Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Cancun Climate Change Conference.
17:33 The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)
I wish to make a statement on the outcome of the United Nations climate conference in Cancun. The House will remember the disappointment of last year’s conference in Copenhagen, particularly its failure to agree a comprehensive and legally binding global treaty to supplement or replace the Kyoto protocol. Expectations for the Cancun conference were not high. After Copenhagen, it seemed as if the very principle of multilateralism was on trial. Our objectives, therefore, were modest. We aimed to demonstrate that the UN process was back on track. We also hoped to put in place some of the building blocks for an eventual global agreement and to rebuild momentum.
I am delighted to say that our expectations were not just met, but exceeded. The conference agreed a series of linked decisions under both its tracks: the Kyoto protocol and the framework for reaching a new and more comprehensive agreement. Emissions reduction pledges made under the Copenhagen accord by developed and developing countries provided a valuable starting point and have been brought into the UN climate convention framework. We can now assess the overall policy pledges against the requirements of the science.
“deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions”
The conference also adopted decisions to develop systems for measuring, reporting and verifying emission reductions and actions in line with countries’ commitments. This is essential to confidence in each other’s actions. Developing countries will get access to low-carbon technology and help with adaptation to climate change. Market-based mechanisms will be considered to deliver effective reductions in emissions at least cost.
Forestry was a key area. The conference agreed the framework for REDD plus—reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation—through which developing countries will be paid for keeping trees standing rather than logging them. The conference also made progress on rules for accounting for land use, land use change and forestry under the Kyoto protocol—an issue that was too difficult to be settled last year or at Kyoto and it has remained problematic ever since Kyoto.
The conference did not settle the future of the Kyoto protocol, nor did it adopt a new and more comprehensive treaty incorporating all countries. Neither outcome was realistically possible this year. Nevertheless, the agreements reached at Cancun represent a very significant step forward, particularly given that it seemed possible, even as late as last Thursday, that the conference would break up over precisely that issue. In the end, every country represented there, with the exception of Bolivia, felt able to support the outcomes.
There remains much to do in the run-up to the 2011 climate conference in Durban. Given the outcome of Cancun, however, we can be far more confident than seemed possible just a few weeks ago. I am sure that the House will join me in congratulating the Government of Mexico, who were responsible for hosting and chairing the conference. The diplomatic skill, political courage and dogged determination of Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa and her team was responsible in very large part for its success. I was happy to be able to support her in co-chairing some of the negotiating groups that addressed the key issues.
Tackling climate change should transcend party politics. Britain has built a strong reputation internationally as a forward-looking country, and I thank my predecessor for his work in helping to achieve that. I was also pleased to be able to include in the UK delegation representatives of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly Government; it was the first time that that had happened.
The coalition Government are determined to tackle the accelerating threat of climate change. We intend to demonstrate how a successful and prosperous low-carbon economy can be developed in the United Kingdom and the European Union, providing employment, exports and energy security and reducing emissions. The Energy Bill published last week and the consultation paper on electricity reform to be published later this week are key components of that, as is the adoption of a more ambitious target for reducing EU carbon emissions, and in that context I welcome the Spanish Government’s recent declaration of support for a 30% reduction in EU emissions by 2020. We are pressing for an ambitious package of measures to be agreed by EU leaders in February next year to create the infrastructure and incentives for a faster move to a low-carbon economy within Europe.
[Source]
17:40 Meg Hillier (Labour)
International progress on climate change is of the utmost importance to us all. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has been able to attend the House in person today, so that we have a chance to question the Government on progress. We must acknowledge that the agreements made in Cancun are an important step in the right direction, and, on behalf of the Opposition, I join the right hon. Gentleman in congratulating the Mexican Government on creating an environment in which the nations of the world could agree a common statement. The statement of intent that has come out of Cancun builds on provisions made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) in Copenhagen last year, and we all hope that it will pave the way for more ambitious aims in South Africa next year.
