14:30 Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)

I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead a debate on the 2010 climate change conference at Cancun. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for its excellent judgment in allocating time for this debate.

When applying to the Backbench Business Committee, I said that a third of Members are new and have not yet had an opportunity to debate climate change policy. Some of them are keen to take part in this debate; I particularly look forward to the contribution of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who speaks for the Opposition; like me, she joined the House of Commons this year.

I start by acknowledging the leadership of the last Government and the former Prime Minister, and the role played by the current Leader of the Opposition, in achieving a world first with the Climate Change Act 2008. I also acknowledge the contribution made by Members of Parliament from both sides of the House, many of whom are no longer Members, to strengthening that legislation. It is a record of leadership of which they can all be proud, and one that the new Government must build upon, not only with ambition and commitment but, crucially, in terms of delivery.

The Foreign Secretary has described climate change as perhaps the 21st century’s biggest foreign policy challenge. The Cancun conference is critical to the international response to that challenge. Not only has action become increasingly urgent, but disappointment about Copenhagen has led many to question the ability of the international frameworks of the United Nations to address that challenge. Prior to the Copenhagen conference, public expectations had reached fever pitch despite the opaque nature of those negotiations and the difficulty that many had in foreseeing the obstacles—and, for that matter, exactly who was putting those obstacles in the way.

I am sure that others will want to speak about mitigation and to suggest ways forward. However, in the time available to me I shall focus on climate finance. A report earlier this month by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing—the AGF—sets out a number of innovative ways to deliver the substantial Copenhagen target of $100 billion of climate finance a year by 2020. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on his role on the AGF and his contribution to the report.

We cannot fund climate adaptation by diverting and repackaging aid, or by cutting vital funds for urgent programmes such as the fight against malaria. Similarly, initiatives to harness private-sector expertise and finance in tackling climate change are welcome; they are critical to the solution and should be welcomed, but they should not be credited to the developed countries’ accounts. Their task, and their responsibility, is greater than that. What is more, many small-scale climate adaptation projects show no financial return, and remain stubbornly unattractive for private investment. I hope that the Minister will agree that although leveraging private finance is indeed important, public finance remains irreplaceable in meeting the climate needs of the poorest people.

I have already mentioned eye-watering sums. The accountant in me might stray into the sometimes dry subject of financial commitments; instead, I shall illustrate what this climate finance is for, and the difference it can make.

More than half of rural households in India still lack electricity. Fast-start finance funds off-grid, locally managed renewable energy schemes that deliver electricity to rural villages. Kasai village in Madhya Pradesh is not connected to the national grid. Since 2005, a small 10 kW biomass plant has generated electricity for Kasai. The plant provides lighting for houses, streets and the school, power for entertainment, and the electricity to run a flour mill, a milk-chilling unit and a water-pumping system. Kasai has biomass in abundance—wood, crop residues, oil seeds and cattle dung—and it is gathered by villagers. There is a maintenance fee and a user charge, and the scheme is overseen by a village committee of six men and five women.

The benefits of that scheme are manifold. Every house has piped water; far fewer residents migrate; agricultural production has trebled with the availability of water for irrigation; villagers can sell milk that previously went bad in the heat; and the new mill allows people to process wheat and rice and to sell the flour. The urgent need for a reliable energy supply is met, and the use of renewable energy means that growth in carbon emissions is limited. Those double wins are just one example of a fast-start-finance climate project allowing a village to thrive that once was dying.

At Copenhagen, developed countries pledged $30 billion in short-term finance for projects like that between 2010 and 2012. Of that $30 billion, $10 billion was pledged by the European Union, which has so far delivered about $7.8 billion through existing channels such as the World Bank and the EU’s global climate change alliance. When will the Government set out the timing and the delivery mechanisms for allocating the remaining fast-start finance that the Government have pledged? Is the £1.5 billion pledged for fast-start finance in the comprehensive spending review additional to the Government’s overseas development assistance commitments? If not, will the Minister at least assure the House that that is not a reflection of the Government’s attitude to long-term climate finance?

