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Bambos Charalambous's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 15 Parliamentary debates in which Bambos Charalambous has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 22 Jan 2026: International Day of Education

  Today, unfortunately, there are still many millions of children globally who are not in education. There has been great progress in improving access to education across the world, and the UK has played a powerful role in achieving that progress as one of the world’s most influential donors, advocates and innovators in global education. However, in recent years progress has slowed, against the backdrop of successive cuts in the education aid budget, and an increasingly dangerous world of conflict and climate change.

  Emergencies, and educational emergencies in particular, are another area I want to focus on. In a world that has become increasingly dangerous, education protects children from violence and exploitation, lowers long-term humanitarian and recovery costs, and helps to mitigate conflict and displacement pressures. Financing education in emergencies supports the UK’s priorities on peace and security, migration, climate resilience, and violence against women and girls. Yet, with the risk of further cuts to the education aid budget, the climate crisis and conflicts threaten to destroy any chances of children getting access to an education.

  Globally, 234 million crisis-affected children currently require educational support—an increase of 10 million in the last two years. Children in Africa and the middle east face the largest impact, with millions of them looking at disruption or cancellation of their education. The climate crisis is an underlying cause of that. As climate emergencies become more prevalent, children and families are being displaced from their homes and forced to take shelter elsewhere. When international aid comes in, education is often deprioritised—despite being a lifeline for children in crisis.

  I have a few questions for the Minister. The first relates to the Government’s commitments to education in emergencies. Does he agree that it is vital that as part of our humanitarian assistance we support the provision of education in areas of conflict and climate emergencies? When countries emerge from conflict and climate emergencies they need help to get themselves re-established, so can the Minister tell me whether the Government intend to support countries to transition from the emergency education provision to national education systems, particularly if support mechanisms such as the Global Partnership for Education are reduced? Will the Government ensure that the ODA budget will be focused on foundational learning where every lesson has the most transformative impact on a child’s life chances? Will education feature in the Future of Development conference being hosted by the UK in May?

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• 23 Jan 2025: International Day of Education

  13:30

  Crises such as conflicts, natural disasters and public health emergencies pose formidable barriers to education. In 2016, 75 million children did not have access to quality education due to forced displacement, humanitarian crises and climate change events. Nine years later, that figure has trebled to 224 million. Even children who do have access to school are not learning the basics, with over half those children—127 million—not meeting the minimum standards of literacy and numeracy.

  The root cause of these crises, which disrupt education, needs to be tackled by the international community. UNICEF estimates that climate change alone disrupts the education of nearly 40 million children every year. In countries affected by emergencies, children lose access to safe drinking water, healthcare and food, alongside their education. Schools, which should be sanctuaries of learning, are often the targets of attacks. Between 2015 and 2019, attacks on education were reported in 93 countries. More recently, in Gaza ongoing conflicts have devastated educational infrastructure and left more than 1 million children in Gaza in dire need of educational support.

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• 13 Nov 2024: Debt Relief (Developing Countries)

  11:39

  Countries seeking debt relief are also experiencing extreme weather events due to climate change. Last year, Zambia had its most severe flooding for more than 50 years, with over 25,000 households affected. Right now, it is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, with 50% of this year’s crops lost and with 2024 on track to be the hottest year on record. Zambia is suffering despite only contributing 0.01% of global greenhouse emissions since the industrial revolution. Although Zambia has sought debt relief from its largest private creditor, that creditor has refused to cancel the amount the International Monetary Fund has said is necessary to make the debt sustainable. That is typical of the behaviour of private creditors towards low-income countries. It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that countries such as Zambia get the debt justice they deserve, and it is imperative that we take action now.

  Before I conclude, I want to thank the organisations that have provided me with invaluable advice and support in preparing this Bill, which have been championing the cause of debt relief for many years. Those organisations are Christian Aid, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, and Debt Justice. I also wish to thank the Send My Friend To School coalition and the House of Commons Library for some of the statistics used in my speech. I hope that this Bill will go some way to securing debt relief for low-income countries, allowing the money saved to be reinvested in health and education systems for those who need that investment most and helping to tackle the effects of climate change, such as in the case of Zambia. Morally, it is the right thing to do; it is the just thing to do; and it is the compassionate thing to do. I hope this Bill will receive the support it deserves and needs.

