Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made
adapting the United Kingdom to climate change risks since the
Climate Change Committee’s Independent Assessment of UK Climate
Risk, published in June 2021.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs () (Con)
My Lords, the Government welcome the Climate Change Committee’s
constructive assessment, which informed the UK Climate Change
Risk Assessment 2022, published in January. Since then, we have
started to develop the third national adaptation programme, using
this risk assessment. We know that we must go further and faster
to prepare for the impacts of a warmer world. Adapting to climate
change is a government-wide challenge, and we are looking across
all government policies and programmes to develop NAP 3.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Climate Change Committee clearly recommended that
the Government publish how we would adapt to 2 degrees of warming
and assess the risks for 4 degrees in the next national
adaptation programme, due in 2023. However, the response to the
CCC recommendation said only that the Government would address
the risks and opportunities of a scenario of 2 degrees of
warming. In such circumstances, is it the Government’s view that
it is not worth assessing the risks of 4 degrees of warming for
the UK, or was this omission accidental? Is there any assessment
yet of yesterday’s alarming report, which stated that all of us
would cause irreparable damage to our ecosystem?
(Con)
The noble Baroness is entirely right in her assessment. The
Dasgupta review and other work has indicated the impact that
global warming will have on our ecosystems and economy. The CCC
has identified eight priority areas for urgent attention and
considered 61 UK-wide climate risks and opportunities cutting
across multiple sectors. We are looking at every risk and
tackling those eight priorities, four of which come directly
under Defra and all of which are cross-government.
(Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend not recognise that, since the
climate change conference, one of the risks that we need to be
concerned about is security of supply for the energy that we need
to keep people warm and keep our economy operating? Does he not
think that this might be the moment when we should refresh our
ideas on whether we allow fracking and the exploration of gas in
our own resources so that we can maintain that security of
supply?
(Con)
The greatest stability in an unstable world is for us to
decarbonise our economy as much as we can and become less reliant
on other countries, or indeed on hydrocarbons, for our future.
The Government’s strategy thus far has been absolutely right, and
we will continue to make sure that our economy is resilient to
the kind of global instability that we are experiencing at the
moment.
(CB)
My Lords, one of the risks highlighted by the Climate Change
Committee is the risk to buildings of overheating from extreme
heat waves. In the light of that, can the Minister tell us what
proportion of the 460,000 new homes built in the last two years
are designed to be resilient and cope with extreme heat waves,
which are likely to be the norm by 2050?
(Con)
The noble Lord is very experienced in this whole area of
adaptation. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities has introduced a new requirement on overheating into
the building regulations to ensure that new residential buildings
are built for a warming climate. The new requirement prioritises
addressing overheating through passive measures, including
reducing solar gains and sufficient removal of heat.
(LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the warning in
yesterday’s report that increasing severe impacts to humans,
nature and the climate can be expected as global temperatures
rise by 1.5 degrees centigrade. Will he agree to meet me and
other supporters of the climate and ecology emergency Bill to
discuss how the UK can use its COP 26 presidency to lead by
example and deliver a joined-up strategy to restore nature and
limit warming to 1.5 degrees?
(Con)
My colleagues at Defra—my noble friend , who led on this at COP, and
my colleague , who leads on climate change adaptation—and I would
certainly be happy to meet the noble Lord to explain how we hope
we are still on track for 1.5 degrees, while ensuring that we
adapt to all the risks in the report we are responding to that we
could face in the coming decades.
(Lab)
Does the Minister accept that one of the problems with renewables
is intermittency of supply? Surely one way round that serious
problem for the next decade would be to use gas like we do now
but capture the carbon. The Government have never taken carbon
capture and storage seriously and are now putting all their eggs
in the hydrogen basket. Carbon capture and storage will enable us
to deal with the intermittency, I accept by burning a fossil
fuel, but allow no carbon to go into the atmosphere. Why are the
Government so reluctant to push carbon capture and storage?
(Con)
The Government have co-financed a number of research projects on
this. It remains a technology that has potential. We are working
to understand it, its viability and all its implications to
ensure that our infrastructure in the North Sea can be used as we
develop it.
(Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that planting trees can
contribute to mitigating and adapting to climate change,
particularly to reduce the threat of flooding? Will he give an
assurance that the trees that will be planted under the
Government’s programme and ELMS will be fit for purpose and will
not contribute to the possibility of flooding?
(Con)
New tree planting is absolutely fundamental to our new ELMS and
environmental policies. We have very bold targets for tree
planting. However, my noble friend is absolutely right: they need
to be in the right place. There is incredibly powerful evidence
to show that a tree’s ability to move water underground from the
surface can enormously contribute to flood mitigation. It is very
much part of our policy.
(Lab)
My Lords, over the last fortnight vast swathes of the UK were
battered by three ferocious storms in seven days, leading to the
heartbreak of many thousands of properties being flooded, some of
them for a second or third time. We are told by the Met Office
that these extreme weather events will continue and get worse.
The Government recognise that flooding is a key risk in their
response to the CCC report, but what urgent action is being taken
to follow that up and to accelerate building the defences that we
will need not only now but for the future to withstand those
threats? Can he give an assurance that this action is being
accelerated?
(Con)
I can absolutely do that. We have doubled our investment in flood
defences to a record £5.2 billion. with some 2,000 new defence
schemes over the next six years. This programme will better
protect 336,000 properties, including homes and non-residential
properties such as schools, hospitals and transport links. But,
as I just said to my noble friend Lady McIntosh, concrete and
steel are not the sum total of this; it is also about planting
trees and using nature to slow water. That is at the fundamental
heart of our new agricultural policy.
(GP)
My Lords, this morning Reuters published draft proposals from the
European Commission that will be published next week including
proposals for national Governments to tax the windfall profits
that energy companies have made from high gas prices. If the
Government want to be world-leading, do they not need to get in
in the next few days to bring in a windfall tax on those gas
prices that could then be used for adaptation measures,
identified as urgently needed in this report?
(Con)
I will relay the noble Baroness’s suggestion to the Chancellor
and he will consider it within the Government’s fiscal
policies.
(Con)
My Lords, it is rare that I disagree, or have the trepidation to
disagree, with the noble Lord, , but does my noble friend agree
that tidal power is utterly predictable?
(Con)
I entirely agree with my noble friend that it is predictable. It
is another emerging technology and one that we are investing in
with academia to try to see its development around our coast.
(CB)
My Lords, the IPCC report yesterday made clear the overwhelming
risks of humanitarian crises, food insecurity, flooding and other
problems for some of the most exposed places in the world. What
progress have we made in our ongoing presidency of COP in terms
of global action on mitigation?
(Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Climate change hurts the
most vulnerable most. I have been in parts of world where I have
seen the impact of climate change. I have seen the look on
people’s faces as they have to move from one island to another
because they can no longer survive on the island of their birth.
We are determined to use our experience and our presidency of COP
with our successors to make sure that we reflect the needs of the
most vulnerable on this planet.
