09:30 Darren Jones (Labour)

That this House has considered extreme weather events related to climate change.

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its recent report on 6 October, I assumed that we would have time to debate it on the Floor of the House. Any IPCC report should warrant that level of political attention, but that special report tells us that all the warning lights are on red and that we have 12 years to limit global temperature growth to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels or face extreme changes to the way we live our lives.

I welcome the Government’s clean growth strategy and the passing remarks of the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth about the IPCC report in her statement on Green GB Week, but, with respect, heralding a letter from the Government to the Committee on Climate Change asking for advice on what to do next is not good enough. The House of Commons is supposed to be at the heart of the national and international debate. What we do here adds volume to the news that people across the UK see and hear. Shamefully, the IPCC report was covered prominently in the newspapers, on the radio and on the TV, but not in the House of Commons.

Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide need to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero around 2050.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) tabled urgent questions on our return from the summer recess to try to debate the issue, but he was unsuccessful. When Parliament is not sitting in the summer, we cannot debate. It is vital that we understand the consequences today of world climate change.

The issue does not just affect other countries; it is about Britain too. We have already heard about the increased number of deaths as a consequence of heat in Britain. The Met Office helpfully published a report in November that concluded that the extreme weather we are facing today in the UK is due to climate change. The report shows that it is hotter for longer in the summer and wetter for longer in the winter, with more rainfall from extreme weather events than ever before.

That is why we are building flood sea defences in Avonmouth in my constituency to prevent my constituents from being flooded by sea level rises due to climate change. It is also why I and so many of my constituents are trying to build renewable energy solutions, albeit without much luck to date on tidal energy, given the Government’s decision to pull funding for the Swansea bay tidal lagoon. My constituency has two islands in the Severn estuary—Steep Holm and Flat Holm—which means my boundaries include a big chunk of the second-largest source of tidal power in the world, but nothing is there to harbour its energy. The Government need to move much more quickly.

The UK has a proud record on tackling climate change, but we must do more at home and, fundamentally, more abroad. What role is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office playing in ensuring that every country in the world signs up to the Paris accord? We are missing Russia, which accounts for 5% of global emissions. We are missing Turkey and Iran, whose oil and natural gas exports account for 77% of its carbon emissions—again, that is an example of why we need to move at speed to a world in which we are not reliant on oil. We are missing Colombia, which has 10% of the Amazon rainforest within its borders. Illegal tree logging accounts for more carbon emissions than transportation. We are also missing a handful of others.

I find this amazing. I am disappointed that this debate is not receiving the highest levels of attention and that the UK is not forcing this issue up the national and international agenda. I applaud the efforts we are taking with the clean growth strategy and investment under the industrial strategy and on our own carbon emissions. The previous Labour Government had a proud record: they instigated the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Energy and Climate Change Committee is very good, but the speed and breadth are not good enough. Of course, we can be as good as we wish in the United Kingdom, but if the rest of the world does not follow, we all suffer.

I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to help raise the volume, and I hope she agrees that we should have a proper debate on IPPC reports on the Floor of the House of Commons annually. Perhaps the first should be after the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s advice is received next spring. I hope she will set out the work being done across Government to ensure not only that this is a strategy in the energy team at the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—as important as that is—but that it affects every Department. What requirements have been placed on the Department for International Trade to drive this agenda as it secures new trade deals around the world?

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09:47 Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)

It is always tempting to point to individual weather extremes and ascribe them to climate change. This year, we had heavy snowfall in March and the joint hottest summer on record. This is not about taking individual weather events and attributing them directly to climate change. That would be bad science, and would be easy to debunk and discredit. It is about looking at the overall trends, both here and globally, which do show a significant increase in extreme weather. The hon. Gentleman has given lots of examples, and I will briefly look at some additional ones.

If the science is right and the trends continue, we will see appalling consequences: increasing food shortages, lands becoming uninhabitable, and refugees on a scale that we as a species have never had to deal with before. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees tells us that already, on average, 21.5 million people are displaced each year because of weather-related, sudden-onset hazards. It describes climate change as a “threat multiplier” for people in conflict zones—and it goes without saying that it is bad news for the balance of nature as well.

The difficulty with climate systems is that they are so complex that no computer model on earth can fully capture and take on board the full range of feedback, positive and negative. That means that those who seek to pour doubt on the overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject will always be able to do so, if that is what they want to do. The same goes for the consequences of climate change.

