Paris Climate Change Conference

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the Pope’s Encyclical, entitled Laudato Si’, Our Common Home, on climate change and international justice which is an important contribution to discussions on this vital subject; further notes that the 2015 climate change conference will be held in Paris between 30 November and 11 December 2015; and calls on the Government to recognise the significant support for a successful outcome to the conference which should commit to take further steps to tackle climate change effectively in the UK and around the world before 2020.

I should like to begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the opportunity to debate this important issue in the main Chamber today.

Pope Francis published his encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home”, six months ago. In it, he says that he wishes

“to address every person living on this planet”

about the “urgent challenge” of “global environmental deterioration”. Following his namesake, St Francis, he writes that

“concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace”

are “inseparable”. It is an astonishing and exceptionally rich document drawing on the experience of the Church around the world, scientists, philosophers, and civic groups. He calls for

“a new and universal solidarity”

in which

“All of us can co-operate”.

His main theme is the

“relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet”.

He makes a particular appeal to politicians, saying that many of us

“seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems”

when there is

“an urgent need to develop”

new “policies”. He calls on us to show “courage” and change

“established structures of power which today govern societies”.

This is why I and other hon. Members applied for the debate.

In looking at what is happening to the planet, the Pope contrasts the acceleration of change with the naturally slow pace of biological evolution. He is particularly critical of the “throwaway” society, saying that instead we need

“to adopt a circular model of production”.

He makes this important observation:

“The climate is a common good”.

For those who have not been keeping up with papal politics, things have moved on since Urban VIII put Galileo under arrest. Pope Francis embraces the work of independent scientific research and the benefits of technology to medicine, engineering, and communications. He points to the “very solid scientific consensus” on global warming and to our role in it through

“the intensive use of fossil fuels”

and “deforestation”.

In considering the

“biodiverse lungs of our planet…the Amazon and the Congo”,

the Pope is not afraid to challenge proposals that he says

“only serve the economic interests of transnational corporations”.

One of the worst things is that the cost of this violent “destruction”, as he calls it, is borne mainly by the poor. He draws attention to the increase in the number of migrants. We know that one reason for the huge increase in the number of people coming across the Mediterranean is the desertification of sub-Saharan Africa. We would be misleading our constituents if we pretended that we could tackle this without tackling the underlying causes.

The encyclical warns of the dangers of the developing situation whereby knowledge, resources and power are in the hands of a small number of people. As Oxfam says, the richest 85 families own as much as the poorest 3.5 billion. The Pope writes,

“a minority believes that it has the right to consume in a way which can never be universalized”.

He says:

“Inequity…compels us to consider an ethics of international relations.”

So he calls for:

“The establishment of a legal framework which can…ensure the protection of ecosystems…otherwise…power structures based on”

technical fixes “may overwhelm our politics”, our freedom and our justice. Put simply, the world system is unsustainable.

The Pope is very clear that we need a change of heart, and naturally enough he draws on the creation story, asserting that nature is not solely a source of profit and gain, and:

“Whether believers or not, we are agreed…that the earth is…a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone.”

An important consequence of that is that we must have equal concern for future generations, and another is that private property is always subject to a social mortgage. The Pope says:

“Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now.”

What is the Pope’s positive agenda for change? First, he wants us to understand the world as a whole and to see that strategies to tackle the environment need to incorporate economic and social change. Individuals can and do change their behaviour in worthwhile ways, from turning down the heating to sorting the rubbish, but they can also press for change through consumer boycotts, involvement in campaign groups and pressurising politicians. This morning I was particularly glad to meet people from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, who have come to support us in this debate.

The Pope is very keen to encourage ecological education that goes beyond facts, to challenge our culture. Action can be taken at local and national level. He points to the co-operatives established to provide renewable energy projects and to help small-scale farmers. In his description of the changes in cities, we see clearly his Latin American perspective, with calls to improve housing, public transport and neighbourhood planning. All those things happen in some places some of the time, but for the planet to survive they need to happen everywhere all of the time. In an interdependent world, none of that will be enough without international action, which is why holding this debate before Ministers go to Paris is so important. Global consensus is essential and technologies based on fossil fuels need to be replaced, but the international community has not reached adequate agreement about responsibility for paying for that transition.

