Rushanara Ali MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

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Rushanara Ali's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 19 Parliamentary debates in which Rushanara Ali has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 15 Mar 2023: Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

  15:38

  Labour will deliver green growth and support 400,000 jobs in green businesses. We will retain workers with skills in a green economy in every corner of the UK. There will be genuine levelling up. We will rebuild business with a national investment bank that will support the drive for a net zero economy. I could say much more, but I am limited in time. We have a plan for growth and for a high-skilled, high-wage economy. The Conservatives have had 13 years in government—13 years of austerity, the destruction of vital public services and the destruction of our economy. Added to that, the previous Prime Minister but one negotiated a poor Brexit deal that has led to reduced GDP. That is costing £100 billion in lost output and £40 million less in revenue to the Treasury every year.

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• 16 Nov 2021: Finance (No. 2) Bill

  15:25

  Nor does the Bill respond to the climate emergency, as hon. Members have pointed out. Despite the fact that the UK has just hosted the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the Government have no plan for growth. Growth would put more money in people’s pockets and increase tax revenues, but what we are seeing is a low-growth, high-taxes approach, meaning a greater burden on working people because of the Budget.

  The Government have also failed to deliver on their net zero promises. There has been plenty of rhetoric and little substance, and, indeed, a cut in domestic air passenger duty was announced in the run-up to COP26. We have a Government who are treating the climate emergency as an afterthought rather than something that is central to what we do in the future. We need a green jobs and a green investment revolution, and, as has already been said, we need a focus on a just transition. The Government do not seem to have the commitment or the ambition to deal with a climate emergency.

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• 12 Nov 2020: Refugee Communities: Covid-19

  13:27

  We need to double funding to the World Bank for emergency aid. We need to provide more support to the International Monetary Fund to help those countries, so that they do not end up being desperate and the economic troubles do not cause further conflict and division, thereby causing more people to suffer and end up as refugees. We also need to do more to tackle climate change, which will create more refugees. In Bangladesh, 30 million people are likely to become climate refugees, so there is a great deal that we need to do going forward.

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• 27 Apr 2020: Finance Bill

  17:52

  This Finance Bill does little to strengthen our economy or make us more resilient. Even before the covid crisis, it was inadequate. It does not deal with the challenges of climate change and the climate emergency, and it does not go far enough to reverse the challenges posed by the deep-seated inequalities in health, education and other spheres over the last decade.

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• 25 Apr 2019: School Funding

  13:44

  I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and the other co-sponsors for securing this important debate on school funding. There are few subjects more important to this House than the future of the nation’s children. They will be the inheritors of a post-Brexit Britain. They will be digital natives, as unfazed by digital technology as we are by electricity. We will bequeath to them the big challenges facing the country and the world, such as climate change, new kinds of labour market, and many more. That is why it is so important to invest in our young people’s talents and ensure that they are among the best educated in the world.

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• 20 Dec 2018: Rohingya Refugee Crisis

  12:49

  Last year, the response from the authorities and the people of Bangladesh was incredible. They demonstrated immense generosity to the refugees, despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, with millions of people living below the poverty line and facing the greatest risks from climate change. Over recent years, when thousands were killed by the Burmese military and hundreds of thousands sought refuge, Bangladesh kept its borders open and provided them with sanctuary. But the international community and other neighbouring states must do more to support that country in the humanitarian crisis. We know from our experience in Europe that absorbing so many people is a massive challenge even for this continent, which is among the wealthiest in the world. The end result must be the peaceful return of the Rohingya to their homes, but that must happen only when it is safe and when the Rohingya believe that the danger has passed.

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• 8 Mar 2018: Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

  14:01

  We have achieved a great deal, as we have heard today, but the focus on progress must continue. Progress comes with pressure. Over the past year, we have seen the #MeToo campaign and other campaigns relating to the plight of women emerging in countries where we do not expect women to suffer in this way, and that tells us that we still have much to do. Around the world, women continue to bear the brunt of poverty, of war, of sexual violence and of climate change. There are 130 million girls not in education, and 15 million girls of primary school age who will never get the chance to learn to read or write in primary school. Globally, more than a third of women are subject to violence, and 750 million women and girls are married before the age of 18. Far too often, women still bear the brunt of the conflicts around the world. They are exposed to brutal attacks, often as deliberate tools of political and ethnic violence. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women are far more likely than soldiers to be victims of violence. In Sudan, rape has been used as a weapon of war by Government and opposition forces. A report published by the International Rescue Committee last year stated that the scale of violence against women and girls in South Sudan was double the global average.

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• 11 Jul 2013: Oral Answers to Questions

  I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. Last week, however, the European Parliament voted to hold back carbon credits from the EU emissions trading scheme. Does the Secretary of State agree that the 20 Conservative MEPs who voted against the proposals were voting not only against action to tackle carbon emissions and prevent climate change, but against the interests of British business?

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• 4 Jul 2013: Post-2015 Development Goals

  14:24

  There are innovators and great thinkers and doers in developing countries, who need to be in the driving seat of helping to set the future goals. International leadership is needed not only from western leaders, but from the leaders of developing countries and the emerging economies that increasingly call the shots on some major issues. They can and must play a vital role in tackling poverty and inequality, and in dealing with the major challenge of climate change, which could undermine the achievements of which we are proud, not to mention set back the progress we seek to make through future investments.