Developed countries can now respond to the progress of the advisory group, and to the menu of recommendations that it has made; they have clear practical choices on how to meet their obligations. This is a key opportunity for the Government to show leadership at Cancun, plotting the road map for mobilising finance and turning these innovative sources into a reality. The advisory group identifies a menu of options—the auctioning of emissions allowances, carbon taxes, levies on international aviation and maritime transport, multilateral development banks, and even a financial transactions tax. Those are realistic options that can generate serious revenue. I invite the Minister to give some indication as to which of the innovative sources of finance, identified by the UN advisory group, are priorities for his Department ahead of Cancun. Will he support a levy on international aviation and shipping? Will the British Government show leadership through the EU in co-ordinating a critical mass of developed countries to make possible a financial transactions tax?

Developing countries suffer more than 90% of the effects of climate change despite having done the least to contribute to its causes. Some 250 million people are directly affected by desertification and 1 billion are at risk. Another 135 million people are at risk of displacement due to the effects of environmental deterioration. Many of those people are the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Countries such as Malawi, Bangladesh and Sudan are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change despite having done the least to contribute to rising carbon emissions.

This is all our doing, but it is the most vulnerable people in the world who face the consequences. We have a responsibility to them. That much was acknowledged at Copenhagen. Action on climate finance now is not some kind of vague add-on, something that would be nice to achieve, or even an apology for failing to reaching binding agreements on mitigation. It is an essential component in reaching an internationally just settlement as part of the response to this global challenge.

Our Secretary of State has clearly made good progress with his colleagues on the advisory group in pointing to how climate finance can be delivered. Now the world needs to move forward. We need concrete proposals and the Government to show leadership at these negotiations. We must seek to build international consensus; to co-operate and to get the negotiations back on track. It is too late to stop now.

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14:42 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

The Kyoto agreement runs out in 2012 and even a binding deal in South Africa would give precious little time for the process of ratification, given the various accompanying hurdles and snares. Nevertheless, the goal of securing a binding commitment in South Africa rests securely on the ability of Cancun to move substantially in that direction. Britain has a leading role to play. At the very least, it must ensure that post-Cancun there are the momentum, commitment and structures that will enable the real, breakthrough progress to be made in South Africa.

We must ensure clear examination of the so-called gigatonne gap, which is the difference between what the two-page document at Copenhagen stated and noted about the need to remain beneath a 2° increase in temperature across the globe by 2050 and the actual commitments, as yet ungratified, on carbon reduction by the various countries. How can we ensure better methods to examine the gigatonne gap, in terms of upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and other mechanisms, to get a much clearer picture of the relationship between what Copenhagen committed itself to, at least in outline, and the action that therefore needs to be taken? Hopefully, such action can be ratified consequently.

The UK can play a leading role precisely because it has, in effect, a low-carbon action plan: the Climate Change Act 2008. The consequences of the Act—the five-year carbon budgets, the clear trajectory towards a binding and lasting reduction in UK CO 2 and other greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 and the demonstrated mechanisms by which that will be achieved—are being looked at by other countries. South Africa, for example, is likely to adopt similar legislation in the next year or so, and countries in Europe and across the world are looking at how their mechanisms might take our experiences into legislation.

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14:54 Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)

I shall touch on three specific areas where the UK can have a particular and significant impact. The first is global fossil fuel subsidy reform. Hon. Members are probably aware of the joint International Energy Agency, Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and World Bank report, which was provided to leaders at the G20 summit in June. It stated that fossil fuel-related subsidies amount to almost $700 billion a year, roughly equivalent to 1% of world GDP, and if we phase out those subsidies, we could see a 10% reduction in world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared with the business-as-usual scenario. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s recognition that

The trouble with those aspirations is that very few people believe that the emerging economies will implement the national commitments, which were flagged up, to reduce fossil fuel subsidies domestically. The non-OECD countries of the G20 account for the significant bulk of the subsidies—for example, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. It is apparent from written answers that I received from the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change that there was no discussion of fossil fuel subsidy reform with those countries between the G20 summits. Will the Minister use his influence to ensure that there is a diplomatic offensive across Departments to raise that issue up the international political agenda? Will he also press for a clear statement from the Government that they would like World Bank lending for fossil fuel projects to end? According to the Department for International Development, the World Bank supported fossil fuel extraction and transportation projects to the value of $3.6 billion between 2005 and 2009.

