16:05 The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)

It gives me great pleasure to report to the House on the United Nations conference of parties in Paris last week. COP21 has delivered an historic new global climate change agreement that takes a significant step forward towards reducing, on a global scale, the emissions that cause climate change. For the first time, nearly 200 countries have made a commitment to act together and to be held accountable. In doing so, this agreement will help to protect not just our environment but our national and economic security, now and for generations to come. As the Prime Minister said in his speech at the start of conference:

“instead of making excuses tomorrow to our children and grandchildren, we should be taking action against climate change today.”

I am proud to say that there are no more excuses. With the Paris agreement, we have shown that the world has committed to action.

This deal is unequivocally in Britain’s national interest. It moves us towards a level playing field at a global level within which the UK’s society and businesses can thrive, as we transition to a low-carbon economy. This is a deal we are wholeheartedly committed to, recognising that action by one state alone cannot and will not solve climate change. It is what we do together that counts.

This is a moment that all parties in the House can take significant credit for. Together, we passed the Climate Change Act 2008, which set an example to the world of what ambitious domestic climate action looks like. Together, since Copenhagen in 2009, we have supported a long, difficult and complex negotiation, which has brought us to this point. I want to pay tribute not just to the Prime Minister and my colleagues across Government, but to my predecessors as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for all the hard work they put in to bring us to this point.

The UK played a key role in building alliances and shared positions, especially with the most vulnerable countries, to ensure that pressure for ambition could be maximised. The deal in Paris was not done to us; it was done by us. Indeed, it reflects many of the elements that we as a country have already committed to as part of the Climate Change Act. Of course Paris is not the end of the road. We cannot sit back and say, “Job done.” Far from it: Paris is the beginning. Now the hard work to implement the agreement begins.

Let me turn to what the nearly 200 countries have agreed. First, we have set out a clear long-term goal for the world to achieve net zero emissions by the end of the century. The long-term goal sends a strong signal to investors, businesses and policy makers that the shift to a global low-carbon economy will happen and it provides the confidence needed to drive the scale of investment required. We have confirmed our collective ambition to limit global temperature rises to below 2° C. We have agreed a further aspiration of 1.5°. However, the current level of commitments by individual countries will not meet this ambition, so crucially, countries will come back to the table to assess overall progress towards the 2° goal in 2018 and every five years thereafter.

This agreement is not only comprehensive in its scope, as it also recognises the role of both developed economies and emerging economies in helping the poorest and most vulnerable countries to protect themselves from the effects of climate change as they transition to a low-carbon economy.

Over the last five years, the UK’s £3.87 billion international climate fund has been helping millions of the world’s poor better to withstand extreme weather and rising temperatures. At the UN Secretary-General summit in September, the Prime Minister announced a significant uplift to increase climate finance by at least 50% with £5.8 billion-worth of climate finance over the next five years to support poor and vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change and to curb emissions. This is part of a global commitment to mobilise $100 billion a year from both the public and private sector to protect the most vulnerable and support economic growth from 2020. Other developed countries, including Germany, France, the US, Japan, and Canada have all recently announced increases in their climate finance.

Important as the Paris agreement is, we will achieve our ultimate ambition only if it acts as a catalyst for transformational action from all parts of society. That is why it has been so important to see real action over the last month from business and civil society. A new initiative, for example, called “Mission Innovation”, will see some of the biggest global economies—including the UK, US, and India—doubling their investments in clean energy research and development. Crucially, it is private investors who will join us in this endeavour to bring down the costs of low-carbon technologies.

Here in the UK, we have committed to doubling spending in clean energy research and development, so that by 2020 we will be spending in excess of £400 million. That pledge has been matched by 19 other countries worldwide. This is in recognition of the fact that we will tackle climate change effectively only if we find technologies that are both clean and cheap. Let me emphasise that the announcement I made last month—that I would set out proposals to close coal by 2025 and restrict its use from 2023—added to the momentum at Paris.

The Paris agreement truly marks an historic turning-point. It builds on the Kyoto protocol, and for the first time ever provides the comprehensive framework in which not just developed countries, but nearly every country of the world has committed to take the global action needed to solve a global problem. Of course, it was hard fought and of course it required compromise to bring everyone with us. Of course, too, it has not solved every problem in one go.

