COP26 UN Climate Conference

In this first week of November I shall be attending the COP26 United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow.

Given the disruption of the pandemic, I am relieved the conference is finally able to go ahead, a year after originally planned, but thankfully with meetings being held in person, with remote participation for those unable to travel.

I am attending in my capacity as Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, and will be co-chairing a session for parliamentarians looking at how we hold our respective Governments to account for delivery in coming years on their pledges for action, made through the Nationally Determined Contributions. The UK government has been clear G20 countries should make new commitments in their own Nationally Determined Contributions - setting out interim targets and immediate action to reduce emissions.

In terms of broader ambitions, the UK is seeking to gather support and agreement at the conference to eliminate coal dependency; to follow the UK in abandoning UK fossil fuel internal combustion vehicles; for the richest countries who have historically produced so much of the world's carbon to support other countries to go green with funds of $100 billion a year; and to plant more trees to restore the world's natural habitat.

If we are to succeed in stopping climate change, we need an international consensus. When the UK accepted the Presidency of the G7, under 30 per cent of the global economy had signed up to a net zero commitment - that figure has now increased to 70 per cent. Around 120 countries are committed to or are developing long-term climate neutral plans. So there has been progress – but now countries, including the UK, must show we will match words with action.

I have called consistently for clearer plans from the UK government in meeting its climate commitments. We have had positive ambitions, but what drives effective change is a clear plan that gives both direction to industry and sends clear demand signals to investors.

The scale of the challenge is huge. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that climate change is affecting every area of the globe and without immediate action, rising global temperatures may lead to increased heatwaves, with greater risk of wildfires, flooding, rising sea levels, arctic ice melt and more devastating consequences. COP26 is the opportunity to develop an overarching and deliverable plan for countries across the world to put an end to the ravages of manmade climate change.

There will be some for whom, for whatever reason, this conference will never go far enough; and others who will believe it is seeking to move too far too fast. But we should not allow either pessimism or scepticism to cause us to abandon our efforts to secure real change, and lasting international commitments to tackle this issue.

So I look forward to attending and helping to scrutinise the effectiveness of the conference. As Chairman of the EAC I shall be chairing a final session of the Commons’ Committee on COP in the weeks following COP26, which I was instrumental in setting up among ten select committees. We shall use this to start the scrutiny process of how the Government plans to deliver its own pledges.