Looking at recent history, the Pope points out that, although the 1992 Rio summit set out goals and actions, it was

“poorly implemented, due to the lack of suitable mechanisms for oversight, periodic review and penalties in cases of non-compliance…Reducing greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility”

from those who are most

“powerful and pollute the most.”

International negotiations will not make significant progress while positions taken by countries place national interest above the global common good. It is important that internationalisation of environment costs do not penalise the poor. As the Bolivian bishops have said, the countries that have benefited most have a greater responsibility.

What is needed is global regulatory norms and enforceable international agreements, and that means institutional reform at the international level—

“an agreement on systems of governance for the whole range of so-called ‘global commons’.”

The Paris conference is a real opportunity to move things on.

In her letter to the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, the Secretary of State wrote that

“UK priorities include seeking to agree a five yearly cycle of review that would provide the opportunity to reflect on progress and increase ambition…capitalising on the falling cost of low carbon technology. This will be important as we do not expect the cumulative commitments contained in countries’ INDCs to be enough to put us on track to meet the…2 °C goal. We are also building support for legally binding rules to help ensure transparency and accountability so that there can be confidence that the action committed to is being taken.”

That has been the British Government’s position for some time, but I honestly do not think it is strong enough. First, instead of saying what we must do to keep the global temperature rise to 2 °C and then sharing out the burden, it allows a bottom-up approach that is inadequate and necessitates more difficult and costly action later—or, of course, the possibility of failure.

Secondly, I am not clear what “legally binding” means when there seem to be no penalties. It is time we got tough with those who flout the rules. In other arenas, international bodies levy fines, penalties and sanctions. Why does that not happen in this area? Let me give just one example. We issued sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine, but Canada left the Kyoto protocol to avoid penalties and we have taken no action against it for that.

Let us be clear: people in the deserts of Africa and those affected by the floods of Bangladesh are already dying as a result of climate change. If we are to be serious, we should make other international organisations, such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund, subordinate to what is agreed in the United Nations framework convention on climate change and co-operate substantively with it.

When I was preparing for this debate, I asked my researcher to find the Government’s latest published position. Imagine my surprise when she produced a White Paper on which there was a picture of the happy, smiling face of the former Lib Dem Secretary of State, Ed Davey. The document includes a quote from the current Secretary of State:

“The move to a green economy offers a great opportunity but to be fully realised it requires world leaders to provide certainty, clarity and confidence. The UK is a global leader in developing cost effective policies and innovative technologies”.

I cannot square that with the Government’s actions since May. They have removed the climate change levy exemption; removed the subsidy for onshore wind; restructured vehicle excise duty; ended the zero-carbon homes commitment; cut the support for solar; and yesterday they committed to a further dash for gas. None of that looks like a Government doing their best to decarbonise. The Pope is asking us to be prepared to make sacrifices in the interests of the common good, but the Government’s changes are so drastic that they will damage our own economic interests.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting speech. She has listed a number of points and I share some of her concerns, but on dash for gas, yesterday’s announcement was about getting rid of coal-fired power stations and all their pollutants and replacing them with gas. No journey to 2050, however ambitious, will not involve interim measures, such as replacing coal with gas. If she wants to give a balanced speech that takes everyone with her, she should acknowledge that.

[Helen Goodman]

Of course, it is true that coal-fired power stations will eventually cease to be effective and that they would have to be closed anyway, and it is good that the Secretary of State has formalised that commitment. However, by investing in new gas-fired power stations, we are committing, not just for now, but for 30 years, to a reliance on imported gas. That is problematic, partly because it does not improve energy security and partly because it will not result in decarbonisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). He spoke with huge eloquence, and I do not propose to compete with him on the papal encyclical. I have read it, but he informed the House about it brilliantly. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this incredibly important debate.

I will not spend time talking about the important encyclical because I want to mention what I believe we need out of the Paris summit, what we are likely to get out of it, and what should happen after it. Before I do so, it might be helpful—particularly for the Secretary of State, who is in her place—if I shared briefly a reflection on the Copenhagen summit of six years ago that I took part in, and I will offer one tip in particular.