The second area relates to rainforest finance. I am sure that all hon. Members appreciate the importance of halting global deforestation, so I will not repeat the arguments. I warmly welcome the Government’s confirmation of £300 million-worth of fast-start finance to help rainforest nations to safeguard their forests. Unfortunately, as most people would accept, we are a long way from any meaningful agreement on the inclusion of rainforest in the carbon markets. However, we have seen the emergence of agreements between countries to protect standing forests—for example, the widely reported deals between Norway and Guyana and Norway and Indonesia. Does the Minister agree that, in the absence of a REDD agreement, the UK should find innovative ways to use some of the agreed £2.9 billion of international climate finance, which was put aside in the spending review, to pursue bilateral deals with rainforest nations?

Finally, global aviation emissions account for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but the sector is widely predicted to grow significantly. In addition to the other sources of potential finance already identified by speakers today, will the Minister press for a deal at Cancun that includes aviation?

I acknowledge the increased levels of public scepticism towards the climate agenda. To the climate sceptics I say that, for all our sakes, I hope they are right, but, though I doubt that any scientific thesis has ever generated as much attention or attracted more scrutiny, the vast bulk of scientific opinion still holds that man-made climate change is a real threat. I accept that few things are truly certain in science, but even the most committed climate sceptic would have to accept that there is a possibility that the majority scientific position is correct.

I am told that Vice-President Dick Cheney declared that if there was a 1% chance of a nuclear scientist helping al-Qaeda to build a nuclear weapon, we should treat it as a certainty in responding. Climate change seems far more likely, and the risks are certainly far greater. In addition, whereas the costs of inaction are incalculable, most of the steps necessary to deal with climate are steps that we must take irrespective of climate change. Surely it makes sense for us to apply the same logic. Thank you, Mr Chope, for the opportunity to speak.

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15:00 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

“The dangers of climate change are stark and very real. If we don’t act now, and act quickly, we could face disaster.”

I agree absolutely, but that action must be driven by science, not political expedience. Although I welcome the fact, for example, that Britain is leading the way in passing climate change legislation, the targets in that legislation must be commensurate with the scale of the challenge that we face.

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggests that if we are to have a good chance of keeping the atmospheric temperature rise to less than 2° C above pre-industrial levels, thereby significantly reducing the likelihood of catastrophic climate change, average global emissions must be reduced by far more than the figures being bandied about in political debates. The institute discusses an average global emissions reduction of about 60% of the 1990 baseline by 2030. That is a global average: the responsibility of developed countries is even greater, because of course we are and have been overwhelmingly responsible for climate change. That responsibility equates to a 90% reduction in emissions by developed countries by 2020.

We face a monumental challenge, but it is important to put the figures on the table in order to remind ourselves of the scale of that challenge, as well as to remind us that equity and social justice must be at the heart of any new climate agreement. Many models have been proposed that encapsulate equity, ensuring that we move towards a situation in which each person has an equal right to a certain amount of emissions per capita. The models involve technical terms such as contraction and convergence, but they are essentially concerned with ensuring that we tackle climate change equitably. There is no way that we will get an agreement at Cancun unless equity is at the heart of it.

At the Copenhagen summit last December, world leaders pledged £100 billion by 2020 to fight climate change. First, that figure, although welcome, is not enough. Secondly, the history of such pledges is not a happy one. Far too often, the pledges are not kept. If the money is forthcoming, it is simply re-badged money that has already been committed, rather than genuinely additional resources. Although I welcome the £2.9 billion committed by the Government to climate finance, I also understand that that money is not additional to the existing aid budget. Will the Minister clarify that? It is crucial, as the hon. Member for Chippenham said, that the money is additional and not a redirection of existing aid.

It is also clear that even with the £2.9 billion, we will need further, innovative financing mechanisms to raise more money urgently. A range of options has been discussed this afternoon, including a tax on aviation, but I want to discuss the so-called Robin Hood tax. It could be a critical instrument in helping to break the deadlock on global climate agreement negotiations. A tiny bank levy on financial transactions, if applied globally, could generate billions of dollars a year and provide poor countries, which have done the least to cause climate change, with the money required to cope with its impacts and to develop in a greener way. Although a Robin Hood tax would certainly be more effective if it were implemented globally, it need not be. It is important not to go away with the idea that it can only be done globally. Plenty of research suggests that it could be done nationally without giving the UK a massive competitive disadvantage, that we could take a lead on that positive initiative and that, even if the tax were only imposed in this country, it would still generate significant amounts of money.