Now we have to set about implementing the commitments made, but we should not underestimate the significance of what has been achieved. All parties have recognised that economic and global security requires us to tackle climate change. All have come together to commit to a single goal—net zero carbon emissions by the end of the century. All have agreed to set out plans to curb emissions and to be held accountable for their actions. We have made a huge step forward in meeting our responsibilities to this and future generations. As the excellent Executive Secretary to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said:

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16:14 Lisa Nandy (Labour)

This accord is testimony to the fact that we are stronger and safer when we work together, both at home and abroad. Our voice has been heard more loudly because we have worked closely with our friends in the European Union and we have spoken together, united and with one voice. Our voice has also been heard because of the hard work and the skills of our lead negotiator, Pete Betts, and his team in the Department for Energy and Climate Change, who worked tirelessly with Sir David King and his team of diplomats in the Foreign Office to secure the agreement. Let me place on record our thanks for what they have achieved. Let me also commend the dedication of the British scientists, campaigners, faith groups, business leaders and civil society organisations who mobilised public support for this global deal. Last month, along with some of my hon. Friends, I joined hundreds of thousands of people to march peacefully through the streets of London, Edinburgh and other major cities around the world, to ensure that our collective voice was heard in the negotiating rooms of Paris.

Ministers have also undermined our progress on carbon capture and storage, which is crucial to ensuring a just transition and support for climate change action from the communities of Britain who work in the important industries that rely on fossil fuels. In Yorkshire and Scotland, communities, scientists and engineers are reeling from the Chancellor’s decision to axe a £1 billion fund for CCS. Can the Secretary of State tell us today that that decision will be reversed?

Following the Prime Minister’s important words in Paris, will the Secretary of State demonstrate to the House that the Government as a whole will listen, and that they will prevent the Green Investment Bank from being sold off in a manner that will remove its green mandate, leaving it free to invest in fossil fuels; cancel the new tax on more efficient vehicles; and stop another tax raid on the renewable energy industry? All those steps will take us backwards on climate change and jeopardise jobs in the industries of the future. It raises this question: what is this Government’s plan for meeting Britain’s climate change commitments? The Government’s own advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, recently warned that existing energy policy is “failing”, and only this morning the CBI called for more clarity for British business. On news of the Paris deal and the goal it contains to limit global temperature rises, its director told the BBC:

So can the Energy Secretary confirm whether her Government’s recent string of green U-turns will now be reviewed in the light of the new assurances we have that every country will play its part in addressing climate change?

Secondly, can the Energy Secretary confirm that the UK will continue to support raising European targets on reducing carbon pollution by 2030, to ensure we are making our fair contribution to the international effort and grasping the maximum potential for our economy from green industries? Finally, will the Energy Secretary ask the independent Committee on Climate Change to review the adequacy of Britain’s existing carbon reduction targets in light of the new internationally agreed goal of limiting global temperature rises to well below 2 °C, and ideally to no more than 1.5 °C?

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and welcome her support for the overall global deal. In answering her questions, I would make the following points. First, the UK’s emissions are 1.2% of the world’s, so our emphasis must be on making sure we get an international deal. That is why we were so committed to it. That is why we spent the past week flat-out trying to achieve it, and working to ensure we got China into the deal, which is responsible for 26% of the world’s emissions—more than the EU and the US combined. We remain committed to the Climate Change Act and to making sure we go forward on a low-carbon future, but there is no value in it if we do not actually have influence in the rest of the world. That is what we achieved this week: making sure that that influence was absorbed and taken on, so we reached that agreement—very late on Saturday night.

To answer the hon. Lady’s questions about our position in this country, I repeat that we are committed to the Climate Change Act 2008 and to our goals and our carbon budgets, but the difference between her side of the House and ours is that we will not risk security of supply and we will not put additional costs on consumers. She asks about the capacity markets but I am afraid that her interpretation is wholly wrong. The purpose of the capacity market is to take absolutely no risks with security of supply. That is what we have done, and we are proud of doing that.

As far as CCS is concerned, it was a tight spending round in the review with the Treasury. The cost was £1 billion, and we made a decision not to proceed with the fund. I believe that CCS is going to play an important part in decarbonising in the future, particularly industrial CCS, and we will work internationally to make progress on that. Overall, this Government are absolutely committed to a low-carbon future that is value for money and constantly provides security to consumers and families.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, but at its core is a suggestion that what we are doing will not alleviate poverty. On that he could not be more wrong. Particularly through climate finance and the investment that will come from the private sector, which Governments will be able to leverage, we will help to alleviate poverty and provide energy in areas of Africa and India that have never had it before. That is an essential part of what we will achieve.