However, there is a fairly basic calculation to make. On the one hand, what would be the effect of listening to the sceptics, ignoring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence pointing to man-made climate change, and then being wrong? The turbulence and change would likely bring about an end to civilisation as we know it. The impacts on the natural world would be incalculable. It is not inconceivable that this fragile, precious planet that we live on would be altered to such an extent that it would no longer be able to sustain us as a species. That is the downside.

On the other hand, what would be the effect of listening to the scientific consensus, taking the necessary action and then being proven wrong? Accidentally, we would end up with a cleaner and eventually much cheaper energy system, protecting more of the world’s forests and ecosystems, and with an economic system that is more circular and less wasteful. It has always amazed me, in fact, that there is anyone who would look at that basic calculation and conclude that we are better off doing nothing. That just makes no sense. Indeed, almost everything that we need to do to tackle climate change is something that we would want to do irrespective of climate change.

What is interesting or, rather, infuriating is that over the years that I have been engaged on this issue—20 years ago, I used to edit The Ecologist magazine—the debate has consistently and conveniently shifted. At the beginning, we were told for years that climate change simply was not happening. Then we heard from the same people, “Well, it is happening, but it is nothing to do with our species.” A few years later, we would hear from the same people, “Well, it is happening and we are probably contributing to it, but the cost of tackling it is just too great—it’s punitive—and, by the way, it’s great because we might get a bit of wine in the UK”—that is, better wine; we already get some wine here.

We can be proud that the UK helped to make the Paris agreement more ambitious, and of the cross-party Climate Change Act 2008, which set the target of an 80% cut in carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. I am delighted that the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who has responsibility for climate change, is looking at how we can go further and make net zero emissions a reality. Renewable electricity capacity in the UK has quadrupled since 2010, and we are world leaders in offshore wind.

There is a lot more that we can do globally as well. We need to build on the success of the international climate fund by using much a greater proportion of our overseas aid budget to protect nature. The IPCC maps out four pathways to capping the rise at 1.5° C, and reforestation is critical to all four of them. Apart from transport emissions, deforestation is the single largest source of carbon dioxide emissions; deforestation alone accounts for up to a fifth of all carbon emissions. Forests are, I think, one of the world’s largest carbon sinks; they absorb around 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon every year and they store billions more. However, we are losing 18.7 million acres of forest every year—the equivalent of 27 football pitches every single minute. That is lunacy; it is madness. Protecting forests means helping to protect the world and insulate it against climate change.

I do not believe there is any real argument around the science of climate change, and I do not think that there is any argument at all around the annihilation of the planet that is happening right now, on our watch. Logically, this has to be the defining issue of our age. Very simply, if the scale of our response as a Government does not match the scale of the problem, we are failing. My plea to this Government, via the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), who speaks today for the Minister with responsibility for climate change, is: let us be world leaders, as we can be, in restoring ecosystems on a scale that matches the problem.

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09:58 Jim Shannon (DUP)

Other energy sources have provided well, and if we use more renewable sources we can become more self-reliant and less reliant on other nations in a changing world and economy, which can only be a good thing. I look, again, to Government initiatives. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) is here on the Front Bench; his party, the Scottish National party, has shown a strong lead on wind turbines and has encouraged that through its own Parliament. The Government have done that as well, and we have seen some benefits in my constituency: the wind turbines there—they are probably smaller versions—have been incredibly important in getting the right mindset and providing renewable energy. We have also had a dam project. It is a smaller project, but it is enabled by Government money, and it feeds into the grid. We also have solar energy, which is another big benefit in my constituency. It is hard to envisage this, Ms Dorries, but focus on 10 acres of solar panels, with sheep grazing on the land between them—it is possible to have both things together. Farmers have diversified. We have a really good scheme just outside Carrowdore in my constituency, and a couple more up the country in Mid-Ulster and the northern part of Northern Ireland.

The Government could perhaps do more with tidal lagoons projects. In my constituency, through Queen’s University and others, and some private partnership moneys, we are looking at how we can better harness the tidal movements at the narrows between Portaferry and Strangford. The power of that water is incredible, and it could provide green energy. As technology increases, we will probably be in a position to provide such energy at a lower cost. Wind turbine energy was very costly at the beginning, but the cost has dropped now and it is economical.

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10:08 Luke Pollard (Labour)

Climate change is real. Some 97% of scientists believe that it is happening, and it will continue to happen whether the remaining 3% agree with it or not. The extreme weather produced by climate change is becoming more and more commonplace and its impact on our lives is becoming more profound, obvious and inescapable. A report by Oxfam has shown that, between 2008 and 2016, 23.5 million people were displaced by extreme weather. If we do not wake up, that will get worse and worse. The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West mentioned, predicted that if we do not act to stop a temperature increase of more than 2° above pre-industrial levels, on the current trajectory we will see a sea level rise from melting ice of up to 1 metre by 2100—only 80 years away. That would cause severe coastal flooding and super storms that would easily flood most major Western cities and submerge many low-lying islands, and would mean homes, roads and train lines under water.

Rising sea levels and elevated acidity mean that coastal communities such as mine in Plymouth are on the frontline of climate change and extreme weather. Far too often, more intense and more frequent storms are battering the south-west, and a lack of investment to create proper resilience—especially in our transport links—is cutting people in Plymouth off from the rest of the country. That is what I would like to speak about, because it is a good example of the challenges that we must face if we are to truly mitigate the impacts of climate change and extreme weather on our economy.

The lack of investment in much of our transport infrastructure, coupled with the more commonplace extreme weather that is being caused by climate change, means that we need greater focus on, and investment in, resilience in our transport system. The Secretary of State for Transport told me in the Chamber that the work on Dawlish was his No. 1 priority, but yet again, no money for Dawlish was announced in the Budget, and it is still the case that no money has been announced by Ministers. I say to the Minister—who I appreciate is not a transport Minister—that the patience of the south-west is wearing thin. We know that we are getting more extreme weather: we can see it year in, year out, and we can see the impact that it is having on our resilience. The betrayal, the breaking of promises, the frequency of closures, the disruption, and the damage to our reputation and attractiveness as a destination are all due to the failure to invest in and secure that train line. That cannot go on. We risk more and more disruption from climate change unless Ministers stop sitting on their hands and blaming others. They must put their money where their mouth is and fund proper, long-term resilience, particularly in Dawlish and Teignmouth.

Warnings about extreme weather can seem far distant from our shores. We sometimes look at extreme weather in far-away countries—hurricanes, tropical storms and mudslides—and think of it as happening to other people, not to us. However, the reality is that climate change and increasing extreme weather are occurring in countries far away, but also here at home. If we do not adjust the way we run our economy, invest in low-carbon technologies, and fundamentally change the way our country operates, we will see more extreme weather—not just far away but in the UK. That is something that we desperately need to avoid.

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10:15 Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) reminded us that we are on course for a 3° increase in temperature compared with pre-industrial levels, yet the IPCC report focuses on the difference between a 1.5° increase and a 2° increase, so we need urgent action. The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the clear environmental benefits of taking action: irrespective of climate change, that action will improve the environment of the world we live in. We need to remember that, and look beyond financial costs.

Apart from the head-in-the-sand deniers, people know that climate change is happening. We have the proof and we can see it happening with changing weather patterns. In my lifetime, I have seen winters get milder. As I was growing up, people said, “It used to be far colder in my day,” so there is that generational change. We know people’s memories might play tricks on them, but if we look at old maps of Scotland from the turn of the 20th century we can see they are littered with outdoor curling ponds. Those sites are marked on the maps, but not one of those curling ponds exists any more. That shows the change in winter over the past 100 years or so.

Met Office statistics also back up the changes, which have accelerated in the past decade. The hottest day is on average 0.8° C warmer than for the period 1961 to 1990. Winters are an average of 1.7° C milder as compared with that same period. We now have longer spells where temperatures exceed 25° C. We have fewer ice days, longer wet spells, shorter dry spells and higher extreme wet days. It is obvious that action needs to be taken at a UK level, within the devolved Administrations and at the international level, though the international level clearly becomes more difficult with a climate change denier such as Trump in the White House. I hope his tenure is short lived.

Unlike the hon. Member for Bristol North West, I welcome the Government writing to the Committee on Climate Change asking for updated advice on reaching a net zero carbon economy, on long-term greenhouse gas emissions, on when the UK should reach zero emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, and the implications for emissions in 2050. I take his point that the UK Government need to take action, and I will come on to that. When that analysis and advice come at the end of March 2019, they will need sober reflection and concerted planning and action. This will have big implications for UK carbon budgets.

