12:56 Andrew Mitchell (Conservative)

I welcome the £6 million relief effort from the Department for International Development, and I am delighted to hear that it is now reaching people on the ground. However, unless immediate action is taken to halt catastrophic climate change, extreme weather events such as this will become more frequent, and the poorest people in the global south will suffer the most. This event must be a wake-up call for Governments everywhere to deliver urgently on the Paris agreement target of keeping global warming below 1.5 °C. If we are serious about that, we must start reducing our own global carbon emissions now, so what are the Government doing to ensure that that happens? Another key component of the Paris agreement was a commitment to address the devastation caused to poor nations by climate change through funding for loss and damage. What Government support is being given to fund that strand of the agreement?

I endorse the hon. Lady’s comments about the UK’s important leadership role on climate change. We have already committed £5.8 billion during this spending review period to work with international partners on international climate finance. We are also able to show leadership not only through our track record as one of the leading countries for reducing carbon emissions, but by sharing our technical skills, such as those in the offshore wind and solar mini-grid sectors. The week before last, we hosted an event for African Energy Ministers, and a Mozambique Government representative was in attendance. Through the City of London and the green finance initiative, we have been able to provide not only our own contribution, but a further $25 billion of green finance through more than 90 bond issues in seven currencies.

Last year, the International Development Committee heard from Dr Alison Doig, who noted that the UN framework for combating climate change has three pillars for averting such disasters or dealing with their impact: mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage. Does the Minister agree that loss and damage of property is a huge consequence of climate change? If so, why do the UK Government allocate official development assistance spending only to mitigation and adaptation? We can no longer pretend that such events are freak accidents, because their frequency will only ever increase. Does the Minister therefore agree that we are living through a climate crisis? If so, why has that not been made a much more urgent Government priority?

The International Development Committee, on which the hon. Gentleman sits, is doing important work in relation to DFID’s overall approach on climate change, and I look forward to hearing what the Committee has to say. I recently gave evidence to the Committee about the £5.8 billion of international climate finance. He will be aware that that has already helped 47 million people adapt to the impact of climate change.

I welcome what the Minister has said today. As she described to the House, the Select Committee is currently looking at climate change. Rightly, today’s focus is on humanitarian relief and the immediate challenges, but of course the long-term development needs of these countries must not be forgotten. What will DFID be doing—working with other donors and the countries concerned—to ensure that Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe can rebuild after this disaster, particularly with regard to necessary health and education investment?

The hon. Gentleman is so right to point to the long-term nature of this work. Although we need to put in place a short-term response, there also needs to be a long-term strategic response. Some of the very poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to climate change—I think Malawi is estimated to be the third poorest country in the world, and Mozambique the seventh—so those of us paying in through international climate finance have a special responsibility to do whatever we can to encourage countries such as those affected in this instance to bid successfully for those funds. That is why we had the African Energy Ministers event. As part of our new approach to Africa, we are also hiring a further 20 climate specialists across our African network to help deploy some of that finance into these particularly vulnerable countries.

This is another example of the devastating impact of climate change on the very poorest countries in the world—although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), said, we are debating the humanitarian aspect today. What will the Foreign Office be doing at the UN and other multinational organisations to press the case for not just redoubling our efforts on climate change but re-trebling them so that these incidents do not happen in future?

The other day, I was able to give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which the hon. Gentleman serves, and one of the things I talked about was our new approach to Africa whereby we are putting increased emphasis on adaptation to climate change across, in particular, the poorest and most vulnerable countries there. With regard to the UN specifically, the UK has been asked to lead the work on resilience at September’s UN climate summit, so that is a piece of work that we are taking forward to show real leadership in that area.

It is World Water Day on Friday, but for people in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, there is water everywhere but not a drop to drink. In the all-party parliamentary group on Malawi, which I chair, we have been following the effect of devastating floods that had already been hitting the country before the cyclone. The Minister might be aware that the Scottish Government have already made a donation to provide support for that, and civic society is responding as well. Specifically, what steps will her Department take to improve resilience in these countries? Because of climate change, such extreme weather events are becoming more common, so how can countries be supported before a disaster hits to ensure that there is resilience in the infrastructure?

There is an increasing body of scientific evidence linking extreme weather to increasing carbon emissions. What diplomatic efforts is the Minister’s Department making, in partnership with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to make the case both to our partners around the world and to our own Government that we need to reach our net zero carbon emissions target sooner rather than later?

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the work that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth is doing in having commissioned work to see how the UK can show leadership on net zero. We await what comes out of that report. He will be aware of the UK’s leadership so far in terms of our ability to have reduced our own carbon emissions very significantly. He will be aware of the programming that is being done through international climate finance, which has already helped to avoid or mitigate some 10.8 million tonnes of emissions in the atmosphere. He will also be aware that we are leading through our international networks. I mentioned the uplift in our new approach to climate change in Africa, but we will be convening the international community at the United Nations to deal with the all-important issue of resilience.

Our hearts go out to the hundreds of thousands of people across Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe who have been affected by this terrible disaster. It reminds us of the huge need to focus on the fight against climate change. I welcome what the Minister says about how important that is, but the DFID departmental plan used to list climate change as a stand-alone strategic priority, and the current version does not. In this time of climate emergency, is that not a case of getting our priorities wrong? We should be increasing the urgency of the action we take to fight climate change, not downgrading it to a subheading.

I can reassure the hon. Lady that, since climate change is a major threat to achieving the sustainable development goals, tackling it is a strategic priority for the Department for International Development. We work across the Government on this with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am glad that the independent ICAI report said that UK international climate finance shows a “convincing approach”, with some “good emerging results” in influencing others and making some good strategic choices.

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