We very much welcome the money to be provided to those most at risk from climate change and to those who have contributed least to it. That is the theme of climate justice, which I have spoken about here before. The deal is not perfect, and it has been acknowledged that it is not enough. We need to up our game both at home and abroad if we are to meet the target of a 2° C rise or well below, and extensively so if we are to meet the aspiration of a 1.5° C rise.

My right hon. Friend will recall meeting my concerned residents in Wealden, who talked about other countries’ commitments to climate targets. What is her Department doing to encourage other countries to meet their climate targets?

I commend the Secretary of State for her role in this agreement and, in particular, the formation of the so-called “high ambition coalition” between developed countries and vulnerable countries, which was such an important part of getting the deal that she did. Labour Members want her to be part of a high ambition coalition at home as well as abroad. She mentioned the very important goal of net zero emissions contained in the agreement—I believe this is to be in the second half of the century. Can she confirm not only that that will apply globally, but that it must apply to each and every country that is a signatory to the agreement?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words, and I certainly share his enthusiasm nationally for high ambition—perhaps less of the coalition, for now. It is a great achievement to have the zero emissions target within the long-term goal, but for now the UK will continue to focus on our Climate Change Act targets for 2050.

Given that the UK’s climate change laws are stricter than the obligations agreed in Paris, does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a real risk of British business being put at a competitive disadvantage if we do not cut the costs of energy, particularly for energy-intensive companies?

In all the acres of media coverage of the Paris agreement, George Monbiot sums it up best:

I am happy to say that the Paris agreement allows us to continue on the path that this Government have set in delivering a low carbon future, sticking to our Climate Change Act commitments and always ensuring that we take no risk with security of supply and that we provide value for money for consumers.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what has been achieved and the French Government on their magnificent hosting of this summit. Given that much of the climate finance pledged by the wealthy nations is likely to be classified as official development assistance and that many of our friends in Europe show no real sign of increasing the amount of ODA that they are giving as a percentage of their gross national income, is she concerned that some of this climate finance might be taken away from the amounts available for the refugee crisis in Syria and other concerns around the world?

The Secretary of State is correct in wanting a level playing field between Britain and other countries, but the failure of Paris to reach the aspirations of the Durban conference to have legally binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions from all countries must put this country at a disadvantage because we do have legally binding commitments. We have already lost great chunks of the steel industry and the aluminium industry. How will the right hon. Lady produce that level playing field to the advantage of our industries?

I thank the Secretary of State for a landmark statement. I congratulate her on her personal stamina at 4 am and in particular on the tribute that she paid to her predecessors of all political parties. I think she will agree that the fact that Europe has spoken with one voice was a significant part of the process. None the less, there is still the inconsistency. Does she not agree that, although it was essential that we signed up to ambitious targets in Paris, there is an inconsistency in our scrapping schemes, signed in the last Parliament, that had a meaningful role in dealing with climate change at home?

The success of the Paris agreement was the intended nationally determined contributions that each country had to make and come forward with to participate. Almost every country had done that by the day of the agreement. But those are voluntary and very few countries criticised each other. Each country delivers in its own way. That is what the UK will continue to do.

I also commend the Secretary of State and her officials for the part that they played in securing the Paris agreement. With that agreement in place, Britain will need to be more ambitious, if anything, when it comes to emissions reductions yet the Government are struggling to meet their renewables target, particularly when it comes to heat and transport. As in so many areas, the Chancellor ultimately calls the shots, but will the right hon. Lady let the House know what progress she has made in persuading the Secretary of State for Transport to do more to decarbonise that sector?

Investors in renewable energy tell me that they want certainty from the Government’s energy policy. Can the Secretary of State set out the key targets and milestones for the implementation of the Paris agreement to provide the certainty that is necessary for investment to be made in renewables?

Many of our targets have not changed as a result of the Paris agreement, although of course I will be discussing them closely within my Department. We have already set out our plans for offshore wind and we will shortly set out our plans for solar.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been very clear. As I said in my earlier comments, he has already announced a 50% increase in our climate finance, which has been very much welcomed by developing countries.

I congratulate the Secretary of State on her role in achieving this historic agreement. Does she accept that if the Government are to meet their commitment and show leadership in the world, they must change their approach to renewable energies, in particular to onshore wind?

That was a cautious compliment from the hon. Gentleman. That is not what I found internationally. In discussions with other Ministers, I found a lot of interest in what we were doing to drive down the costs of renewables. Renewables should not have a subsidy forever; the point is to try and engage with the industry to lower the cost. The success of a truly low carbon international economy will be achieved when the cost of green energy is reduced.

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