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• 30 Oct 2024: COP29 and International Climate Finance

  For some low-income countries, one of the biggest factors is debt through private creditors, which I think is greater than the other debt that a lot of those countries owe. Does the hon. Lady agree that the matter of debt owed to private creditors must also be addressed to tackle the need for more funding for climate emergencies?

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• 19 Jan 2022: Topical Questions

  T5. With millions of species at risk of extinction and deforestation accelerating across the globe, it is imperative that we limit global warming to 1.5 degrees to halt this catastrophic decline, so will the Minister now accept Labour’s call for a net zero and nature test to align public spending and infrastructure decisions with our climate and nature commitments?

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• 7 Sep 2021: Net Zero Emissions and Green Investment

  3. What fiscal steps he is taking to help achieve the Government’s net zero emissions target.

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  11:53

  The recent Climate Change Committee progress report showed that the Treasury had not fully met a single one of its recommendations in the past year. Does the Minister think this is good enough, and what steps should be taken to rectify that?

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• 8 Jun 2021: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Ninth sitting)

  Again, I cannot comment on that individual protest, but the issue of climate change is a very important one; it affects us all, irrespective of where we live. The issue of a third runway may have also been about a wider issue that would have affected everybody, irrespective of where they live. As I say, I cannot comment on that individual protest, but we have to appreciate that certain protests have a wider significance than just the locality where they happen.

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  09:50

  If the public order provisions in the Bill had been in place when the suffragettes marched for the right to vote, would the women who shouted and screamed noisily for their future have been arrested? Does the Minister think that the marchers for the right to work or those on the anti-apartheid protests should have been stopped for causing annoyance or being too noisy? Do the Government want to stop the children who are shouting loudly for action on climate change or to prevent people across the country from marching to remind people in the establishment that black lives matter?

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• 8 Jun 2021: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Tenth sitting)

  15:35

  The Policing Minister also claimed that money for sites was available in the £150 million affordable homes programme pot, but the last shared ownership affordable homes programme in 2016 to 2021, with a budget of £4.7 billion, awarded grants for just two Traveller sites across the whole country in the scheme’s entire period. They were both just transit sites in Birmingham and Cornwall. That was revealed by Friends, Families & Travellers, which FOI-ed Homes England to find that information. Funding for Traveller sites must be more than warm words.

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• 28 Oct 2019: Restoring Nature and Climate Change

  16:36

  Is my hon. Friend aware of the 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the 2019 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that show that nature and climate crisis are inextricably linked? The IPBES report says that 1 million species globally are at risk of extinction. Does he agree that nature-based solutions are a fundamental way of stopping climate change and preventing the extinction of species?

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• 10 Jul 2019: Climate Change, the Environment and Global Development

  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I entirely agree with her. Enfield Council will pass its climate change plan tonight but, on her point about the need for action, does she agree that one action the Government could take is not to subsidise fossil fuels? Fossil fuels have caused so much damage over the years, particularly in developing countries.

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• 22 May 2019: Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments

  I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I agree entirely that Parliament should take the lead in not investing in fossil fuels. Yesterday, BP’s investors decided that it should adopt a totally different strategy on carbon fuels so it fits in with the Paris agreement on climate change. Does he agree that other companies should take that way forward?

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• 23 Apr 2019: Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

  The Minister mentioned her international influence in relation to reducing carbon emissions. The USA is one of the biggest CO 2 polluters in the world. Can she ask the Prime Minister to use all her influence when President Trump comes to the UK to get the US to recommit to its obligations from the Paris summit and to set up a climate emergency in the USA to tackle global warming?

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• 19 Mar 2019: Carbon Emissions

  12:13

  The UN says that we have less than 12 years to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and on Friday thousands of schoolchildren marched for their futures. Given that emissions fell last year by only 1.5%—less than half the 3.2% fall recorded the year before—does the Minister agree with the Environmental Audit Committee that the Government are “coasting” on climate change?

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• 13 Mar 2018: Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill (Second sitting)

  15:30

  When I asked Octopus and Bulb this morning whether there was a need to tighten the definition of renewable energy, they both agreed that there was. They saw it as a way of the big six getting round the cap. So does my hon. Friend agree that there needs to be a tightening of the definition?

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• 13 Mar 2018: Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill (First sitting)

  09:51

  Juliet Davenport: In our view, green gas is an area that is developing in the UK. At the moment, we have a limited amount of green gas. I think the heat targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 are quite significant, and we as a country are behind those targets. We are doing relatively well on electricity, but not so well on gas. My personal view is that we need to try to seed that market. People want to choose.

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate