Wera Hobhouse is the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath.
We have identified 11 Parliamentary Votes Related to Climate since 2017 in which Wera Hobhouse could have voted.
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As we have already heard, the threat to UK food security comes not from renewable energy projects, but from a number of complex interrelated issues relating to how our food is produced, how it is subsidised, sold onto the middleman and supermarkets, and to a demand and supply mechanism that is broken.
At the heart of our food supply problems globally is climate change. Therefore, tackling climate change must be our top priority. Solar plays a major part in our efforts to get to net zero. More renewables also means less dependence on oil and gas and better security for our constituents when it comes to their energy bills. This year, England will produce 26% less wheat than in 2023. This comes after the wettest 18 months since records began. The loss of wheat in 2024 alone is over 5,000 times greater than the loss of food production caused by three new solar farms being approved in July. These are the figures we need to take into consideration.
When it comes to food supply and security, solar farms are a drop in the ocean compared with what we lose to the climate crisis. Meeting the UK Government’s plans for increasing solar energy by 2035 would mean using about 0.3% of the UK’s land—and we have already heard the comparison with golf courses. We need to look at how we sensibly use all our land. My constituency of Bath is served by solar energy from Lightsource BP, which is helping the UK to transition to net zero through solar projects. Projects like these need timely grid connection, and the Minister will know that that is currently the biggest barrier to farmers diversifying their income through renewable energy.
Full debate: Large-scale Energy Projects and Food Security
The hon. Members for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) and for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) were absolutely right to say that the UK has a huge responsibility to show climate leadership.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who never misses an opportunity to speak in debates about net zero, spoke up for the nations that are being left behind and made the point that we need to bring everybody with us. I do not agree with everything the hon. Gentleman says about climate change, but we definitely agree on that point.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) for her intervention, in which she said that we need, and should work towards having, a climate envoy at COP29.
Last but not least, we heard powerful points on the importance of water, which is becoming a massive issue with climate change, as water shortages will drive a lot of displacement. Those points were well made.
The UN is not a world Government, and COP can work only on a consensual basis. Effective diplomacy is therefore essential in coming to arrangements. Although the agreements made at COPs are not legally binding, we must not underestimate their importance in setting the global agenda on climate change. COPs are also crucial to getting polluters to engage with climate-vulnerable countries, many of which have been severely impacted by climate change and are on the brink of climate catastrophe.
COP28 resulted in countries agreeing to “transition away” from fossil fuels, using the strongest language ever used in respect of the phasing out of fossil fuels. This marked a significant step forward. Regrettably, despite excitement that the COP28 agreement saw the beginning of the end for fossil fuels, the actual text was undermined by loopholes and was flawed given the absence of timescales. That means there is even more emphasis on the upcoming COP29 summit, which will be more important than ever. Strengthening the wording on the acceleration away from fossil fuels must be the first priority. That will require rapid and sustained emission reduction, and increasing renewables will be crucial.
The Liberal Democrats absolutely agree with the Green party about the focus on renewables. At COP28, a commitment was made to triple renewable energy. The commitment marks progress; now, action must follow. Climate finance must be increased if the agreements of COP28 are to be honoured.
Here at home, I urge everybody to support the climate and nature Bill. Nature is critical for effective climate action, and biodiversity is our greatest natural defence against climate change. The CAN Bill would require the Government to rapidly reduce our carbon footprint and protect and restore ecosystems, and would ensure that the Government take responsibility for the environmental damage caused by our supply chains.
Halting and reversing deforestation made it into the final text of a COP agreement for the first time at COP28, with Governments agreeing on the need to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. But forests continue to be decimated for crops. Reversing deforestation is also a responsibility for importing countries such as the UK, which must eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. Deforestation must be a big focus for COP29, and ideas such as a compensation fund for conserving standing rainforest should be part of the discussion.
No country should be left behind in our shared goal of halting warming. Article 6 of the Paris agreement is all about helping countries to work together to meet their climate goals through the voluntary transfer of carbon credits. At COP28, we were unable to finalise this; we look ahead to COP29 to make it easier for countries to collaborate on lower emissions.
Finalising the new collective quantified goal on climate finance must also be a focus. The NCQG aims to set a new financial target for supporting developing countries in their climate actions. The timeframe for the goal is crucial: a short goal will inspire a sense of urgency to get finance flowing where it is needed.
It is reassuring that the new Government have committed to ending licensing for exploring new oil and gas, and I hope Labour will take this promising start on to the world stage and negotiate for an agreement that goes further and faster than the agreement made last year. It is particularly important that the more developed nations remain the driving force behind the global journey to net zero, setting a good example and bringing the international community along with us.
At COP28 we understood that COP’s work was based on three pillars of action: mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage. Mitigation is where we have made reasonable progress; adaptation is the next challenge.