Rich countries and corporations have grown wealthy through a model of development that has pushed the planet to the brink of climate catastrophe. We have overused the planet’s ability to absorb greenhouse gas emissions. As I said, developed countries representing less than one fifth of the world’s population have emitted almost three quarters of historical emissions. In a sense, the rich world has colonised the Earth’s atmosphere, and that process has mirrored and perpetuated the vast economic inequalities that persist in the world today.

Meanwhile, poor communities—those least responsible for climate change—are already facing its worst impacts. It is happening now to people in Bangladesh, for example, and in many other parts of the world. Sometimes I hear people say, “We need some climate disaster to happen to wake the world up to the seriousness of climate change.” Those disasters are happening now, and we need to wake up, make that link and put them on the front pages. Because of the rich world’s historical responsibility for climate change, we have a duty to compensate the world’s poorest people. That means finding climate-friendly ways to meet their energy needs and providing resources to assist them in coping with the effects of climate change.

Cancun is just a few weeks away. Industrialised countries desperately need to be able to go to those talks with a new, big commitment on finance if we are to have any hope of reaching agreement. I hope that the Minister will tell us today that some new financial commitment can be made, and that he will say whether he supports the principle of contraction and convergence, or any similar model of dealing with climate change that has equity at its heart and is based on the idea that we must converge to a situation where everybody in the world has an equal per capita emissions right. That will not happen in the next years—it will take several decades—but we must get to the point where equity is at the heart of climate change negotiations, because right now it is not.

I will end by reflecting on political will. I am haunted by the words of the actor Pete Postlethwaite in the film “The Age of Stupid”. For those Members who have not seen it, the film is based on the assumption that some kind of climate catastrophe has occurred 50 years hence and that Pete Postlethwaite’s character is the sole survivor. He looks back to today and asks, “Why is it that, knowing what we knew then, we didn’t act while there was still time?” Those words haunt me, because we have the information, technology and, frankly, the money that we need to act. When it came to bailing out banks, we found billions in a few days. If the planet were a bank, it would have been sorted out a long time ago.

The issue comes down to political will. It can be stated simply. Will we generate sufficient public and political will to tackle climate change fairly in the time available, or will we go down in history as the species that spent all its time monitoring its own extinction rather than taking active steps to avoid it? It worries me that only about a dozen hon. Members are here today. This Chamber should be packed—there ought to be a presence on the streets ensuring that it is packed—because this is the most important issue that we face.

Finally, if we were to take climate change seriously and introduce the measures that we urgently need, those measures would create hundreds of thousands of green jobs and improve our quality of life. For example, we would have fuel-efficient homes—people would not die from the cold in the 21st century—because we would have a proper programme of home insulation. We would have affordable, efficient public transport—they seem to manage it on the continent, but it somehow still evades us in Britain—and we would have kids playing in the streets again because our roads would not be packed with cars. We would also have a quality of life that, in many respects, would be more fulfilling and, crucially, there would be more jobs. At a time of economic austerity, people need jobs and there is no quicker means of job creation than to have a programme based on green jobs, insulation, environmental efficiency and renewable energy. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to tell us that he has got some good news on all of those issues when he sums up.

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15:10 Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) on securing the debate and making it happen. This is a critical issue. Like other hon. Members, I would have preferred to see more people in the Chamber, but it is up to us to promote the problem of climate change and to excite people’s interest in the subject. It is also up to us to come up with ideas and solutions that bring about the scale of interest that we undoubtedly need. The truth is that, even if we did just a little better than we have done thus far, we would still be facing a worsening situation in terms of CO 2 output. That is the reality. We need to embark upon a huge set of policy initiatives if we are to see a significant degree of improvement.

I shall end by mentioning the point made to me very forcefully earlier this week by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham also heard what was said. The institute rammed home just how big the challenge is and how important technology will be. It talked sensibly about the need for Britain to push ahead with the development of technology. I hope that the Government will continue to reassure us that that is exactly the direction in which they intend to go and that renewable energy and so forth will be promoted. We need to create a secure market for all of those things. It is crucial that we set about producing an infrastructure that is responsive to the new types of energy that will be feeding in, so that we can distribute easily. I am not just talking about a national infrastructure; I am talking about a European infrastructure. Renewable energies have their geographic suitabilities—for example, wind in one area and solar and hydro in others. We need to be flexible enough to benefit in big ways from all of those through a proper infrastructure.

