Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, many experts have already spoken in this debate. Like them, I welcome the Bill. As spokesperson on international development, I emphasise how important this is for the poorest countries and people. It is glib to say it but this is, if anything ever was, a global problem, and we are only just feeling our way towards finding global solutions to such a challenge. Global institutions are, in historical terms, very recent inventions at an early stage of their development. Working through the UN and the EU is critical but individual states must also act, which is why the Government are right to take this initiative. There has been a feeling in parts of the development community and some developing countries that addressing such problems penalised developing countries. It looked as if developed countries were pulling up the drawbridge before developing countries could follow. Western countries are, after all, the major contributors to this problem, although if you visit developed Hong Kong and see the pollution blowing across the border from China and the pollution in the Peal River delta, you can see that others are fast catching us. It is surely fair enough, however, to say that the West must take most action and certainly not export our problems to developing countries in the same way that we ship our rubbish. We now recognise that we have looked at the needs of developing countries in a blinkered way. As the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London so clearly stated, it is the poorest people who will suffer first and the most. They are the most vulnerable. We know that in other areas—for example, in the AIDS epidemic—that problems can be absorbed much more easily in the West, whereas anything like this has a devastating consequence in the poorest countries, decimating societies. Indeed we are our brother’s keeper, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, says. In addition, what happens in the poorest countries affects us too. Fragile societies are more prone to violence, which can then spill over into other areas of the world—not least through migration, as we well know. Livelihoods in the poorest countries are often dependent on subsistence agriculture, and it does not take much to knock that off course. People live at the margins. As International Alert argues, where people are living in poverty in underdeveloped and unstable states with poor governance, pressures are already great. Add another and some may reach breaking point, and those are the countries least able to adapt to such challenges. We have heard of the possible impact on Bangladesh of climate change: more cyclones, higher sea levels and reductions in crop levels because of salination of fresh water. Christian Aid reports effects worldwide, highlighting, for example, reduced crop yields in Bolivia because of increased rainfall, contrasted with drought in Mali because of lower rainfall, with resultant migration out of the area. International Alert talks of the effect on Algeria, recovering from conflict, of expanding desert areas. We already know of the impact in the Middle East—Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan—of water shortages. The IPCC predicts that the number of people facing water scarcity will rise sharply because of climate change. The conflict in Sudan owes some of its ferocity to climate change: the extension of the Sahara has helped displace some people who then, in seeking land, have displaced others. International Alert reckons that there are 46 countries, with a total population of 2.7 billion people, in which the effects of climate change will create a high risk of violent conflict. They estimate that there is a second group of 56 countries, with a total population of a further 1.2 billion, where there is also the potential for conflict because of the pressures of climate change. It becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back. For many in the poorest countries it is already too late to address the effects of climate change solely by mitigation. These measures are essential but their effects will be felt only with time. What is required now is for states and communities to be helped to adapt. The Bill relates to the UK. I would have liked to have seen stronger measures, as my noble friend Lord Teverson has laid out, and we must think beyond the UK, especially given that the Bill is about that wider community. For example, I would have liked to have seen some meat put on what we decided recently in the Companies Bill regarding what UK companies were required to do to mitigate their effect overseas on the environment. We also need to do much more in terms of adaptation. The proposed Committee on Climate Change will need to take a global view of the issue. It will have a duty to look at adaptation so far as the UK is concerned. I would like to see that extended. Just as the committee looks at climate change globally, it should also work on adaptation in its international context. At the very least, given the impact on the UK of what happens elsewhere in the world, it is surely appropriate that a law on climate change relating to the UK should also analyse, research and support adaptation, not just in the UK but internationally. The Bill is welcome and this debate has been outstanding, not least in its agreement about the challenge we face. In the interests of the poorest people as well as ourselves, we need not only to take the Bill through but to strengthen it so that it is indeed a groundbreaker.