Lord Deben has confirmed that, as part of its work, the Committee on Climate Change will look at how the UK can effectively eliminate carbon emissions and set out the necessary steps to clean up the UK’s homes, industry, transport and agriculture. That will clearly be critical, but I have a few suggestions of my own. First, direct Government action will be required. They cannot continue to try to hide behind things such as the green deal and hide how borrowing happens; they need to take a lead and invest. They need to move away from the obsession with nuclear as a means of low-carbon transition. That will free up billions of pounds for investment in renewables and energy efficiency measures. They should follow the Scottish Government and invest directly in energy efficiency for homes. As the hon. Member for Strangford said, the UK Government need to embrace the renewables sector.

Greater investment is required in carbon capture and storage to try to recover from the shameful pulling of £1 billion of funding. That remains a continual reminder that Departments need to work together and that the Treasury cannot have carte blanche suddenly to pull funding streams because it wants to impose austerity. CCS can decarbonise energy production and energy-intensive industries, and it can produce hydrogen, which is a carbon-free source of fuel. Onshore wind must be allowed to bid in future energy auctions, and the UK Government should not end the generation export tariff in March 2019.

Figures from the Renewable Energy Association show that changes to the energy market rules already mean that employment in the photovoltaic sector in 2016-17 was down 30% as compared with 2011-12. The number of companies in the PV supply chain was down 60% over that period, and turnover was approximately 50% in real terms. Government policy changes have a massive impact on the renewables sector. It is little wonder that the UK has once again slipped down the EY renewable energy investment attractiveness index, which compares countries all over the world. We know we need to develop energy storage, but I would suggest that the funding for the Faraday challenge is insufficient, especially when we consider that the failing nuclear industry has been given a £200 million sector deal. The UK Government need to step up with an oil and gas sector deal to help that sector to realise the 2035 vision and carbon reductions in those industries.

In Scotland—I know this from experience as well—any new development must get permission to connect to the sewer system from Scottish Water, which has the right to say no. The developer must pay for any upgrades to the sewer system or any mitigation measures that are required. That becomes part of the planning conditions, yet in England the UK Government have steadfastly refused to end the right to connect. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has made that recommendation over a number of years, yet the UK Government refuse to act. I do not understand that. If we are going to mitigate the impact of future housing and climate change, we need to start looking at this.

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10:28 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

The subject of this debate is extreme weather and climate change, which has been debated in this House previously. Climate change deniers have come to the Floor here and indicated that this extreme weather stuff is nothing to do with climate change; that it is all a bit of a hoax and we should just accept the fact that the weather changes, as I think a certain President of the United States recently opined, and we should not worry too much about it. Well, I think that has been comprehensively demonstrated to be not only a completely false conclusion but an alarming and complacent conclusion, because we know what action we will have to take on climate change over the next period.

As the hon. Member for Richmond Park has rightly said, we cannot attribute particular weather events to the effects of climate change, but elementary physics teaches us that—I speak as the proud possessor of a relatively good grade in O-level physics, so I am at the elementary level—if the temperature of water increases, as we know is happening, the water expands. It is not just a question of global icecaps and various other things melting that adds to sea level increases across the world; it is just the fact that water expands as it gets warmer.

As water expands as it gets warmer, the air above it is affected and becomes more turbulent. It absorbs more energy and takes up more water vapour, resulting in more precipitation, exacerbating the effects on the weather. It is not the case that climate change causes tidal surges or hurricanes in the southern United States, but it exacerbates them and changes them. They are longer in duration, more severe and more frequent, and are the consequences of the physics of climate change, as I have described.

So we know what our future holds if we do not take urgent action not only to mitigate climate change but to adapt to it. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) set out clearly what is in store for our own country’s infrastructure as a result of the changes. Indeed, I have observed the substantial effects of tidal surges and extreme tidal weather; a vital part of communication infrastructure has been severed. To a much lesser extent, I have had a small attempt in my constituency area to get much greater attention paid to flood defences for the Itchen valley. For certain, that valley will be flooded to an increasingly frequent extent as a result of tidal surges and changes.