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15:20 Barry Gardiner (Labour)

Setting out a realistic ambition for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at Cancun must begin with a clear understanding of what happened at the fifteenth session of the conference of the parties in Copenhagen in December. It also demands humility on the part of the UK and the EU. In the UK we often behave as if we are the acknowledged global leaders on climate change, and as if we believe we punch above our weight. Indeed, that has already been suggested in this debate. It may be worth reminding ourselves that the final negotiations in Denmark took place between the leaders of China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa. The meeting itself may have been in Europe but Europe was not in the meeting.

There is no common narrative about Copenhagen. The western media proclaimed COP 15 a failure because it did not deliver a legally binding agreement. Cancun will not deliver a legally binding agreement either. The truth is somewhat more complicated. As the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the USA is a critical player, but it has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol because of the concern that it might damage US economic growth. Given the fact that Kyoto places no binding commitment to emission reductions on major developing countries such as China and India, the USA has made it clear that it is unlikely to join any post-2012 framework based on Kyoto. By contrast, developing countries are concerned that annexe 1 countries have failed to live up to the commitment that they took on at Kyoto. They want a second commitment period under the protocol, as that guarantees the important—in their view vital—principle of common but differentiated responsibility, which reflects the greater historic responsibility of the developed nations as well as their greater wealth and capacity to act.

Another group of countries, which includes Japan, Australia, Canada and the EU, believes that it is essential to bind in the United States to any future agreement, and wants the major developing nations to take on commitments of their own. The first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol will conclude in 2012, and most parties are conscious that we must establish a post-2012 settlement that is comprehensive and preferably legally binding. Copenhagen failed to do that. So will Cancun.

In the mean time the Copenhagen accord created a loose, open-architecture structure, which is very much a coalition of the willing. Under the accord, countries put on the table the national actions that they are prepared to take to reduce their emissions—nationally appropriate mitigation actions. They monitor their success in achieving their own targets. Interestingly, although the western press accused China of spiking an agreement at the time, that is precisely the sort of structure that China had already proposed two months before Copenhagen. It has the benefit of preserving sovereignty while maximising commitment. Obama’s insistence on international monitoring of China’s voluntary actions within the Kyoto process, when the USA had not even ratified the Kyoto protocol, was less informed diplomacy than strategic media grandstanding. The world’s press fell for it, but we should not.

President Obama’s political capital has now been expended on a weak health care Act. The cost is his inability to get a climate change Bill through what was the most amenable Congress in decades. The mid-terms have configured a very different Congress, and we in the UK must now consider where future progress on climate change can best be pressed to advantage. One thing is clear: that place is not America.

It is time for the UK and Europe to refocus our efforts away from the United States to form a more strategic alliance with China. Last week I participated in a Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment forum on climate change in Tianjin—I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—along with 70 legislators from countries ranging from South Africa to Brazil. Sixteen of the G20 countries were represented, including the US. It is clear to me that a radical programme for climate change would mean the EU joining forces with China, ultimately to create common standards in products, and a joint carbon market establishing an international price for carbon around the globe. That would be a game changer. More than that: it could be a game changer that market makers in the US would suddenly find extremely threatening. America can resist any opposition to its policies. What it cannot take is being sidelined or ignored. Let us imagine that the biggest pressure on President Obama to sort out climate change came not from the liberal left or even from some “blue dog” Democrats in the Senate, but from American industry and Wall Street itself. What if Wall Street were saying to Obama: “Climate change? It’s all about the economy, stupid!”

As we approach Cancun we need to be clear about why the accord is not sufficient and what is required to take the negotiations on a trajectory that may be able to deliver a legally binding agreement. The total emissions reductions pledged so far under the accord by the US, Japan, Europe and the major developing economies fail to match the scientific calculations on targets for stopping dangerous climate change: the accord agreed on a rise of no more than 2º C. The accord makes no enforceable provision for funding of capacity building in developing countries. It creates no binding obligation on developed countries to finance adaptation, or to effect technology transfer. It creates no structure to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation. I will try to deal with each of those aspects of the matter.

First, as to emissions reductions, currently almost 50% of global emissions come from the developed world, which represents just 20% of the global population. The World Resources Institute estimates that the developed country commitments at Copenhagen would reduce those countries’ emissions by no more than between 13% and 19% below 1990 levels. The IPCC has called for between 25% and 40% reductions. Therefore, the commitments from the developed world fall well below the minimum that the IPCC believes is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change of more than 2° C. Among the major countries, the USA has offered to reduce its emissions by 17% by 2020, but only below 2005 levels, which equates to a reduction of just 3% below 1990 levels.