We have a long way to go, and, as the Secretary of State said, it is essential that the Government take a lead internationally. The right hon. Gentleman has already suggested that the European emission reduction target should be 30% by 2020, and he recently issued a statement with Germany and France pressing for such a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Last week, the Committee on Climate Change reported in support of that aim. We are delighted that Spain is now on board. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether that is the extent of European Union support? He talks of pressing for measures in the EU, but will he say what practical steps he and the Government are taking in Europe? It might be said that the Government whom he represents are not of one mind when it comes to European relations, and we and the country need to know which point of view dominates the agenda. Will there really be progress by February?
[Source]
17:41 Chris Huhne
The hon. Lady was absolutely right to mention the continuing gap between what the science tells us is necessary to reduce carbon emissions and the pledges that were made in the Copenhagen accord and that are now incorporated in the United Nations framework convention on climate change process. The gap will be assessed as part of the work that will be set in train as a result of the agreements in Cancun, and the UN environment programme report was a useful first step in pointing that out.
Yes, it was welcome that Spain joined us. We have been working quite hard on the 30% commitment, including through some meetings in Cancun. The Minister with responsibility for climate change, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), had meetings with the incoming presidency, and I had meetings with the Spanish Minister and other colleagues. Apart from Spain, France and Germany, we also now have a commitment from Denmark, and I am confident we will shortly have a commitment from Sweden as well, with all of them broadly in the same place. We must recognise that there are difficulties, especially for some of the economies still in transition, particularly Poland, which rely very much on lignite and hard coal, and we can try to deal with that. The process is under way and it will be important to address that in the new year.
The negotiations on legal form were always going to be exceptionally difficult, and we knew we could not reach an outcome. For the UK, the key negotiating strategy was to make sure that we embodied in the agreement at Cancun a substantial amount of substance that we can then show at Durban next year. Hopefully, that will provide a real incentive to the progressive countries that want to do a deal and to some of the more reluctant countries, by showing that there is enough on the table to make them be a little more flexible than they have been thus far on, for example, whether there is a commitment in the Kyoto protocol or whether it is in the convention track—and, indeed, whether there is a legal commitment in the convention track, which I very much hope, so that we can, effectively, have two parallel sides.
I can assure the hon. Lady that there is no division in the Government on leadership in Europe. I know she is sceptical, but we have worked very closely with all parts of Government, particularly the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which has done an outstanding job. The team in Mexico City and the FCO more widely have done an outstanding job in helping us to prepare for these talks. It is an agreed part of our strategy as a Government that we recognise that our power as a nation to achieve our national objectives in the area of climate change is immeasurably greater the greater the extent to which we work through our European partners and manage to get them on board. That has been a key part of our approach to this issue.
[Source]
17:50 Chris Huhne
On the $100 billion, there is much more flesh on the bones than there was a year ago. We have the report of the advisory group on climate change financing, which has done a lot of good technical work, and it has been taken note of here. We will make progress through the rest of the year.
[Source]
17:52 Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Given the importance of achieving some progress, however small, at Cancun, does the Secretary of State think that UN procedures are fit for purpose? In terms of the improvements that are needed, what role can Parliament take, given that the previous Government’s Climate Change Act 2008 gives us an opportunity to take a leading role across the planet?
[Source]
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on seeing the negotiations through to the very end last week; it was certainly worth it. Now that the green climate fund has been agreed, how does he intend to broker international consensus on which of the options for climate finance may be taken forward to fill it?
[Source]
17:57 Chris Huhne
This is going to be a pretty difficult issue—we know that from the proceedings in the advisory group on climate change financing. There are a lot of options on the table, the technical work has largely been done and we have to hope that we can make further progress over the next year. Now that we have identified a clear political will to find that finance, we have to hope that the technical means to provide it will be there, but the technical options on bunker fuels, aviation and so on are set out in the group’s report.
[Source]