Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what preparations they have made
for COP28 and which Minister has responsibility for representing
the United Kingdom at the negotiations.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy
Security and Net Zero () (Con)
My Lords, the right honourable will be representing the
United Kingdom as the Minister responsible for the UN and CCC
negotiations at COP 28. Following the UK’s COP 26 presidency, we
of course continue to work with countries around the world to
ensure that commitments made in the Glasgow climate pact are
turned into action. We want to support the agenda of the incoming
UAE presidency and drive an ambitious outcome for COP 28 to keep
1.5 degrees within reach.
(CB)
I thank the Minister for that Answer, and of course we all
welcome Minister Stuart, but the fact that he is not a Cabinet
Member raises some alarms as to quite how seriously we are taking
this incredibly important conference that is coming up later in
the year. Can the Minister provide clarity on when the UK will
formally respond to the global stocktake of progress towards our
nationally determined contributions? They are due in June but the
CCC has noted that we are behind on both adaptation and
mitigation.
(Con)
I disagree. Graham Stuart is a very senior Minister who is
committed to this agenda, and he has already taken part in a
number of the ministerial negotiations. There is a
cross-government group of Ministers chaired by the Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster meeting to co-ordinate the Government’s
response.
(Con)
My Lords, are the Government aware of President Macron’s recent
plea for a pause in EU environmental regulations in a push to
reindustrialise France? Do the Government agree that we ought to
consider that, especially in view of the fact that an increasing
number of countries are profoundly disturbed about the cost of
trying to limit global warming?
(Con)
I had not seen President Macron’s intervention. Happily, what
France and the EU do has nothing to do with us any more. They can
have their own negotiations. We are just getting on with the
job.
(LD)
I agree with the noble Baroness that it is a great disappointment
that we do not have a Secretary of State going to the Gulf for
COP 28. Will the UK still be chairing the Powering Past Coal
Alliance that it has led and chaired in the past? If so, will it
therefore cancel its coal mine intentions in Cumbria, here in the
UK?
(Con)
I am not going to get into the debate about Minister Stuart. He
does an excellent job and is well respected across the
international community for his work, building on the work that
we did at COP 26. We are committed to the Powering Past Coal
Alliance. I think the noble Lord is being slightly disingenuous;
he knows that the coal mine in Cumbria is nothing to do with
power generation.
(Lab)
Do noble Lords share my concern that the Minister has just said
that what France is doing does not concern him? Does he not
understand that, if we are to deal with climate change, we all
need to work together?
(Con)
I think I said that what negotiations go on between France and
the EU are not our concern any more because we are not a member
of the EU. Of course we work collaboratively with many countries
across the world, not just in the EU. This is a worldwide problem
and we need to negotiate on a worldwide basis, which of course we
do. Carbon emissions do not respect international borders.
(CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register.
Since 2008 developing countries’ debt has doubled, and many of
the countries most at risk from catastrophic climate change are
actually paying more in debt repayment than they are able to
spend on climate adaptation. At COP 28, will the UK be talking
with international finance institutions about issues such as debt
swap, which could address this problem?
(Con)
The noble Baroness makes an important point, although it is
slightly off the topic of the COP 28 agenda. We are incredibly
proud of the massive contribution of £11.6 billion that this
Government are making towards international climate finance,
helping those very countries. The wider issue of debt relief is
also important and will be taken forward by international
development colleagues.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Government have already set out some of their
priorities for COP 28, one of which is to actively follow up on
the phase-down of coal and the phase-out of all fossil fuels. The
recent words of COP 28 president Sultan Al Jaber have been widely
interpreted as meaning using carbon capture and storage to
capture CO2 emissions and not completely phase out fossil fuels.
What consideration have the Government given to these remarks and
what steps have been taken to address them?
(Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point, citing the chairman of
COP. The reality is that there will still be a requirement for
fossil fuels in the years to come. There will still be a
requirement in the UK, which is why we have an ambitious
programme —we are spending £20 billion on carbon capture usage
and storage. That still enables emissions to take place but of
course they will be captured and stored back underground.
(Con)
Regardless of the status of whoever represents us at COP 28, will
the Minister make sure that the Government understand and explain
to the public that while we are getting on very well in
decarbonising the electric power sector, that is only one-fifth
of our total energy usage? Therefore, we are only still in the
foothills of trying to climb the net-zero peak target, which
requires massive expansion of both nuclear power—preferably small
nuclear power—and wind power on a scale not yet contemplated and
not yet being invested for.
(Con)
My noble friend of course knows this subject very well from his
time as Energy Minister and makes an important point. We already
have invested massively in renewables. We have the biggest wind
sector in Europe by far. We have the first, second and
third-largest wind farms in Europe, so we are massively expanding
our renewables sector. It makes sense because particularly wind
power and solar power are cheap compared to fossil fuel
generation, but renewables are intermittent, which is why we will
also need our nuclear generation. He draws attention to the scale
of the problem we face.
(LD)
My Lords, I ask the Minister whether our Government are fully
behind the COP 28 declaration to phase out fossil fuels,
something that we tried to do at COP 27—not successfully. I
assume the answer to that question is yes so, to help realise
that aim, will the Government commit to the UK joining the fossil
fuel non-proliferation treaty?
(Con)
We are committed to phasing out fossil fuels and I outlined in a
previous answer the progress we are making. But it is a
transition: we have a requirement for fossil fuels during that
transition period and have had exchanges about that before. I do
not know the details of the declaration that the noble Baroness
refers to, but I will certainly have a look at it.
(Con)
My noble friend made reference to our co-operation with other
countries. Do they include China and India, which continue to
build coal-fired power stations and make the attainment of net
zero pretty unlikely?
(Con)
My noble friend makes an important point. We continue to liaise
with and talk to those countries, as we do many others. The
situation is complicated. While it is true that China continues
to expand its coal-fired generation, it has also massively
increased use of renewables. In fact, it has the largest offshore
wind sector in the world now; it took over our lead on that.
(CB)
My Lords, following the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord
Howell, I would be the first to recognise that the route to net
zero is fraught with challenge and difficulty. But will the
Government publish a considered integrated assessment of the
optimum route forward for the UK and a detailed plan—which we do
not have at the moment—of where we go over the next five to 10
years?
(Con)
I am sorry to disagree, but we do have detailed plans on where we
are going. We have laid them out in our building strategy and in
our net-zero plan. Only just before the Recess we published our
Powering Up Britain plan, outlining exactly the kind of details
that the noble Lord referred to.
(LD)
My Lords, do the Government have any view on the impact on COP 28
of the invitation for President Assad to attend?
(Con)
I saw that the COP 28 presidency had invited Assad and all world
leaders. It is a UN body, so of course we do not control who gets
invited or who chairs it. Clearly, we deplore the invitation of
such an appalling man to this event, but it is not something for
which we are responsible.