How can we break that stalemate? The proposed wording mentioning the Copenhagen accord’s figure of $100 billion has made it into the negotiating text for Cancun, albeit as one of hundreds of phrases and options that are currently in brackets. Some parties have suggested referring to the $100 billion that is otherwise mentioned only in the Copenhagen accord, but not all parties have yet agreed to do so. Potentially, a critical bulldozer to remove the roadblocks is the high-level advisory group on climate change financing, which has already been mentioned, which was created by the UN Secretary-General after Copenhagen. Heads of state and Ministers have been studying sources of revenue for the promised $100 billion a year by 2020. That group has completed a report that will be released just before the negotiations in Cancun, and the sight of money on the table might be what is needed to restore the lost trust between the parties.

Based on those discussions over the past two years with more than 100 legislators in different countries, we believe that certain elements could be part of a politically acceptable deal: first, agreement on the overall level of ambition that has already been stated in the Copenhagen Accord to hold the increase in global temperatures below 2 o C; secondly, a decision under the Kyoto track that commits annexe I Kyoto parties—the developed countries—to a second commitment period, 2013-17, and involves quantified, economy-wide emissions reductions targets and the associated commitments of finance and technology, subject to addressing satisfactorily the issues of hot air and the rules for accounting for forestry emissions; and, thirdly, either a new parallel treaty under the convention track or a set of COP decisions under the convention track that place comparable commitments on the US without its having to join the Kyoto protocol. Such commitments could include an economy-wide emissions reduction target and a commitment to provide financial and technological assistance to developing countries, and formalising the actions of the major developing countries—for example, on carbon or energy intensity targets, renewables targets, efficiency targets, sustainable forestry targets and other central policies—with a commitment to increased transparency through national communications under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We believe that that could be achieved through the recognition of national legislation and the role of Parliaments in monitoring, reporting and verification.

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15:49 Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)

Members might be relieved to know that I will keep my contribution short. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) spoke with far more knowledge and detail and far more eloquently than I can, and covered many of the points that I wanted to make. That will, no doubt, come as good news to all. I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) for securing the debate. Our attendance today suggests that we need no reminder that climate change affects us all.

A perpetual challenge for climate change conferences is matching up the microcosmic with the macrocosmic: from the level of individual action to regional, national and international action. Putting that scale of possibility for action together is often the challenge that international climate change conferences run into.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) mentioned equity, the hon. Member for Brent North talked about China, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham mentioned climate finance, and I shall talk briefly about those issues. Climate finance is an absolutely key issue. In recent discussions with some representatives from the Chinese Communist party, we talked about the perceived luxury of morality that developed countries have when it comes to climate change. As the discussion progressed, we began to unravel that the problem was having a judgmental morality rather than an enabling one. If I can suggest anything to people far more knowledgeable and experienced than me in these climate talks, it is that we need to shift from a judgmental morality to an enabling one, and to understand where countries such as China and India are coming from and the trade-offs that they have to make to reach the position—to which they aspire—of having the luxury of the morality that we enjoy.

The hon. Member for Brent North covered this issue in comprehensive detail, but I wonder whether we should flip the coin, and change from black to white, from sticks to carrots, and from constraint to opportunity. As he said, China has already demonstrated encouraging signs—perhaps surprisingly for much of the British media—that it is looking at climate change far more proactively than we may think, not only from the point of view of morality, but because it sees a great economic opportunity. Europe likes to think of itself as a leader in green technology, but we might have to start stepping up our game because China—this should be good news to everyone—is also stepping up its game substantially. It has already started to put climate change measures into legislation for the congress in 2011; it has committed to reducing its carbon intensity by 40 to 45%; and it might even, as the hon. Member for Brent North said, be willing to sign up to emission cuts, which is something that we can work on.

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15:54 Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)

The UN summit in Cancun is a chance for world leaders to make vital progress toward a legally-binding treaty, and it is only right that this House has the opportunity to debate the issues. We should all be in no doubt that climate change is the greatest threat facing our generation. It will have an impact on a global scale. We can expect to see greater hunger due to increased water scarcity, extra health risks from diseases such as malaria, the impact of rising world temperatures on agriculture, and more climate-related disasters. The threat is both real and urgent.

