| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet) (Con): I share many of the sentiments expressed in the hon. Gentleman's motion. The problem is that if we have an all-suited environment debate for one full day a year, it will cut out opportunities to debate important environmental issues that arise from time to time. For example, as chairman of the Council of Europe Sub-Committee on Sustainable Development, I am anxious to debate sustainable development, but if his proposal were adopted, such a discussion might have to form part of a wider environmental debate. Has he thought about that point?
Norman Baker: I understand the point, which the hon. Gentleman is right to raise. We have an annual debate on defence, but it does not stop us debating defence throughout the rest of the year. I hope that an annual debate would raise understanding among Members and encourage further discussion of the environment throughout the year—the opposite effect to that which he fears.
Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge) (Con): The hon. Gentleman mentioned defence debates, of which there are normally three a year. Perhaps his motion is unambitious and there should be different debates on different aspects of the environment.
Norman Baker: I would welcome three debates on different aspects of the environment, but I would settle for one if the Government were to concede the point. The Government have not called such a debate for a long time.
I am disappointed that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is not with us today. The sad fact is that she has not participated in any debate even partly related to the environment since 2002, and March 2002 was the last time that the Government volunteered even an oral statement on an environmental issue. I happen to think that the Secretary of State is sound on environmental issues, but I cannot say for certain and we must read the signals—it is like watching the Soviet Politburo. We do not know definitely, but in so far as we can tell she is sound. Why is she not in the House more regularly attending debates called in the Government's name to champion the cause of the environment? We would welcome that, but it does not happen. Perhaps the truth is that her views, which may be sound, are out of line with those of the Government in general, who rank the environment low down their list of priorities.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con): The hon. Gentleman says that he has time for the Secretary of State, but can he think of a single area in which she has sounded her ambition to leave an imprint on the Government's environmental record by doing anything that is in any way out of kilter with what has happened before? Has she shown personal commitment to this important issue, as opposed to just being a safe pair of hands?
Norman Baker: Tricky questions first. If we believe what we read in the press and consider the smoke
signals, the right hon. Lady was responsible for ensuring that the Government's Kyoto target was not downgraded by 15 per cent., which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry apparently wanted. The Minister for the Environment is nodding, so that suggestion is correct.
The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Elliot Morley) indicated dissent.
Norman Baker: The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs seems to be quite good at defending her budget, although I would not want to overplay that point. She is a friend of the environment—in so far as we have one in this Government—so let us not be too unpleasant about her because we need her on board to help us.
I listened in vain to the Queen's Speech introducing this Session for a mention of the word, "environment", and it appeared once:
- "the new strategic environment in which the Armed Forces operate."—[Official Report, 26 November 2003; Vol. 415, c. 7.]
Mr. Colin Challen (Morley and Rothwell) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman is making great play of the word "environment", as though someone who does not mention it cannot be doing the right thing by the environment. What about the Energy Bill, which is surely a major step forward? It proposes difficult targets on, for example, renewable energy sources.
Norman Baker: The Energy Bill has a number of good elements—I was about to be nice about it—and I shall go on to discuss domestic policies. It is important to paint a fair picture so that one can criticise after having praised other matters.
Mr. Michael Weir (Angus) (SNP): Before the hon. Gentleman is too kind about the Energy Bill, does he share the views put forward by the Scottish renewable industry, which has expressed grave concern about the costs associated with tapping into the national grid? Many developments by the Scottish renewable industry are located in the far north of Scotland on the islands, and it will be expensive to connect them to the national grid, which has led the industry to raise concerns about the future of renewables.
Norman Baker: The renewable target in the White Paper is welcome. Access to the grid is a serious issue. In many cases, power supplies are offshore, a long way from centres of population, and that is a matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) has raised on several occasions. The Government say that they will address it, and we will see in time whether they do so.
When the Prime Minister was questioned last week by the Liaison Committee, he gave his usual impressive performance, except when he was asked about the environment. Then his eyes glazed over and we saw a
rather different Prime Minister. He was asked whether he agreed with the Government's chief scientist on climate change, and he replied:
- "Looking very long term, if I look at when my children are my age, yes, I think that is the key issue that faces us."
At least the Prime Minister said that he recognises climate change as an issue for 30 or 40 years' time, but he seems not to realise that it is with us now, and is accelerating. Species are already disappearing, the polar icecaps are melting and we are seeing wild swings in our weather patterns.
Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that our Kyoto targets exceed those of any other country? Does he accept that the UK is the only European country to put forward an emissions trading scheme? Most particularly, does he agree that climate change will be long term? Even if we take steps now, it will be a long time before we change the pattern of the curve.
Norman Baker: I certainly recognise the Government's commitment to Kyoto and I shall say so later. Climate change may be long term, but it requires action now, and that is what we are not seeing to a sufficient degree. The oil tanker will take a long time to turn round, and we need to start now. We cannot wait for the time when the Prime Minister's children are his age now to realise the catastrophe that awaits us. It is a difficult political issue for all of us. We have to convince the electorate and the wider world about an issue that is not immediately on our doorsteps but which requires immediate action. It will be too late in 30 or 40 years' time.
The most recent models of climate change from the United Nations Environment Programme suggest that global temperature will rise between 1.4 and 5.8 per cent. by 2100. That is grotesquely in excess of anything that has happened in the past 10,000 years, and there is no guarantee that flora and fauna—let alone human beings—will be able to adapt to such change.
Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about flora and fauna. Does he agree with some scientific opinion that suggests that, if the polar icecaps continue to melt at a faster rate, the warm airs from the gulf stream will be greatly weakened and we will have a climate more similar to the deep continental one? In other words, winters in this country could become much colder.
Norman Baker: That is indeed one scenario, and that is why we now try to talk of climate change, not global warming. What is clear is that we will see significant changes in our weather and climate, and we should not gamble with that—although it appears that we propose to do so.
There are statistics that support both sides of the debate, but I was struck by the report that more than half of the world's wetlands have disappeared since
1900, and that figure will reach 85 per cent. in the next 30 to 40 years. That is an appalling figure. I say that not from soft sentimentality about wetlands, but because managing wetlands sustainably will aid significantly in meeting the targets set at the world summit on sustainable development to halve the number of people without adequate water and sanitation services by 2015. It is a people-centred statistic, as well as a nature-centred one.Sustainable use of the planet is inextricably linked to a stable and prosperous future. Many hon. Members will have seen the excellent WWF report "Living Planet Report 2002", which demonstrates all too graphically how we are using up the capital resources of the world faster than they can naturally be replenished. That will lead to an increase in poverty and human misery and, potentially at some time in the future, to resource wars over basic substances, including water. We must try to avoid that.
It is worth remembering that the poorest countries are likely to be the most vulnerable and most affected by climate change. Some 60 per cent. of the additional 80 million people likely to be at risk from flooding are in southern Asia, and 20 per cent. in south-east Asia. Africa is expected to experience significant reductions in cereal yields, as are the middle east and India. An extra 290 million people could be exposed to malaria by the 2080s, with China and central Asia experiencing the biggest risk. Those are frightening projections. I hope that they are wrong, but if they are anywhere near right, we have a big problem on our hands.
It is also predicted that 3 billion people, predominantly in Africa, will suffer through increased stress on water supplies. There is an old saying that forests precede man and deserts follow him, and that is becoming all too true. Deforestation is having a devastating impact on the global climate. That is true not only for Brazil and Indonesia, which are the focus of popular concern, but for countries that should know better, such as Australia and what is happening in Tasmania. It is also happening in Africa to a degree that people have not so far appreciated. A parliamentary answer I received from the Secretary of State for International Development suggested that 5.2 million hectares of forest disappeared from Africa each year. That is an area the size of France, and we cannot go on like that. Some 80 per cent. of ancient forests have been destroyed, degraded or fragmented by human activity, and that has a massive impact on biodiversity and threatens to destroy the livelihoods and way of life of millions of forest-dependent people. That is the bleak reality that we face.
Much of the logging is illegal and many of the products are exported to the UK and other European markets. The Indonesian Government lose an estimated $6,700 a minute in revenue because of illegal logging, but Indonesian companies that rely on illegal logs to feed their sawmills still export plywood to the UK, where it is used once or twice and then thrown away. I welcome the fact that the Government support the European Parliament's resolution on forest law enforcement, governance and trade, which is a good first step. However, it will not stop the illegal timber trade with the European Union. As Greenpeace points out, the plan contains no commitment to legislate against the import of illegally logged timber, but relies instead on
voluntary partnership agreements, such as those already in place between the UK and Indonesia. That is clearly not enough.We need a sensible approach to public procurement. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) raised with the Prime Minister the issue of the timber being used for the new Home Office building. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister laughed at the matter, instead of treating it seriously. That is not good enough. I also gently suggest to the Minister that while Government statistics show that we import large quantities of timber from places such as Vatican City, there is some way to go in regulating the timber trade. Surely there are not that many old church pews in Vatican City.
