COP26: Limiting Global Temperature Rises

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I would like to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who quoted the IPCC’s most recent report, which stated that

“unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to…1.5 °C…will be beyond reach.”

Today, we live in a world with global warming of 1.1°C, yet it is a world already ravaged by forest fires and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. It is a world made poorer by rapid biodiversity loss and made more geopolitically unstable by profoundly changing climate patterns. Despite that, my generation may be living through the last days of relative climatic, environmental and ecological stability. It is this realisation that makes COP26 and its outcome so important.

Like others, I can see that the Government’s net zero strategy published this week was an important but overdue intervention. Its ambitions for renewable electricity generation are laudable, the emphasis on decarbonising household heating welcome, and the desire to reduce the greenhouse footprint of our transport sector commendable. And yet, action falls short of the rhetoric, especially when addressing the costs of the transition for households. The heat pump strategy, for example, needs to go further. Indeed, it will benefit only about 0.3% of Welsh households. Instead, greater capital resourcing should be given to the Welsh Government, who are responsible for housing as a devolved competence, so that they can implement a whole-house approach, addressing both insulation and heating supply.

That is just one example, but unfortunately, there are many more, which prompts the question: why? It seems that the answer lies in the Treasury and perhaps its hesitancy to accept the climate crisis for what it is: an existential crisis. It is short-sighted in the extreme for some to suggest that we cannot afford the transition. It is the cost of inaction that is unaffordable. The Treasury’s “Net Zero Review” details that the number of natural catastrophes has risen markedly since the 1980s and Munich Re has calculated that global disasters exacerbated by climate change caused $210 billion-worth of losses in 2020 alone. Meanwhile, the Climate Change Committee found the annual net cost over the next 30 years for the UK’s transition to net zero to be £10 billion, or 0.5% of GDP.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to find positive ways to allow our constituents to be involved in making our cities and towns greener? For example, the new 110,000-tree Hempsted woods in my constituency will give every schoolchild the chance to plant at least one tree. That will be alongside the green energy from solar, wind and hydrogen that we hope to produce there. Does he agree that this is the sort of local initiative that goes alongside the national commitments?

[Ben Lake]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I agree wholeheartedly. If we are to get to grips with the crisis, it will require both the national and local action that he described so eloquently.

The cost of inaction is unaffordable. Even if we were to disagree on that point, the alternative—a world aflame, flooded and barren—outweighs any short-term Treasury reservations about the cost of the green transition. To put it simply, we can and must do more. I urge the Government to support the COP26 President in the final weeks before the summit so that we achieve global successes on emissions commitments and ensure that the Chancellor’s forthcoming Budget meets the biggest challenge of our age.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It gives me enormous pleasure to speak in this place before an event of such magnitude. The agenda and discussions at the COP26 summit in just a couple of weeks’ time will be centred, quite rightly, around global vision, yet the outcomes that I believe we all want to see, and must enact, have to be at a local level across every city, town, village and community across our country.

I would like to draw the House’s attention, not for the first time in this place, to what is going on in my constituency, which I and all my constituents are so passionate about. We want to ensure that we leave this planet in a much better state than we found it for the next generation. I think of the great work that has been done on cleaning up the River Wharfe in my constituency, protecting our precious green open spaces and lobbying hard against the Aire valley incinerator, which I have spoken about many a time in this place. We have been able to make great progress on these challenges, which I face locally, but there are also many great initiatives that are happening. I pay credit to Climate Action Ilkley and businesses such as Airedale Springs, which has already taken great measures, putting solar panels on the business’s buildings so that they can provide green energy to support what it is doing.

The spirit of my constituents is exactly the attitude that I will take when I go to COP next month to speak on the benefits of regenerative agriculture and improving soil health and water quality through such farming techniques. We have already seen the great work being done in this place domestically, and it was a great pleasure to support the Environment Bill yesterday as it moves through this place. When it is passed, it will ensure that we have cleaner rivers, better air quality and more woodland planting.

The Government have also given their 10-point plan an airing with respect to how we will get the green industrial revolution moving, but our work in the fight against climate change cannot be contained to these shores. That is why the Government must use the COP26 presidency to get other countries in line with our environmental objectives. They have already made great progress through the G7 summit in Cornwall earlier this year under the leadership of the Prime Minister.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is making some powerful points about what we need to do. On non-fossil fuel energy and domestic security and supply, does he agree that we should be doing lots more on nuclear, including with small modular reactors, and on marine energy, harnessing the power of tides and waves in our own country?

[Robbie Moore]

I completely agree. Small modular reactors definitely need to be explored and can definitely be a positive mechanism for our country to drive forward green, clean energy, which will help many of our communities. It comes back to the point that we want to have a positive impact across every city, every town, every village and every community that we represent.

As a result of the leadership shown by our Prime Minister at the G7, we have managed to get a commitment to limiting the global rise in temperature to 1.5°, achieving net zero and supporting developing countries to be greener. At COP26, the Government need to take a tougher stance on ensuring that other countries play their part in achieving those objectives, but not be complicit in doing so.

As a nation, we have shown that being more environmentally friendly need not come at a cost to national finances. In fact, over the past three decades, our economy has grown by 78%, while emissions have reduced by 44%. There is no excuse for other countries not to follow our lead. The United Kingdom should not be afraid to push the point.