This year has been one of the hottest on record. We have seen extreme weather events across the globe, with mudslides in China, forest fires in Russia, floods in Pakistan and the breaking-off of a massive ice sheet in Greenland. Millions of people have seen their homes destroyed and their lives shattered. This is a global threat, and it will require co-ordinated global action. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) said, expectations for Cancun have dampened since Copenhagen, but it is clear that progress can be made, especially on climate finance. Making real progress on that at the forthcoming summit must surely be a priority.

Vital to any progress towards a global deal on emissions is the provision of sustainable and predictable sources of climate finance for developing countries. Without that, many of the gains that the world’s poorest countries have made in development over the past 50 years will be lost. Climate finance is necessary to help vulnerable people and poor countries cope with the impact of climate change and develop in a carbon-constrained world. I urge the Government to press other countries, particularly those within the EU, to deliver the $30 billion in fast-start funding pledged at Copenhagen, as soon as possible. By delivering early on our promises, developed countries can send a powerful message to developing countries.

Delivering on the fast-start finance is important, but we also need to look beyond 2012 and work to develop a substantial long-term finance package. As other hon. Members have said, the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing has just reported on a range of financing sources that could be used to provide the $100 billion pledged at Copenhagen. I welcome the Secretary of State for International Development’s commitment in a speech today at a Climate and Development Knowledge Network event that the Government will seek to make progress on that at the summit. I also welcome his announcement of the Government’s support for a climate advisory fund, which will provide access to legal and technical support for the poorest countries, to secure their participation in reaching an equitable deal. A bold solution to financing must be reached, as relying on private sources alone will not be enough.

Not only is it vital that long-term finance is made available, but we should also be clear that the money must not be repackaged aid. The $100 billion pledged at Copenhagen is a similar amount to current annual global aid transfers. At a time when aid budgets are stretched, redirecting the support to global climate financing would inevitably have serious consequences. Under the Labour Government, there was a cap on UK climate finance spending, which ensured that no more than 10% of the money could come from the aid budget. Although the Government’s planned spending for this year will not exceed that cap, so far we have not received any confirmation that the 10% cap will remain for the long term. We are clear on this side of the House that the vast majority of the aid budget should remain focused on tackling poverty, and that the UK’s commitments to climate finance should supplement our aid commitments.

We need to hear from the Government what they plan to do after 2013. Will they keep the cap, or do they plan to cut the aid budget to fund international climate finance commitments? Strong leadership from the British Government is vital to ensure that we make progress on tackling climate change, and such leadership is needed both at home and abroad.

At home, we need to do a lot more to build a low-carbon economy. We can only show leadership globally when we practise what we preach. The Government inherited a strong green legacy from Labour. The Climate Change Act 2008 was the first of its kind in the world, and it is widely acknowledged that Britain has made huge environmental progress in recent years. It has been at the forefront of tackling climate change on the international stage. The Government deserve some credit for building on Labour’s legacy by bringing forward proposals for a green investment bank and the green deal. The intentions are good, though at this stage the details are thin.

In Europe, the Government need to push our European neighbours to commit to a second phase of the Kyoto protocol, which focuses on developed countries cutting their emissions first and fastest. There are grave doubts on both sides of the House, even from members of the Government, as to the Prime Minister’s ability to lead on the issue in Europe.

“I think if you’re going to lead on this, of course you have to lead at home, but you also have to lead in Europe. There’s no point clubbing together as David Cameron has done with people who even deny the existence of climate change in Europe.”

We all saw how the Prime Minister was marginalised last week at the G20 summit. We can only hope that the same does not happen again, because the UK must be at the heart of Europe pushing for an ambitious global plan on climate finance. This Government will never be the greenest ever unless they back up their soundbites with strong leadership, decisive action and determined commitment domestically, in Europe and on the international stage.

There is much to be achieved at Cancun. I urge the Government to be at the forefront of the discussions and to take a lead in ensuring that the summit delivers on climate change.

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16:01 The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)

I was also impressed by contributions from hon. Friends and hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), speaking for the Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is completely right in saying that we have to win hearts and minds. That is where his measured tones are so much more effective than a hectoring style. That type of tone, reasonableness and thoughtfulness, help to win people round and to understand the extent of the challenges we are facing. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) says, climate change is happening now—a point supported by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree. We only need to look at what has happened this year to realise that time is not on our side. We have to act now and constantly up the pace at which we tackle these issues.

