House of Commons
Wednesday 19 November 1997
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Kyoto Summit
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Janet Anderson.]
9.34 am
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North): It is a privilege to initiate the debate on the Kyoto climate summit to be held in December. I am pleased to see the Minister for the Environment at the Dispatch Box. I am pleased also to see so many Members in the Chamber for this really important debate. I hope particularly that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Clark) will be able to contribute to it. He is as genuinely concerned about the effects of global warming in Gillingham as I am about the effects in Stoke-on-Trent, North.
We must remember the context in which the debate is taking place. The Kyoto summit will be the third conference of the parties to the United Nations framework conference on climate change. It will review progress to date, and it is an opportunity which we cannot afford to lose.
There are many reasons why I wish to raise the issues surrounding the Kyoto summit. It is important that we have the opportunity to debate them, but I want the debate to be for the many and not the few. It is not enough for Parliament to have the debate; we must ensure that it spreads ever wider throughout the country.
I noted with great interest this morning's announcement by my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment that he is setting up an advisory panel to promote citizenship among young people. I hope that its chairman, Professor Bernard Crick, will make arrangements for that awareness to include environmental issues.
I want the media to take up the debate about Kyoto and about how we might make progress towards achieving the tightest possible emission standards. I am pleased that the two programmes "Costing the Earth" are to appear on television this week and next week. I hope that they will give the public the opportunity to consider the scientific evidence and to make up their own minds about what is happening. I hope also that debates such as this will take place in parliaments throughout the world so that parliamentarians, as well as Governments and Ministers, can take part in a crucial worldwide debate.
More than anything else, I want to give our new Government the most resounding send-off when they go to the important negotiations in Kyoto. It is crucial that the debate here takes place in time to influence events and so that Ministers know that they have the backing of the country when they go to Kyoto.
I know that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will be part of the mission, which may even save the world at Kyoto. I want him to return with a legally binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. I am mindful of the work that he has already done in respect of the sea and seafarers and transport policy. I have confidence that, given what my right hon. Friend learned so often with the International Maritime Organisation, he, of all people, knows that it is crucial to go for the highest denominator, not the lowest. That is the message of optimism that we must send from the House.
I would not be so bold as to assert that people throughout the country talk of nothing else but Kyoto. I should like to think that that was true, but things do not work quite like that. I know that in many parts of the country people are talking about major political issues. One major issue, for example, is whether we will get the world cup four years after Paris. I should like the debate about Kyoto to be on a par with interest in the world cup. I should like to think that the debate about global warming is of such importance that people will wish to become well informed and well versed on issues that will become everyday matters of conversation.
Although such topics may not be on everybody's lips, people are increasingly concerned about the effects of global warming. It does matter; it touches their everyday lives. People want something to be done, and they want to be part of the solution.
We are not quite in the same situation as people who live in small island states such as the Maldives, who fear that, because of the rising sea level, their islands could disappear, but we face a real danger of flooding. What will happen to low-lying areas? There are crucial issues involving health, the water supply, shortage and biodiversity. Most of all, we have to look at the scientific evidence to see whether what we have heard could happen is just scaremongering or whether there is a scientific base for the worst possible scenario. As most hon. Members know, I would want us always to take the precautionary approach, and I hope that I will be able to carry many people with me.
The scientific evidence is indisputable. The 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which comprised no fewer than 2,500 experts, concluded:
It concerns me that there are still people, for example the chairman of Exxon, who say that climate change is not really an issue, and that it should not be dealt with by
regulation. We have to tackle people who still say that. We must ensure that we make real progress with the climate conventions, and ensure that this Parliament--I stress that it is not just for the Government and Ministers--gives full backing to our Government in what will be an uphill, or "up-bank", as we say in Stoke-on-Trent, struggle that they will have on their hands when they go to Japan.
The run-up to the 10 days of negotiations at Kyoto will be a testing time for the United Kingdom. It is not just our hopes that are pinned on the leadership of the new Labour Government. The whole world has recognised, particularly at the Earth summit II conference in New York last July, that, with our Prime Minister, we have new vision and leadership. Having seen what can be done, there is even greater emphasis on what more could be done. I still believe that, if anybody can, our Government can achieve the best deal.
It is a question not of doing as I say, but of doing asI do. For that reason, I welcome the very clear commitments that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has given, including various presentations at the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. We are aiming for a 20 per cent. reduction in 1990 emission levels by 2010. Above all else, that commitment makes the Government most able to squeeze the best deal out of negotiations. I accept that the dash for gas has helped us to achieve things that we might never have dared hope for, although at a price. None the less, that is our starting point. Now we can achieve even more.