I wish to relate an experience that was told by my lead official, the brilliant Pete Betts, who I believe still works with the Secretary of State. In the dying hours of the conference he rang me—I had not slept for 36 hours and was about to go to bed—to say that the deal was about to collapse. That was obviously a global problem, but it was also a particular problem for me because it followed a period when world leaders, including Gordon Brown, had come to town and made a heroic effort to salvage something from the wreckage of Copenhagen. Gordon had departed with the immortal words to me, “Make sure it doesn’t go wrong now”, and I had foolishly said, “I’m sure it’s all going to be fine, Gordon. Don’t worry about it.” When Pete rang me to say that the deal was about to collapse, part of me was obviously thinking about the world and the future of the planet, but I was also thinking, “What will Gordon say when I tell him the whole thing has collapsed?” I suggest to the Secretary of State that lowering prime ministerial expectations when the current Prime Minister leaves the summit—as I think he is due to do—is probably a good idea.

Let me return to the process of the Paris summit. We need an agreement that is as close as possible to what the science tells us is necessary. We should all be worried about what the science is telling us, because compared with six years ago it is even clearer. A good assessment produced by the Met Office earlier this month stated that 2015 is set to be the hottest year on record—yet another record. Some of that may be related to El Niño, but all the experts tell us that the underlying warming is a result of human-induced climate change. We are now at 1 °C of warming, which is half way to 2 °C. Importantly, global warming is not some theoretical idea—sometimes we speak as though it is—because it is happening now and the changes are already being witnessed.

Another study produced by the US Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this month found, among other things, that devastating floods in Indonesia in 2014, the 2013 Argentine heatwave, and tropical cyclones in Hawaii were all linked to human-induced climate change. The science is clear, dangerous, and should make us deeply concerned: climate change is real and it is happening now.

That takes me to what we are likely to get out of Paris, as opposed to what we need. I believe that we will get a 2° commitment, as at Copenhagen, but I am afraid not a 2° deal—the Secretary of State has acknowledged that. The UN says that on the best case scenario for Paris, current commitments made by countries for 2030 mean that we will be half way between “business as usual” emissions—that means no action—and where we should be to have a fighting chance of a 2° deal. As the UN has made clear, on the basis of submitted plans, we are heading for something like a 3° deal.

If the world ends up in 2100 with 3 °C warming, that would be catastrophic. It would mean temperatures that are higher than at any time in the last 3 million years, with dramatic effects of intense heatwaves, flooding, and millions—or hundreds of millions—of climate refugees. Does that mean that we should dismiss the likely Paris agreement? In my view, we should not. If the Secretary of State, her colleagues, and world leaders pull off an agreement in Paris, new ground will have been broken. It will be the first agreement to get anywhere even in the vague neighbourhood of 2°, the first to oblige all major emitters to take action to reduce emissions, and the first—we hope—comprehensively to stand up $100 billion of climate finance for mitigation and adaptation for the developing world. Those would be signal achievements—behind the science but ahead of where we have been.

However, just as we should not dismiss that progress, we should also be clear about what a dangerous position we will be in. If that is the agreement, the judgment on Paris will be that it has been a success, but that it can only be a staging post. Importantly, just as what happened after Copenhagen perhaps made it seem less of a disaster than it seemed at the time, what happens after Paris will determine whether the summit has turned out to be a decisive moment.

Since the ambition will be insufficient at Paris, our focus should be on raising that ambition afterwards. I think of that in two parts: ambition before 2030, and ambition after. Before 2030—my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned this—we need a ratchet mechanism to ensure that the Paris agreement is the beginning of what is required. That must mean a tough, five-year review mechanism, so that countries renew and improve their pledges. My colleague in another place, Baroness Worthington, said that the agreement might ultimately come to be seen as a global equivalent of our five-year carbon budgets, and that is the right way to think about it. The hope—I think it is not a forlorn hope—must be that as technology develops and as confidence is built, countries will move further and faster.

[Graham Stuart]

I agree with most of the speech by the right hon. Gentleman. Providing certainty, and ratcheting and tightening up a deal in Paris over time, send a signal to the investment market. That means that we will get investment in innovation, research and development and the supply chain, which is a prerequisite of driving down costs. Only by that level of commitment will we get the acceleration of a cost curve downwards, which is the way that we will deliver for the planet while also protecting the consumer. That is why we need certainty and those kinds of framework.

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is important and well made, and it takes me to what I was about to say. This is not just about hoping that we can make that kind of progress with technology and so on; by setting the right framework we make it more likely that such progress will be made, and that the constructive, imaginative and inventive side of humankind will defeat our destructive side.