I am worried about the extent to which past performance is prayed in aid for not doing as much on climate change and global warming as we might do. It is true that the UK has performed better than many other countries in taking action on climate change, but the sheer scale of the task facing us means that one country’s performance cannot be set against another’s.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park indicated that our clean growth plan is good in many ways. It has many good things in it, and includes many good responses to the requirements of the fourth and fifth carbon budgets from the Committee on Climate Change. However, the clean growth plan itself acknowledges that it will not get us to the terms of the fourth and fifth carbon budgets. Indeed, it states that it will fall short by about 5% in terms of emissions by the time of the fifth carbon budget. The failure between the fourth and fifth carbon budgets is much worse; the clean growth plan gets us only about 50% of the distance between them.

Given what we know about the difference between 1.5° C and 2° C, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park mentioned, we have to do so much more. I was therefore dismayed that when the Government wrote to the Committee on Climate Change to ask what it thought about a 1.5° C, net-zero target on climate change they specifically excluded action to change the terms of the requirements of the fourth and fifth carbon budgets. We are looking at what we can do about a world increase of 1.5° C, with the enormous differences that the hon. Member for Richmond Park says would result from 2° C. Yet we are proposing no change at all in the current carbon budgets, which, even by the Government’s own plans, we will not reach anyway.

A theme of this morning’s debate is that far more needs to be done and we have, as the IPCC report tells us, a very limited amount of time in which to get it done. We therefore need at the very least to express that urgency in the House, to ensure that the debate is shared among all Members. The urgency, effort and additional activities that are needed to combat climate change, and to adapt, must be properly brought before the whole House. As a result of this morning’s debate that call might be heard.

In terms of parliamentary scrutiny, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government sent out the wrong signal when they abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change and subsumed it into the much bigger Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where these issues get lost among all the other stuff that the Government are looking at?

Indeed, Ms Dorries; I was just about to come to my last sentence when the hon. Gentleman asked me that pertinent question, to which I will take one second to reply. Yes—when the Department of Energy and Climate Change was subsumed into BEIS that gave out a bad signal about the Government’s seriousness about these issues. Whether or not that Department is re-established, the status of climate change within Government needs to be uprated, not just in BEIS but across all Departments, in terms of what we know we need to do.

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10:46 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on securing today’s important debate, and I wish him a happy birthday. I am pleased to respond to today’s debate, and I note his creditable concerns regarding climate change and extreme weather. I assure him and other hon. Members that the Government take those issues seriously. A Government’s first duty must be to guarantee the safety of their citizens. That is why the Government are taking steps to limit the causes of climate change and to prepare for the impacts of extreme weather.

The science is clear: our world is warming, and will warm further as emissions of greenhouse gases continue. Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges of our time, but it is a large-scale and long-term problem that it is often hard to grasp. Today’s debate touches on important points. It is often through local and immediate extremes of weather that we notice what is happening—record temperatures, droughts or downpours, or fewer, milder cold snaps. As the hon. Gentleman highlighted, around the world we have seen striking examples of extremes in recent months: the drought in Cape Town, wildfires in Alaska, and record-breaking rain over Texas from Hurricane Harvey to name just three.

The risk in talking about extremes is that we rely on anecdotes—memorable events that might not really be part of a trend. Of course, not all extreme weather is directly because of climate change. That is why it is important to have recent, careful analysis by the Met Office, which shows that many extremes in the UK are indeed changing compared with the period 1961 to 1990. In the last 10 years we have seen higher maximum temperatures, longer warmer spells, lower minimum temperatures, and more rainfall on the wettest days. Those changes are consistent with a warming world.

The Met Office report was funded by the Government as part of our ongoing support for world-leading science. Thanks to cutting-edge research by scientists around the UK, the link between global warming and extremes is becoming clearer, even at the level of individual events. In Texas last year, the record rainfall during Hurricane Harvey led to 80 deaths and 100,000 flooded homes; researchers at Oxford University have found that human influence on the climate tripled the chance of that rainfall. To give an example closer to home, the scorching Europe-wide summer of 2003, which led to 70,000 deaths, was made twice as likely by climate change, according to studies by the Met Office. What is more, such summers are projected to become the norm by the 2040s.

The Government have a duty to protect our citizens, which means ensuring that the UK is resilient to damaging weather. We are therefore investing £2.6 billion between 2015 and 2021 in England in 1,500 new flood defence schemes to better protect 300,000 homes. When extreme weather is on the way, the Met Office makes weather warnings available to the public. Through the national risk register, we ensure co-ordinated emergency responses to possible major incidents, including flooding, storms, low temperatures, heavy snow, heatwaves and drought. We are also working to help other countries to deal with extreme weather. We have endorsed the UN’s Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction, which sets out targets and actions to reduce existing risks and prevent new ones, including risks from climate change.

We not only have measures in place to deal with today’s risks of flooding, drought, storms and heatwaves, but are actively planning for the changing risks that the future climate will bring. Last year, colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published the second national climate change risk assessment, and this July they produced the second national adaptation programme to address the key risks that they identified. Later this month, with the Met Office, DEFRA will publish UKCP18, a new set of UK climate projections that will be a key tool to help Government, businesses and the public to make climate resilience decisions.

It is vital that we maintain our resilience to present and future weather, but that is not enough. Unless we limit climate change, we will face ever-increasing risks, some of which we cannot simply adapt to, as last month’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on global warming of 1.5° C made clear. My Department is therefore leading steps to cut the UK’s emissions of greenhouse gases while growing the economy. We are also encouraging other countries to do the same.

The UK was a vital player in securing the 2015 Paris agreement, which has been a game changer in bringing pledges of action from nearly all countries and collectively raising ambition. At this year’s UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister spoke about the importance of global co-operation and the value of such multilateral agreements.

We are among the world’s leading providers of international climate finance, having committed at least £5.8 billion between 2016 and 2020. That finance, which is mobilising further public and private finance globally, is helping developing countries to deal with the impacts of climate change by taking action as well as reducing emissions.

The UK is a world leader in reducing emissions. We were the first country to introduce a long-term, legally binding emission reduction target through the Climate Change Act 2008. Since 1990, we have cut emissions by more than 40% while growing the economy by more than two thirds—the best performance per person of any advanced nation.

Just last month, we held the first ever Green GB Week, with more than 100 events nationwide that demonstrated the strength of the UK’s commitment to a cleaner world: we hosted the European launch of the 1.5° report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, dozens of companies made pledges, the London Eye was lit green and it was even mentioned on “EastEnders”.

Our ambitious clean growth strategy sets out our plan until 2032 for decarbonising the UK economy, on the path to our target emissions reduction of at least 80% by 2050. However, we are not resting there. In the light of the IPCC’s report, we have joined with the Scottish and Welsh Governments to ask the independent Committee on Climate Change for advice on the UK’s long-term emissions target, and on whether we should move to a goal of net zero emissions. We will consider that advice carefully when it is complete in March next year. Going low carbon is not only good for the environment; we also see it as good for business, which is why we have put clean growth at the heart of our modern industrial strategy.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park for his speech. He is a passionate campaigner on the subject and has a long track record of raising these issues in Parliament. On international work, I should point out that we invested £3.87 billion between 2011 and 2016 in our multi-agency international climate finance programme and, as I have outlined, we have committed a further £5.6 billion. We spent £1.4 billion on adaptation projects between 2013 and 2016 and have helped 47 million people to cope with the effects of climate change since 2011. That has helped to deal with extreme weather, which is a priority for developing countries. The Government’s climate finance aims for a balance between adapting to climate change and limiting emissions. The Department for International Development leads several projects and delivery programmes to improve overall resilience to extreme weather.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park raised the issue of deforestation in Brazil. The UK and Brazil have a close dialogue on issues of mutual interest and concern globally and bilaterally. Brazil receives the third largest UK climate finance contribution in Latin America, the majority of which goes to forests and land use projects.

Hon. Members mentioned our influence and our work with global partners. The Government played a key role in securing the agreement of 195 countries to the landmark 2015 Paris agreement, and we remain fully committed to its implementation. We disagree with the US decision to exit that agreement.

Time is short, but let me touch on just a few other points raised by hon. Members. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park for highlighting the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) as Minister for climate change. Sadly, she cannot be present to respond to the debate, but I know that she would have enjoyed the challenge. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for raising a wide range of topics relating to the impact on all aspects of our lives. I reassure him that climate change is part of the curriculum for young people.

Finally, to touch on a point made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), the Government take this issue very seriously. That is why we have a Minister for climate change who attends Cabinet meetings and is heard at the highest level. Unfortunately, that is why she is not able to be present to respond to the debate.

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22:59 Darren Jones (Labour)

That this House has considered extreme weather events related to climate change.

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