UN Climate Change Conference: Government Response

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Anna McMorrin]

Yes, we are doing a lot on climate change, but not enough, and we are not showing adequate leadership internationally.

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

I echo what others have said about the importance of this debate. I am grateful that the hon. Lady secured it; a number of us tried to, but she was the one who succeeded and I am glad. On the point about the UK doing enough, is it not the case that it is easy to say, “We’re getting rid of coal, so we’re the good ones”, when in fact we are outsourcing our emissions to poorer countries? We benefit from our own consumption, but the emissions caused by that consumption are on the account of the exporting country—we should have consumption emissions, not just production emissions.

[Anna McMorrin]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady: we should have those consumption emissions at home in the UK and we should examine what we do, and how we count and account for the emissions that we create.

We have allowed the wealthy Governments internationally to dodge their responsibility towards the poorer countries. At Katowice, climate finance was defined in such a loose way that there is no certainty that adequate finance will be provided to help smaller countries meet their climate obligations. We have allowed loopholes to continue, which the wealthier Governments will continue to exploit.

I have secured this debate to focus attention on the action that this Government must take if we are to prevent runaway climate change—not what sounds good, but what will actually lead to hard outcomes. It is striking that it took at teenager speaking at COP24 to bring some attention to what needs to happen.

In the Minister’s written statement following the conference, she claimed that the UK Government were championing the latest climate science, but where is the evidence? The UK Government’s ambition for a net-zero carbon cluster by 2040 sounds good, but how will we deliver it? The Government have stated that they will be on track to meet the net-zero target only after the fifth carbon budget in 2032, which means that without speedier action over a much shorter timeframe, between 2032 and 2045, achieving net zero by 2045 is not feasible.

Why should we be surprised? We are still on course to miss those international carbon reduction targets. What are the Tory Government doing about that? They have sold off the green investment bank. They have scrapped the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Levels of new low-carbon investment are lower than when they took office. Subsidies and support for tried-and-tested forms of renewable energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, have been cut, which has put jobs and new low-carbon projects at risk.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts, and I again congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) on securing the debate. The UK has historically played a leading role in global climate negotiations; for example, it pressed for the 1.5° ambition in the 2015 Paris agreement. However, in the words of the former UK climate envoy, John Ashton,

“Rule one of diplomacy is, walk your talk: otherwise people stop listening”.

The tragedy is that in recent years, the global leadership role that the UK played on the international stage has been undermined by the systematic dismantling of climate policy at home. We have heard some of this already, but since 2010, Ministers have scrapped zero carbon homes; sold off the Green Investment Bank; made it almost impossible to build onshore wind farms; cut off support for solar power; made no progress on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies; gone all out for fracking, which is quite extraordinary given that that is a whole new fossil fuel industry; and in the area of energy efficiency, which is all too often a poor cousin in these debates, we are woefully behind on some targets—for example, retrofitting some of our most energy-inefficient homes. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, we could be over 50 years late in getting that target sorted.

The impact of those failures is incredibly real, and we have heard from the Committee on Climate Change that once again, the UK is way off meeting its fourth and fifth carbon budgets. “With each delay,” it says,

“we stray further from the cost-effective path to the 2050 target.”

Beyond that, the sad truth is that even if all those policies were still active, it would not be enough. The problem is that our economy is built on the assumption that precious minerals, fresh air, clean water and rare species can magically regenerate themselves in an instant, and that somehow the Earth will expand to meet our ever-expanding use of resources. The reality is that we have stretched the planet beyond its limits and, without a bold reimagining of how our economy works, it will simply not be able to spring back into shape. The UN 1.5° report made clear that we need to cut emissions to net zero by the middle of this century, but the global economy is set to nearly triple in size during that same period. That makes the job of decarbonisation massively greater.

Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old climate activist, told world leaders at COP24 in December that

“if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, maybe we should change the system itself.”

She was right. Of course, we need massive investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency and a new, clean public transport system, but we also need to think far more boldly about the way we integrate concerns about our natural world in the way we run our economy. Crucially, we need to limit the resources that we all use. Those in the global north who can radically reduce how much they consume and throw away must do so. We must find new and innovative ways to recycle and reuse materials; there is much talk of dematerialisation and decoupling from energy and consumption, but the truth is that there is no example anywhere in the world of absolute decoupling in anything like the timeframes that we will need if we are serious about getting off the collision course that we are currently on with the climate crisis. We have a huge job of work in front of us.

I am really grateful for this debate, and I want to add one last thing: my quick scan of Hansard suggests that over the past year, there has been only one debate in the main Chamber on climate change. That is not good enough. I hope that we can reinvigorate the all-party parliamentary climate change group, and I invite everyone at this debate to join that APPG so that we can be a bigger force in this place for better climate policy.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We will now hear from the Front Benchers. The Scottish National party and the Labour party spokespeople each have five minutes, and the Minister has 10 minutes.