Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I apologise for not being in my place at the beginning of the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did apprise the Speaker of my being unavoidably detained by a Minister of the Crown. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), who, unfortunately, is not in his place, talked about the centrality of social justice and sustainability to the debate in Copenhagen. He was right to do so, and I intend to talk a little more about those issues. It has taken a long time for us to recognise that local decisions have a global impact, but it has become impossible to ignore the reality. Humans have always changed and been changed by the natural world, but the prospects for human development now depend on our wisdom in managing that relationship. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) said—unfortunately, he is not in his place either—one of the key factors will be population. I think he might have said that that is the elephant in the room—well, I like elephants! The global human population has more than doubled since 1960, with the growth mostly taking place in the poorer countries, but consumption expenditure has more than doubled since 1970, with the increases mostly occurring in the richer countries. During this time, we have created unimaginable wealth, yet half the world still exists on less than $2 a day. Population and the environment are closely related, but the links between them are complex and varied, and they depend on specific circumstances. The key policy questions must be how to use available resources of land, energy and water to produce food and shelter for all, how to promote economic development and end poverty so that everyone can afford to eat and, in doing so, how to address the human and environmental consequences of industrialisation, energy consumption and the loss of biodiversity. Understanding the ways in which population and the environment are linked means examining not only how affluence, consumption, technology and population growth interrelate, but previously ignored social concerns such as gender roles and relations, political structures and governance at all levels. The relationship between the environment, population and social development is now much better understood and there is broad agreement on the means and the ends. The Copenhagen summit is our opportunity to implement those means and to achieve the ends. Achieving equal status between men and women, guaranteeing the right to reproductive health, and ensuring that individuals and couples can make their own choices about family size will also help to slow population growth rates and reduce the future size of the world population through choice. When given choice, women tend to have fewer children than their mothers did; they want more for their children, but not necessarily more children. Among other things, slower population growth in developing countries will contribute measurably towards relieving environmental stress and promote sustainable development. I do not believe that there can be sustainable development unless women are in charge of their own fertility. The programme of action of the 1994 international conference on population and development was agreed by 179 countries and there was a consensus that there should be universal access to reproductive health by 2015. Last year, the United Nations finally agreed that that should be a new millennium development goal target under MDG 5, which relates to maternal health. We are so far adrift on that MDG that the Prime Minister has said that we are not likely to achieve it until 2165 at the present rate. Changes in the size, rate of growth and distribution of human populations have an enormous impact on the environment and on development prospects. We know that people and human activity are altering the planet on an unprecedented scale. More people are using more resources with more intensity and leaving bigger footprints on the earth than ever before. That is borne out by statistics that 10 years ago were just a matter for conjecture. We have increasingly seen hurricanes, landslides and floodwaters. I want to add my expressions of sympathy to the people of Cumbria. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) talked about how difficult it is to imagine the devastation that floodwaters bring. Unless one has seen it, it is inconceivable. I know that because we have suffered immense flood trauma over many years in my constituency. I want to thank our Government for investing £40 million in five phases of the flood defence work in the upper Calder valley that has made an immeasurable difference to the people who live there. It is not just about homes, but about jobs. In a semi-rural area such as mine, we cannot afford to lose one job. When companies are constantly flooded, they think twice about whether they want to remain and to keep investing in the local area. I am very grateful for that investment and I have to say that every time there are flood warnings, we hold our breath. This time, we held our breath and the flood defence system worked. Not one single home has been flooded. I also want to congratulate the Government on making it possible for the Environment Agency to do riparian work on the banks of rivers where it was unable to do so in the past. Of course, absentee or unknown owners meant that riverbanks were not reconstructed, and that just added to the dilemma. That was certainly the case in my constituency, where there is a confluence of two rivers and a canal to boot, as well as some very steep-sided hills. Now that the Environment Agency can search out those landlords and retro-charge them, that is making a big and important difference in my area. We know that wet areas are becoming much wetter and dry areas are becoming dryer. El Niño and the Asian monsoon are becoming more extreme and unpredictable. Inevitably, areas that are already affected by famine will be growing less food while many of the richer lands will grow more. Many continental coastlines are also at risk and contain much larger populations. These regions are already home to half of the world's population and they have population growth rates that are double the global average. It is very clear that the activities of the 20th century have set us on a collision course with the environment. We now have to decide what we can and what we must do about it. The British are well known for our ingenuity, which has got us a long way in the past. I welcome the Government's thinking out of the box on climate change, especially with the low-carbon transition plan. We need to concentrate on how we can apply that ingenuity in the future so as to ensure the well-being of human populations while still protecting the natural world. How can we protect and promote fundamental values such as the right to health and human dignity while providing for sustainable development at the same time? We know that sustainable development is based on a balance between the three pillars of economic development, social development and environmental protection. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East said earlier, development cannot be sustainable without social justice. While the rich 20 per cent. of the world's population consume 80 per cent. of the world's resources at a completely unsustainable rate, some 3 billion people struggle to survive on less than $2 dollars a day without adequate access to education, health care, food, water, sanitation, shelter, decent employment or, as we heard earlier, clean energy sources—or, ultimately, to a liveable environment. Poverty must be acknowledged as a serious threat to humanity and our planet and the fact that many children and their children will be condemned to a life of abject poverty, starvation, illiteracy and ill health is inhuman, unjust and unacceptable in the 21st century. Finally, it is widely acknowledged that this country is a world leader in family planning and sexual and reproductive health rights. Population is definitely an issue in relation to climate change, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State acknowledged in his reply to my question on 5 November. Therefore, I ask the Government to take a lead at the Copenhagen conference, as international agreements and national policies on climate change are much more likely to succeed in the long run if they take into account population dynamics, the relationships between the sexes and women's well-being and access to reproductive health services and opportunities. I hope that the Government will take advantage of their lead position in the world on these issues to do just that.