It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for securing this crucial debate and setting the scene.
I hope you will forgive me, Mr Gray, for quoting again what António Guterres said this week:
“We are on the highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”
The world is on course for a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of this century. Without taking action now, the 1.5°C target is unreachable, and complacency is the biggest danger we face.
Unfortunately, the UK Government are not acting with the necessary urgency. We are setting a lot of targets and having lots of plans, but we do not deliver
on them. The Government have proven themselves to be climate action delayers. When the new Prime Minister was Chancellor, he cut air passenger duty on domestic flights and introduced a windfall tax that incentivised firms to invest in fossil fuel extraction. And our Prime Minister had to be dragged to the COP 27 summit this week. He was asked only today whether he would lift the de facto veto on onshore wind, but he did not answer the question. That gives rise to the question: what is this Government about?
We have just heard that we need to find solutions that are affordable. The most affordable solution for renewables is onshore wind, not nuclear. We heard last week that Sizewell C might be scrapped because it is too expensive. If the Government were serious about investing in renewables and doing it cheaply, onshore wind is surely the most obvious solution. The blindfold worn by Conservative Members is beyond my understanding.
The climate emergency is a problem not just for future generations. It is having a material impact on people now. We have seen extreme weather events cause suffering, conflict and destruction around the world—from droughts in east Africa, to bush fires in Australia. If we exceed 1.5°C, floods and fires will become more frequent and intense. Crops are more likely to fail and millions will be driven from their homes. Some politicians treat this 1.5°C target as being like a bus that can be missed because we can catch another one. We cannot miss this target. We have to keep global temperatures to less than 1.5°C or we face catastrophic climate breakdown.
The Government’s net zero strategy recognises the danger of not meeting the 1.5°C target. The Government themselves acknowledge that we might miss the target. Their own plans do not even guarantee that we will hit it, given that their chance of success is just over 50%. Our own targets, in our developed nation, might not succeed. Our Government are taking major risks with the lives of people across the world. The Government know the dangers, yet they refuse to act at the necessary pace and with the necessary focus, as shown by their refusal to lift the veto on offshore wind. It is as if there is always something else that might be more important. No, the climate emergency is now and it is the most important issue on which our Government and Governments worldwide need to focus.
Nature provides our best chance of mitigating climate change and its worst impacts, such as flooding and droughts. As nature declines, so does the quality of human life. Protecting ecosystems that regulate the climate or contain critical carbon stores, such as ice sheets, forests, peatlands, wetlands and the oceans, must be prioritised alongside cutting emissions.
The Government are not acting to protect nature as they should. The Natural History Museum has named the UK as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and current Government policy will do nothing to improve our standing. The Government have tried to deregulate environmental protections at every opportunity, and have failed to make halting and reversing biodiversity decline by 2030 a legally binding target. At this rate, the Government will miss their commitment to leave the environment in a better state than they found it. Once again, they are not matching words with action.
I fully support Zero Hour’s nature and climate declaration, but it must be matched with more substantive action. The Government must consider supporting the Climate and Ecology Bill, which addresses the full extent of the climate and nature crisis in line with the most up-to-date science. The Bill sets out a whole-of-Government emergency plan to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels and reverse the destruction of nature. It would require the UK to do its fair share globally to cut its emissions and stay below 1.5°C of global warming. The Bill would also require the UK to reverse the destruction of the natural world, by committing the Government to restore and expand ecosystems and to ensure that nature is visibly and measurably recovering by 2030.
Will the Minister set out how the Government are measuring their ambitions and targets for 2030? We need a clear and transparent way of measuring whether we are actually delivering on what we say we want to deliver. The Government are in the driving seat, and we need answers from them.
To some, these plans might seem radical. However, radicalism is necessary in the face of the climate emergency. The time for inaction is over. This is one of our last opportunities for a decisive response. If Governments do not step up, we risk losing the battle to preserve nature and the climate.
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