Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts
Wednesday 14th July 2021

(2 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Vicky Foxcroft Portrait Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
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What steps the Government are taking ahead of COP26 to promote (a) climate action and (b) a green recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

Matt Western Portrait Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
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What steps the Government are taking ahead of COP26 to promote (a) climate action and (b) a green recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Portrait The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
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The Prime Minister’s 10-point plan sets out our blueprint for a green industrial revolution. The plan commits to investments in green technologies and industries, and leverages billions of bounds of private sector investment to create and support up to 250,000 green jobs across the UK. It is a clear plan to build back greener from the covid pandemic. The Government will publish their net zero strategy before COP26.

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Anne-Marie Trevelyan Portrait Anne-Marie Trevelyan
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I would be thrilled for the hon. Lady to go back and say to her constituents that in putting carbon budget 6 into law, as I did just a few weeks ago, we are driving up not only the ambition, but the policy making, frameworks and business models that will help industry to decarbonise and us to change the way that we travel and live in our houses of the future to ensure that we are all part of the solution to meeting that net zero target by 2050.

Matt Western Portrait Matt Western
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Recent United Nations analysis makes it clear that the current climate pledges will achieve emission reductions of only 1% by the end of this critical decade, not the 45% required to stay below 1.5° C. What has the Minister done to pressure large emitters such as Australia, Japan, South Korea and Russia who have merely resubmitted old pledges or, in the case of Brazil, have backtracked even further, to step up and do their fair share?

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Portrait Anne-Marie Trevelyan
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The COP presidency has an incredibly important role in drawing everyone together and driving up ambition. As the COP26 President set out in answer to an earlier question, we have shifted the dial in terms of the ambition brought forward through nationally determined contributions by many countries, but there is much more to do and we are under no illusions that the challenges that we all face as a planet to meet that are yet to be resolved. We continue to work tirelessly as a team and across the globe to encourage more ambition.