[Edward Miliband]

I think that the FCO and every Department must be concerned with these matters, and I am sure that the Secretary of State, who is a champion on these issues, will argue for that. I know from my experience that that sometimes feels a bit lonely in government, but in our case we had support across the Government from the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.

In response to the point from the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), ensuring progress means that we must keep on track here at home. Next Thursday there is an important moment when the Energy and Climate Change Committee publishes its recommendations for the fifth carbon budget, and I hope the Government will support that.

Let me move on to the period after 2030. Every excess tonne of carbon that we emit between now and 2030 means that we will have to do more later—we must be clear about that. The easiest way to think about it is that we have a finite carbon budget, which has been helpfully estimated by the UN to be about 1,000 gigatonnes—a round number. Once that is used up, we can emit no more if we are to avoid dangerous warming. Frighteningly, the UN tells us that on current pledges to 2030, 75% of that total carbon budget will be used up by 2030. That suggests the scale of the task facing us, particularly if we do not improve the pledges between now and 2030. The crucial point, whether we do that or not, is that the world will at some point have to reach zero emissions. I commend the Government and the Secretary of State for signing up to the G7 pledge, made recently, that the world will have to get to zero emissions sometime in the second half of this century.

It is striking that increasing numbers of business leaders—this again relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness—are putting their energies and thinking into the so-called net zero commitment. Ratan Tata, Paul Polman of Unilever, Richard Branson of Virgin and many others from the so-called B-team of business leaders, recently sent a letter to all those attending Paris calling for the adoption of the long-term goal of zero emissions. They are right: the long-term goal is an essential part of a successful Paris agreement.

What does zero emissions mean? It means a 100% clean energy system. It means the right decisions about infrastructure. It also means—this is where the inventers and engineers will be incredibly important—technological advance on how to capture carbon, reforestation and a whole range of other matters. Increasingly, the question of when and how we get to zero emissions will become our focus and energy after Paris. It will need to become the benchmark for the decisions we make in the years ahead.

Finally, we will also have to continue to work on the all-important question of a fair and equitable approach. The reality that all of us in the House have to face is that industrialised countries have grown in a high carbon way and we are now saying to poorer countries that they have to grow in a low carbon way. That is an unprecedented challenge of equity. It makes it all the more important that rich countries cut their emissions to allow space for poorer countries to develop. It also means, and I commend the Government for this, that it is right to be leading on development aid around climate change. That will enable countries to leapfrog the high carbon path and go to a low carbon path.

Those are the ways in which I think Paris must lay the ground for future ambition, and a future ambition that is fairly shared.

[Graham Stuart]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we have to ensure there is engagement and understanding on this issue in Parliaments across the world? That is why today’s debate, and others like it, are so important. I refer the House to my declaration of interests. I will be chairing a GLOBE International two-day conference at the Assemblée Nationale on 4 and 5 December. About 250 legislators from around the world will be talking about the role of national Parliaments in setting the law, scrutinising government and making sure that international promises are turned into domestic reality.

[Edward Miliband]

Let me take the opportunity to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the role he plays in GLOBE International, which is an incredibly important organisation. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has also played a very important role in that organisation. By bringing legislators together, it plays a crucial role in building support for tackling climate change.

I want to end by making two observations. My first observation is about the process of what we might call summitry. Many people thought Copenhagen was a failure—I referred to it at the beginning of my speech—and that it did not achieve what we wanted. It certainly did not meet people’s expectations. The reality, however, is that it laid the groundwork for some of what we are seeing in Paris: a 2° commitment, the $100 billion of climate finance and the whole notion of bottom-up pledges.

Trying to get countries to sign up to these issues is such a knotty problem that we will not get all the way the first, second or even third time. We just have to move things forward and make progress. The negotiations in Paris look like an elite-level exercise and people will often ask what the point is of all those leaders gathering together. I believe, however, that it is a forcing mechanism. I do not think we would have seen the progress from a lot of countries around the world if there had not been a moment when countries came together. World leaders know they will be judged on whether they are doing something or just ignoring the problem. We will not get everything we want from Paris, but that does not mean we should be discouraged. In fact, we should redouble our efforts at home and around the world.