The second pillar of climate change is adaptation. It is essential to adjust to climate change as it is happening. As we speak now, we see it everywhere. The Climate Change Committee has advised that the gap between the level of climate risk we face and the level of adaptation under way has widened in the past few years. Estimated adaptation costs in developing countries are five to 10 times greater than current public adaptation finance flows. At home, sea levels could rise by over a metre by the end of the century.
The more we put off adaptation measures, the more difficult and expensive it will be in the future. National adaptation plans or NAPs—another acronym—are a vital part of this. COP29 must focus on financial and technical assistance, and close the adaptation finance gap. Another part of the COP28 agreement that needs action is the overreaching global goal of adaptation. A long time in the making, that agreement is welcome, but its framework does not adequately address the financial support needed. The GGA requires quantified, measurable targets to mobilise finance.
The third and final pillar, and the one of most importance if we look around the planet, is loss and damage. The launch of the loss and damage fund at COP28 was a breakthrough: it marked an important step in Britian’s relationship with climate-vulnerable countries. However, the money that was pledged was miserable. It is shameful that we, a rich nation, could not come up with more. COP29 should establish long-term commitments from countries to make adequate annual contributions.
Under the previous Conservative Government, the UK’s contribution to the loss and damage fund came from pre-existing climate finance commitments and the foreign aid budget. Foreign aid is vital, but it is separate from climate action; it is about education, health and so on. To put the two together was either cynical or a huge misunderstanding; it makes a mockery of the whole principle. The idea of the fund is that richer nations should support poorer ones, no strings attached. Simply redirecting pre-pledged finances to the fund was a real dereliction of duty. COP29 is the moment for countries to stand by their pledges by announcing concrete steps to achieve them. The implementation of the fund must be led by the needs of countries vulnerable to climate change, rather than the interests of donor countries.
To conclude, national and international action on climate change is not a nice-to-have luxury, but an imperative to avoid the inevitable destruction of livelihoods around the world and the potential of large-scale conflict and mass displacement. The stakes could not be higher. We might have to reinvest a fraction of our wealth, but the benefits of that are immeasurable.
Full debate: COP29: UK Priorities
I sense that there is a great deal of consensus across the House on this statutory instrument. There is consensus that the aviation sector is one of the hardest to decarbonise, and probably also that the new technology that is being proposed—SAF, in its different iterations—needs a great deal of technological knowledge. However, the principle of taking the first steps towards creating the SAF mandate—of the requirement for SAF to meet 2% of total jet fuel demand from 1 January, and of increasing that on a linear basis, to 10% by 2030 and to 22% by 2040—has no opposition, and we will absolutely support the Government in that effort.
We know that biofuels are not a long-term solution, as they compete with food production. SAF from waste, the next generation of SAF, is not a long-term solution either. It is obviously part of the solution, but as the shadow Minister has pointed out, the real challenge is to get to the third generation SAFs—that is, synthetic fuels. We need to develop them as soon as possible, and they need a great deal of electricity. Whatever we say about this, direct air capture needs a great deal of electricity. Producing hydrogen in a sustainable way—that is, getting to green hydrogen—will also need a great deal of electricity. The crunch in all this is: where is all that renewable energy coming from, unless we are ultimately overproducing renewable energy? I believe that GB Energy will have a big say in this and will be crucial in developing all the renewable energy that will ultimately help us to decarbonise the aviation sector. This is really the challenge.
While I welcome the kick-start of a journey to net zero in aviation, the 10% to 22% mandate between 2030 and 2040 is a concern for the Liberal Democrats. We want to get to net zero by 2045, but having planes still running on 78% fossil fuels is just not good enough. The UK has the third largest aviation network in the world and the second largest aerospace manufacturing sector. Almost 1 million UK jobs are directly or indirectly supported by the aviation sector. The future of the aviation industry with SAF is obviously a wonderful opportunity and challenge. Making the right choices on SAF will ensure that the UK can continue to be a global leader, and I think that we are as one across the House in wanting this to happen in order to make the UK the global leader in this area.
It is only right that we take these steps, which support decarbonisation and also create the jobs that we need in the future. What is important is that the Government collaborate with the aviation fuel suppliers to ensure that this initiative really succeeds. I would like to hear a little more detail from the Minister about how the Government will work alongside suppliers to make this a long-term success.
As I have said, we welcome this, but there are other examples of what we can do in the meantime to decarbonise the sector. For example, we could ban short-haul domestic flights on journeys that can be done by rail in less than 2.5 hours. Such a ban already exists in France, so it would be good if the Government at least looked at this. The cost of flying must be linked to the environmental cost. It is ridiculous that I can, at least on some journeys, fly 100 miles to a European city for less than it costs me to go by train from Bath to London. The Liberal Democrats would focus on those who fly the most to reduce the unfair burden on households who fly only once or twice a year. Plus, we would impose a new super-tax on private jet flights and remove VAT exemptions for private, first-class and business-class flights.
Full debate: Transport