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• 21 Mar 2013: Post-2015 Development Agenda

  15:53

  We must also address climate change and the need for sustainable development goals. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and others pointed out, it is important that the sustainable development goals are closely linked to the millennium development goals and that they sit together, because as we look to the future, climate change and development will become ever more interconnected. We need to ensure that the goals are working in sync to address future challenges. Urbanisation is a major issue around the world, and we need to ensure that there is a continued focus on that.

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• 19 Mar 2013: Bangladesh (Escalation of Violence)

  16:00

  Those are important achievements, but Bangladesh still faces grinding poverty and it is the second most vulnerable country to climate change. So I hope that we can work together with our friends in Bangladesh to ensure that people focus on the big challenges facing the country. Only when the governance of the country is genuinely focused on the future needs of its population and on the challenges that it faces will Bangladesh be truly able to meet its aspirations of reaching middle-income status and achieving economic and social prosperity.

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• 12 Dec 2012: Oral Answers to Questions

  In Copenhagen the developed world agreed to establish a $100 billion fund to help developing countries to cope with the effects of climate change, but, despite further calls for urgent action at the Doha summit, only a fraction of that funding has been delivered. What progress does the Minister think the United Kingdom Government have made in showing international leadership on this important issue?

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• 23 Oct 2012: Post-2015 Development Agenda

  14:59

  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) for securing this important debate and commend his work in the previous Government as special envoy to the Prime Minister on climate change issues. Both he and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) have stated that, as we speak about the millennium development goals and what comes next, climate change issues should feature significantly.

  I could not agree more, and I hope that the Minister takes the opportunity, as the last man standing in his Department, to answer that question. The hon. Member for Cheltenham, who highlighted his interest in and commitment to tackling climate change, will also want to hear the Minister’s answer.

  I certainly did not intend to do so. I did mention middle-income countries, and I will come on to our own work and what we should be doing. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Climate Change Act 2008, which Labour introduced, is a key part of the argument that we have a responsibility on those issues, as much as on what happens in developing countries, so I completely agree with his points.

  My final point concerns climate change. The Government and the Prime Minister have said that they want to be the greenest Government ever. We need action, not just rhetoric. I hope that the Minister can shed more light on what will be done, both domestically — [ Interruption. ] If he will stop heckling, I hope he can shed more light on what will be done both domestically and internationally on the issue.

  We introduced the 2008 Act. We hope that the Minister will work with his coalition partners to step up the effort on climate change. If we do not do more to support developing countries in the face of what is likely to be catastrophic for many sections of the population in some of the poorest countries, our efforts in development will be undermined. I hope that he can take this issue seriously and answer the questions seriously.

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• 23 May 2012: Oral Answers to Questions

  The forthcoming Rio+20 conference is an important opportunity for this Government to show international leadership on climate change, green jobs and sustainable development. Will the Secretary of State tell the House how many meetings have taken place between his Department and other relevant Departments to ensure a joined-up British approach to the Rio conference? Will he write to me with more details?

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• 1 Feb 2012: Oral Answers to Questions

  Does the Minister still think that companies like Sun Biofuels, which has made more than 1,000 people redundant in Tanzania and treated local people appallingly, are a shining example for countries around the world of how to produce green energy that is good both for the environment and for the economy, despite concerns about the impact of biofuels on food security, water access, land grabs and doubts about whether they even contribute to environmental gains?

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• 14 Dec 2011: Oral Answers to Questions

  On 16 December Bangladesh will mark its 40th anniversary as an independent nation, following a war that cost 3 million lives. I want to pay tribute to the contribution made by this Parliament in supporting the people in their fight for liberty and self-determination. As Bangladesh is the country that is the second most vulnerable to climate change, with an estimated 15 million to 20 million people likely to be affected in the coming decades, does the Prime Minister agree that it is now more important than ever to support developing countries against the devastating effects of climate change?

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• 7 Dec 2011: Oral Answers to Questions

  With the Durban climate change conference coming to a close this week, will the Minister tell the House what impact he and his Department have had on shaping Britain’s negotiating position, and whether the Government will live up to the commitment to help to fund the additional $100 billion needed for climate finance for developing countries?

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• 13 Jul 2011: Oral Answers to Questions

  Does the Minister agree that most climate-related finance should take the form of grants rather than loans? That is only fair to people in developing countries who suffer from the effects of climate change but who, in the main, did not cause it. Will the Minister tell us what proportion of our climate-related finance takes the form of loans rather than grants?

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• 17 Nov 2010: Oral Answers to Questions

  Let me declare an interest in that I recently went to Bangladesh as a guest of Oxfam. I am sure that I join the whole House in paying tribute to the excellent work of British development non-governmental organisations around the world. In Bangladesh, I saw Oxfam’s work in raising awareness of the impact of climate change on some of the world’s poorest. Although the Government’s commitment to continue the work on development and climate change is welcome, the commitment of the international community still falls short. Ahead of Cancun, what steps will the Government take to push for a greater commitment on climate finance from other countries?

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate