Paris Climate Change Conference

Steve Brine Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I too welcome this cross-party debate. It is essential that we work together not just nationally, but internationally, as so many of my colleagues have said. Climate change is bigger than the internal political debate. It was my work over many years as a television environment correspondent that really put climate change on my radar, which is why I wanted to speak in today’s debate. It showed me that tackling this issue is pivotal to the future of the planet.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this debate, but we should also be praising the Pope for focusing on this issue in his encyclicals. It is the Pope who has raised the issue of climate change and its inextricable links to poverty, as mentioned earlier, and that has put the issue right at the top of the agenda—and amen to that. As a good convent girl, although not a Catholic, I know that when the Pope speaks, we listen.

Speaking as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, I am heartened that the Pope has made the direct link between climate change and the sustainability of the planet. If we do not tackle climate change, the biodiversity of our environment will be in jeopardy, and if we do not look after our land, our soil and our water for the long term, not the short term, we will not be able to feed the population. There will be increased famine and floods, our natural world will be decimated, and we will head for environmental disaster. There is no beating about the bush on this.

By setting a new set of sustainable development goals running until 2030, I am pleased to say that the UN has recognised that we must act in this area. I am also pleased that we have a 25-year environment strategy right here in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in which climate change is firmly embodied. I shall press to ensure that we have a firm strategy for putting that into place. Lord Krebs, chairman of the Climate Change Committee, specifically highlighted that recently in a sustainability conference. I am confident that our Government are taking this on board.

Just yesterday, as mentioned earlier, the Secretary of State said that we are committed to delivering our climate change commitment and that we are the greenest Government ever, so she must stick by it. She echoed the past words of the Prime Minister, who said the same thing not long ago in Prime Minister’s Question Time. He said that climate change was the “greatest danger” we have ever faced. I believe he is a great leader, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) said, and we need him to champion the cause.

The Climate Change Act 2008 gave us the tools to become a low carbon economy. No other country has commitments to match those Climate Change Act commitments, and we also have the independent Committee on Climate Change, which must keep holding our feet to the fire to ensure that we remain committed to cutting by 40% our 1990 levels of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and to have reduced the six greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050.

As a new Conservative MP, tackling climate change is a personal priority for me. It may seem strange, but in Taunton Deane, there is a great appetite for this. I was approached by an incredible number of people who raised the issue of climate change during my electoral campaign. They included groups such as Transition Taunton, Transition Athelney, the Quantock Eco group, and wildlife groups such as the Somerset wildlife trust—I declare an interest as a trustee—as well as farmers who had to combat flooding. They all came to me, some travelling to London, to urge me to press our Government to ensure that we keep to our climate change commitments. That is another reason why I am speaking today.

We have heard that Governments have agreed to limit global warming to 2 °C, which means that greenhouse gas emissions will have to fall by 80% to 95% by 2050. The statistics were eloquently put by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South. We need in Paris a clear global climate deal that sets out how each country is going to achieve that. But it is not all about what goes on internationally. We have to lead by example at home, as there is an indissoluble link between our methods of energy production and emissions. I think everybody is quite clear about that. Cutting emissions relies on transferring to a low carbon economy.

Yesterday’s announcement by the Energy Secretary to phase out all our coal-fired power stations by 2023 means that we are leading the way in this area, and we are one of the very first countries to make that commitment to phase out fossil fuels. It is a great message with which to head to Paris. As the Secretary of State said earlier, many people are talking about it. Coal is the most polluting way to generate power, and it still produces 30% of our energy. Coal plants are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and this is one of the main reasons why we are facing the challenge of climate change. Running one large coal plant full time as far ahead as 2030 would provide only 3% of our electricity, yet it would use up 50% of the UK’s emissions targets, so it makes absolute sense to get rid of coal-fired energy.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and with the Secretary of State’s statement yesterday. I understand that Indonesia is planning to build coal-fired power plants equivalent to about two thirds of the entire UK grid capacity. While it is great that we are doing this, we are a very small player. That is why Paris is so important. We can lead by example, but we need the rest of the world to follow. Otherwise it is literally fiddling while Indonesia burns.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am coming on to talk a little more about the international context. He is absolutely right, but that is not a reason for us not acting. We still have to do everything we can to set the example, and then we need to go along and hopefully encourage others to join the team.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that valuable intervention. While we are talking about the best kinds of energy that we should use, it is of course important to mention nuclear energy, which is another crucial part of our clean energy strategy. I mention it in particular because Hinkley C is on my doorstep and it will have a massive knock-on effect on Taunton Deane. It is the first new nuclear power station that we have built for 20 years. This is low carbon energy, and it will provide 7% of our energy requirements and keep the lights on for 6 million homes. It is so important as the baseload of non-fossil fuel energy.

The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who is almost a parliamentary neighbour, was talking about jobs lost in the renewables sector, but 25,000 jobs should be created with the development of Hinkley C, and 5,000 of them are going to be in Somerset. Hinkley C will spawn a raft of low carbon technologies, which are already starting up. That is very positive and heartening, and we should raise the flag, because this is the direction in which we should be going. Moreover, this power station is largely fuelled by private investment, which we must encourage, because we cannot keep demanding that the state supply everything. It is a model for the way forward, and I have high hopes that it will be used as a model for other nuclear power stations built in this country.

We have made progress on renewables, although things are changing slightly at the moment. It is welcome that 16% of our energy comes from renewables, and that £42 billion has been invested in renewable energy so far. Yes, the tariffs are changing, but the Secretary of State is considering what to do about solar companies that are in that “in-between” phase. We are continuing to encourage the use of offshore wind, which is a valuable addition to our energy supplies. However, in developing what I would describe as a new model for energy production in the UK, we must ensure that it does not damage the environment. As I said earlier, it must be sustainable. It must also be affordable, involving the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer. We must meet the Government’s fuel poverty targets, and we must do so at a time when the country is still in debt. The Pope was at pains to point out that energy costs must not penalise the poor and the vulnerable.

Given that we are getting hot under the collar, this is an appropriate moment at which to mention heat. A third of our emissions in the UK result from the inefficient use and waste of heat. I have spoken to the Secretary of State about the issue, and she assures me that the Department will look into it. It is a difficult issue to deal with, and it is expensive, but it is essential that we tackle it at a later stage. Decarbonising heat from buildings will definitely help us to close the carbon gap. Local authorities could work with low carbon roadmaps. The development of zero-carbon homes—which we should encourage when it is possible—and of more localised heating systems, such as district heating systems, will also help us to cut our emissions and secure higher energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions and less climate-warming.

[Steve Brine]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. She is being very generous.

During the last Parliament, I served on the Bill Committee that considered what became the Energy Act 2011, which created the green deal. Like many other Members on both sides of the House, I am disappointed that the green deal is not continuing, although it would have been crazy to continue with something that was not working and was not delivering as we wanted it to. I hope my hon. Friend agrees that the issue of existing housing stock and its emissions is still critical, and that we need to reinvent the green deal in a new form in order to address it.

[Rebecca Pow]

I too was concerned about the green deal, but it clearly was not working. It was so complicated that there was no take-up. I know that lessons will be learnt, and I think that eventually we will come up with some sort of plan to make houses more efficient. The builders are certainly not averse to that.

As we have just heard, the UK is responsible for only 1.5% of the world’s carbon emissions, whereas China, for example, produces 26%. This is a global issue, and I am pleased that the Prime Minister has announced the provision of £5.8 billion of aid to help developing countries to tackle climate change through the international climate change fund between 2016 and 2021. I am also pleased that we are contributing £720 million to the green climate fund.