroline Lucas]

I appreciate the tone that the Secretary of State is taking. I want to ask about consistency, because the one thing that I learned when I worked for Oxfam for 10 years was that to have credibility on the global stage, we need to have consistency in our domestic policies. The Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into SDGs found that there is a contradiction in the Government supporting subsidies for fossil fuels while at the same time promoting the climate change agenda. Will she say something about that?

[Justine Greening]

As the hon. Lady knows, I was happy to give evidence to the Committee, because that is a key part of the SDGs that we need to get right. She will know that within the broader international development agenda we have tightened up our work, including with the World Bank, in terms of the projects that we are prepared to sign off on, so we are not investing in those fossil fuels unless there is no alternative for the poorest countries in the world to be able to get the energy they so desperately need to help them start to move down the road to development.

The UK Government have one of the proudest records of any development aid donor, both in delivering real results for the poorest people in the poorest countries and in shaping the international consensus around what matters most. Let us consider our record for one moment. We are the first country to reach the 0.7% of GNI spent on aid target—something that we promised to do for many years, and done by this Government. Our Prime Minister led the world, hosting the summit in 2011, supporting the global alliance for vaccines and immunisation, saving the lives of millions of children. Just yesterday, the world agreed to commit a further $7.5 billion to continue the important work of GAVI, or the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, from 2016 to 2020. In response to the UK’s pledge of £1 billion, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said:

“The UK’s generous pledge to Gavi—which will save around 1.4 million children’s lives by 2020—is another example of how Britain invests in development solutions that provide value for money and real impact. The UK has been instrumental in helping to mobilise the international community to give generously to Gavi. The people of Britain should be proud of their huge contribution in creating a world that is healthier, more stable and increasingly prosperous.”

I wonder whether he would be confused by the tone that the shadow Minister has taken.