There is also a track record since July. I recognise that the former Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), tried to address the issue. We have a Cabinet committee, which is at the heart of government, to ensure proper environmental assessment on all issues. It will not be easy to get that from the Treasury when the Green Paper is published. When I talk about a green Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer may not have the same ideas that I have, but the Cabinet committee can start to make progress on these matters, and I hope that it will.
We will continue the round table on sustainability. That can play an important role in the debate that we need to have throughout the country. I am delighted that the Environment Audit Committee, which was a manifesto pledge, has been set up. I am proud to be a member of it, and I want to play my part on it to get real progress. We now have the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, which comprises the former Departments of Transport and the Environment. We have an opportunity for integrated transport. The consultation period has just ended, and we are about to have new Green Papers and White Papers. What is more, the Deputy Prime Minister is striding round the world, bringing together all the countries that have not yet signed up to what we want them to sign. He is also chairing the annexe 1 group of countries at Kyoto.
It is not all simple and straightforward. Achieving the 20 per cent. target that this country wants will not be plain sailing. It will present us with difficulties. More can usually be achieved at the beginning than further along the way, because, by the later stage, the big savings have
already been made. However, sometimes it is possible to achieve more later, because more people understand the issues. That is the message which we have to get across. There will be hard choices, but I have every confidence that my right hon. Friend will see how we can balance them. I shall list just a few.
In our integrated transport plans, I want to see targets for road traffic reduction as well as for transport. At some stage, however much we may not want to do so, we will have to consider the issue of aviation fuel and tax subsidies.
There is a threat of opencast coal mining in my constituency. I want us to have a presumption against opencast. I want legislation for energy conservation and efficiency. I am not happy that the gas regulator, unlike her predecessor, is not prepared to understand the arguments about energy savings and conservation. It may well be a matter on which the House will need to legislate, but my understanding is that we could not do so within about two years. What happens in the meantime? Are we to let her get away with saying that it is not her responsibility? It does not appear to be anybody else's responsibility either.
While on the subject of energy conservation, I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment, in the nicest and most supportive way that I can, that I met the Energy Saving Trust yesterday, and although I understand that we have accepted the previous Government's spending limits, it does not seem quite right in terms of our priorities that the trust's budget has been reduced from £19 million to £13 million. I am sure that, with the right will, we can find a way forward so that it can continue its invaluable work.
Clean coal technology for deep-mined coal needs to be on the agenda. Sooner or later--perhaps later rather than sooner--we must look at switching the balance towards renewables, and at the whole role of oil exploration.
We have to ensure that civil servants are doing what the political masters and mistresses here are saying that they could be doing.
There is enormous hope for optimism because of what we have committed ourselves to. As with anything, it is no good our doing our best if we cannot secure agreements on the world stage for what needs to be done internationally.
As far as I can see, Japan is not doing enough. As the host country for the summit, it should be under a special obligation to be at the cutting edge and to make the greatest possible commitment to what is needed at Kyoto. Extra pressure needs to be exerted, and I hope that our Government will be able to put in whatever word is needed. As a member of the Trade and Industry Select Committee, with the prospect--I put it no higher than that--of a visit to Japan, I hope that the Committee will be able to continue where the Government leaves off post-Kyoto.
I know that the work of the House deservedly has a considerable personal following throughout America. We recognise that President Clinton may be between a rock and a hard place--between Congress and the Senate--but we want him to look afresh at the issues. We pin great hopes on his securing tighter agreement in his country about what should be happening at Kyoto. I hope that our Government can exert further influence in America, so that it, too, can play its part. President Clinton was
elected on an environmental platform, and I feel that he can do better than stabilising emissions at 1990 levels by 2012.
We all have a special responsibility for the annexe 1 countries. It is vital that we do not transfer to the developing world the mistakes that the industrialised countries have made. I have every confidence that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will take that on board, but I feel that a message of support should go out from our Parliament.
Binding targets must be agreed at Kyoto. It is the best chance we have. I want these to be "ten days that shook the world". Energy-efficient technology needs to be transferred, and, as part of the reform of the United Nations, we need to find a way of monitoring, policing and enforcing agreements so that there is full compliance. I hope that Klaus Topfler will be able to carry out some of the necessary reforms if he moves to the United Nations Environment Programme. I also hope that we shall be able to make progress when we attend conferences with other parliamentarians.
"There is a discernible human"--
I stress human--
"influence on global climate."
A report is due next month from the workshop held in Boulder, Colorado, in September, which was attended by the world's biggest wildlife groups, including the World Wide Fund for Nature, and Wildlife International, of which our own Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is a member. All the evidence is there. Groups such as Greenpeace, for which I have the greatest respect, and Friends of the Earth are not scaremongering. There is evidence, which we have to accept. Having done so, we cannot just leave it. To know is not enough. Once something is known, something has to be done about it. That is why all of us are here. We all have to do as much as we can, in whatever way we can, about Kyoto and the huge issues we face.
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