As has been constantly emphasised, the scale of the challenge shows that we must have international action; it is not something that the UK can do on its own. Our proportion of global emissions is just 2%, so even if we managed to obliterate those over the next few years, without action being taken across the world we cannot begin to make the necessary progress to limit global temperature increases to no more than 2%. We all know that beyond 2% the risks of dangerous climate change are greater and the costs associated with managing the impacts rise sharply. That is why we are committed to working towards a global deal to limit emissions, and to provide support for developing countries to adapt to the inevitable consequences of climate change.

Although we will not agree a full legally binding treaty in Cancun, we can and must make solid progress. Cancun can set the stage for future negotiations and provide an essential stepping stone towards a legally binding agreement in the future. Our preferred outcome at Cancun would be to make solid progress on a package of issues that would benefit both developed and developing countries. That package could include bringing the emissions reductions offers countries have made since Copenhagen into the UNFCCC process; strengthening the measurement, reporting and verification arrangements, which will ensure progress on emissions is transparent; and establishing the structures for climate finance beyond 2012, including an international green fund for climate change.

Achieving even that will be challenging. All countries must be prepared to show flexibility in their positions to maximise the chances of success and progress. That is why the EU has signalled its willingness to sign up to a second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, subject to certain conditions being met. But success does not depend solely what happens at the negotiating table. Given the challenges in securing a global deal, we must increase our support for practical action on the ground, in parallel with negotiations if we are to persuade other countries that taking ambitious action is in their economic and security interests. We must demonstrate the benefits of moving to a low-carbon economy domestically, and support others who are willing to do the same; encouraging them to deliver on their existing commitments to reduce emissions and go even further.

In that respect, I believe we have a strong record as a new Government in trying to achieve progress. We do believe in showing global leadership in the measures we are putting place to mitigate climate change. We have allocated £1 billion to the green investment bank, even in these difficult times, and made a commitment to come forward with additional funding. We are encouraging the most ambitious programme of energy efficiency improvements through the green deal, which will be the centrepiece of the energy Bill this winter.

I shall now respond to some specific issues that have been raised. The hon. Member for Chippenham, and many others, raised the question of long-term financing. The United Kingdom is making a significant commitment to support action on the ground. The spending review provided £2.9 billion of international climate finance through the international climate fund. That will allow the UK to help developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change and move on to a low-carbon growth path. That fully funds the UK’s pledge to deliver £1.5 billion in fast-start finance between 2010 and 2012, including £300 million for reducing deforestation.

The £2.9 billion is new in that it is drawn from the rising aid budget. Part of the £1.5 billion to which I have referred relates to the fiscal years 2011-12 and 2012-13. That is included in the figure of £2.9 billion. Funding for years three and four of the spending review period represents a further commitment of resources for climate finance. The hon. Gentleman may like more detail on that, and I would be more than happy to correspond with him if any further clarification is necessary.

Such figures demonstrate the UK’s commitment to scaling-up climate finance to meet its fair share of the $100 billion of public and private international finance per year from 2020. We welcome the recent report from the UN Secretary-General’s advisory group on climate finance, which makes a number of recommendations on how to meet the $100 billion goal. We look to make good progress in implementing its recommendations.

We need things to happen now, and that is why we call for international bodies such as the United Nations framework convention on climate change, international financial institutions, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the G20, and others, to take action in their areas on the back of the report, so that we can deliver progress at Cancun with a view to producing concrete proposals by the time of the climate change negotiations in South Africa next year. It is clear that public finance alone is not enough; we also need to mobilise private investment. That is why we have launched the capital markets climate initiative to help create the right commercial conditions to drive economic investment in emerging economies.

The fast-start programme has been mentioned. As I have said, the United Kingdom will provide £2.9 billion through the new international climate fund and the spending review to help developing countries to adapt to the impact of climate change and move to a low-carbon growth path. That fully funds the UK’s commitment to deliver £1.5 billion in fast-start finance between 2010 and 2012. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked about the importance of bilateral agreement. We are absolutely clear that any action must be taken through bilateral and multilateral discussions. It will be a priority to deploy some of the finance to tackle deforestation.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), who leads on these matters in the Department, is talking to some of his international counterparts at this moment, which is why I have been standing in for him and responding to the debate. I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friends and the Opposition Members who spoke that this is a matter of profound importance to the Government and we are determined to continue to make progress.

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