Climate change will affect us in the UK directly, as DEFRA's own website shows. The most recent climate change scenarios show an average annual temperature increase across the UK of between 2 and 3.5 per cent. by the 2080s, with all the possible consequences that we have heard about, including high summer temperatures and increasingly rare cold winters. However, the changes to the gulf stream may mean colder winters, giving us the temperatures found in Labrador. The US National Academy of Sciences has even described such changes as "likely". That may be the worst-case scenario, but even alternating between colder and warmer temperatures for several decades would play absolute havoc with agriculture and civilisation generally.
Whatever the shape of the changes, it would be better not to take the gamble that we are taking. This is not an issue for the long term, as the Prime Minister said last week: it is an issue for now. However, I want to give credit where it is due, and the Government did sign up to Kyoto early and willingly. They have set ambitious targets and they are on course to meet the EU target, if not the 20 per cent. target. It is true that some of that resulted from the switch from coal to gas; nevertheless, our Government are on target, and we should be pleased that they have approached the matter responsibly.
That attitude is in marked contrast to the attitude of our best friends, the United States, which has 7 per cent. of the world's population but accounts for 25 per cent. of all energy use and 36 per cent. of all greenhouse gas emissions each year: they are going up—and going up fast—in the United States.
I feel sorry for the Prime Minister. He took a big political risk in supporting President Bush in his Iraqi strategy, and he is not being well repaid by the American President over Kyoto or indeed very much else. Either the Prime Minister has not pushed Kyoto very hard with the United States President, in which case he is failing in his duty to do so, or he is being completely ignored by the United States President—in which case, so much for the special relationship. I am not sure which explanation is right, but neither is very flattering to either man.
The protocol could still become binding if Russia ratifies it. I hope and believe that the Government are doing all they can to persuade Russia to sign up. We have received assurances from Ministers to that effect, and we have no reason to doubt them. That is the right policy to pursue, and I welcome what the Government are doing in that regard. I very much hope that they will be successful.
I hope that the Government have also made plain their disagreement with the recent noises from Madrid suggesting that Spain may wish to reopen discussions over Kyoto in the European Union. That needs to be firmly squashed; we cannot afford to allow the EU to unravel over Kyoto.
I referred earlier to the report by leading scientists suggesting that up to 37 per cent. of species could become extinct by 2050. I am told that that is about one every 45 minutes. I admit that I cannot prove it, but the prediction is probably more reliable than other recent 45-minute claims. Even if the figure were just 5 per cent., that could have a devastating impact on our world. Everything is connected to everything else, and the disruption of natural chains will have unpredictable and unwelcome consequences. Species will face disruption to habitat and may find it impossible to adjust. Even if they can adapt in climate terms, they may find that there is no food to rely on.
The human race needs to wake up and address the issue. We cannot sit back while a third of all life forms, which have been here for millions of years, vanish in our lifetime, practically overnight in evolutionary terms. That means addressing quickly, not in the very long term, the root causes of this mass extinction, one of which is climate change, which I have mentioned. Another is the inequality in our world and the poverty that drives millions to destroy the land on which they depend as the only way of finding the next meal.
Global problems require global solutions. They can be found; they can work. We have an example in the Montreal protocol, which has worked quite well in stopping the destruction of the ozone layer. That shows that the world can pull together when it needs to.
We need Kyoto to work. It may not be perfect—the Americans say that it is not, and they are right to say that—but it is the only show in town and we need it to work. We also need to make international agreements such as the convention on biological diversity much more effective. That runs in parallel with the World Trade Organisation, but while the WTO has teeth the CBD merely has gums. That imbalance needs to be addressed. As the Minister's predecessor suggested, we also need a world environmental court to deal with these issues on a global basis, so that we have environmental and sustainability justice across the world.
What we do in our own country is important too. In theory, it should be rather easier to achieve. The Government started well in 1997 by creating the right structure—a major Department, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, bringing together the environment and transport. Many of us in the environment field had argued for that for many years, particularly to try to stop the destructive transport policies that had been implemented until then. The Government also introduced a cross-cutting Environmental Audit Committee. That was absolutely the right policy; the Committee has done sterling work. In addition, the Government introduced a cross-cutting team of green Ministers. I am not sure how effective it has been, but the decision was right.
I recognise that the Government look for innovative ways to deal with issues across traditional departmental boundaries, as they should. I give them credit for doing it, even if the price is sometimes more control from No. 10.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |