COP 27: Commitments

The key issue is the need to reduce the rate at which the globe is warming. COP 27 reaffirmed the Paris Agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and agreed to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. This is very soft language. The reality, as a number of people have noted, is that the 1.5 degrees goal is either dead or on life support. It is not totally impossible to achieve the 1.5 degrees reduction, but to achieve it will require all nations to do much more than they are now. While COP 26 requested countries return to COP 27 with improved nationally determined contributions, only 34 countries did so, and some, including the UK’s, were largely unchanged.

As stated at COP 26, the world is heading for a 2.4 degrees rise in warming under the current 2030 target. The UN emissions gap report states that, under current global policies, there is only a 1% chance of limiting temperatures to 1.5 degrees and only an 8% chance of limiting temperatures to 2 degrees. Emissions, which have risen by 1.1% a year over the past decade, must fall by three times that amount each year just to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees. The challenge is absolutely enormous.

In his Statement in the other place on November 9, the Prime Minister said that

“we will fulfil our ambitious commitment to reduce emissions by at least 68% by the end of the decade”,—[Official Report, Commons, 9/11/22; col. 259.]

and to achieve this mentioned accelerating transition to renewables, investing in nuclear power stations and giving financial support to the green industrial revolution. One promising development, as mentioned the other day by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is the new deal with Morocco on wind and solar power. It has the sun, and the trade winds there, unlike our own, are steady. This could supply 8% of the UK’s electricity demand by 2030. Perhaps the Minister will say more on this source and how it fits with our overall plan to reduce emissions faster.

It was recently announced that Sizewell C is going ahead. James Lovelock, the distinguished scientist and environmentalist, very early became concerned about the threat of global warming. In 2004, he broke with many fellow environmentalists by stating that only nuclear power could halt global warming. In his view, nuclear energy was the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that has the capacity to both fulfil the large-scale energy needs of humankind while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I understand that the aim is for 25% of the UK’s energy to be supplied by nuclear power. However, with five generators closed or being phased out, are the Government confident that we will have enough capacity to achieve that target? More than that, is the target high enough? France has 70% of its energy needs supplied by 56 reactors. China has only 4.9% of its energy supplied from its 53 nuclear reactors, but over the next 15 years it is planning to build 150 new reactors, which is more than the whole of the rest of the world has built in the last 35 years. Should we not be raising the amount of energy from nuclear generation from 25% to at least 50%?

The purpose of this transition to nuclear power—and other measures, of course—is to stop having to use fossil fuels, but nothing was agreed at COP 27 about stopping their use. The final text did not advance on the previous policy of a phase-down of unabated coal power and a phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. We all recognise the current difficulties caused by the war in Ukraine and the consequent sanctions against Russia, but that war will have to come to an end sooner or later, and we already need to look beyond it to be rid of this key cause of global warming. Will the Government say something about their policy in relation to new oil drilling? Are they still committed to ending the use of coal power by October 2024?

Like many of your Lordships, I heard the speech of the President of the Maldives, which is low lying and under severe threat from rising sea levels, as well as the rising number of typhoons. Whole villages there are being relocated to higher ground. The President made the point that, in addition to spending 30% of its GDP on this kind of work, it is paying 24% to service its national debt. Like many of your Lordships, I was around in the last century, when many poorer countries were totally crippled by debt. But the pressure of the Drop the Debt campaign, initiated by churches and NGOs, eventually led to significant relief at the millennium. The President of the Maldives put forward the idea of a certain amount of debt relief—debt being cancelled—with the money being used to finance high-quality decarbonisation projects, or “debt-for-climate swaps”, as he termed this. This seems a helpful idea; have the Government given any thought to it yet?

In relation to our own country, the Committee on Climate Change’s progress report to Parliament found that the gap between future levels of risk and planned adaptation had widened in the last five years and that planning for a global warming level of 2 degrees was not happening. The CCC also found that many of the UK’s critical energy, water, digital and transport providers are struggling to take account of climate-related risks to connected infrastructure systems, which could lead to cascading failures. Can the Minister confirm when the Government intend to act on the priorities identified by the CCC, in particular by ensuring that adaptation plans incorporate proposals to accommodate temperature rises of up to 2 degrees? What progress have Government made in addressing risks to critical infrastructure?

Important progress was made on sustainable forest management and conservation, with the launch of the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership—FCLP—which aims to unite action by Governments, businesses and community leaders. Some 27 countries, representing 60% of global GDP and 35% of the world’s forests, have already joined the new partnership and are committed to leading by example on one or more of the FCLP’s action areas. There is also the special partnership of Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo. To ensure accountability, the FCLP will publish an annual global progress report that will include independent assessments of global progress towards the 2030 goal. We look forward to receiving and discussing that report in due course.

In this connection, I note that there is new hope in the election of Lula da Silva and his pledge to reverse the policy of his predecessor and protect the Amazon forests from the terrible devastation that they have been experiencing. I very much hope that the Government will be able to offer significant moral and political support to him and his Government, for this matter concerns the whole globe. It should also concern the whole globe, but sadly does not at the moment, that West Papua, which has huge forests that are being devastated, is being immorally and brutally occupied by Indonesia. The Government in exile have promised that, when a proper referendum takes place and they are elected, they will turn West Papua into a green state.

It is clear that, whatever we do to reduce carbon emissions, our country and the whole globe will face increasingly turbulent weather conditions. As John Gray recently pointed out, countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia could not move suddenly out of oil and gas without imploding and anarchy following. He also pointed out that the switch to renewables is not cost-free: there is both the political scramble for the rare metals needed—lithium, nickel and cobalt—and the environmental cost of mining them. So we have to be realistic and realise that the progress to net zero will be slow and fraught with political difficulties, and all the time we must face and prepare for the very severe turbulence that lies ahead and, not least, help the least developed countries both to do this and to repair and rebuild when they have suffered—hence the importance of the loss and damage fund, which we can indeed celebrate. I beg to move.

Most people rightly point to what is missing from all this. There are clearly some good things: the idea of a loss and damage fund to help those in real difficulty over climate change is obviously desirable, but it has to be formulated and organised. But everyone says, “Where’s the strategy? What is the grand strategy to meet this huge challenge to the stability of nations and the well-being of the 8 billion people, as we now are, on this planet?”

To my mind, the priorities are wrong on two levels. First, on our own contribution, which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, mentioned, if you ask the experts what we in the United Kingdom are doing, the answer is, first, setting an example. I am always a little uneasy about that: if you talk to friends in Delhi, Beijing or anywhere in Asia, they do not seem to be taking much notice of our example. Still, we are trying and doing our best, and I do not deride that for one moment. The second answer is that we are aiming for net zero—for production, not consumption, because of course we continue to import massive amounts of carbon through our huge import facilities. Will that contribute much, given the size of the challenge? We produce about 1% of world carbon emissions; I am told that China produces in a week what we do in a year, so it is a very small pimple on this vast problem.

I am sure we could do much better in our contributions if we were more focused on what the issues really are. The issue is the ever-rising level of emissions from thousands and thousands of coal-fired stations, and thousands of other sources of carbon throughout Asia, owing to the size of the human race. If we are to make an effective contribution—more than just feeling we have done our bit with net zero—we will have to mobilise our technology and resources on a scale not contemplated since the wars of the past. Even they were on a smaller scale because we were talking about a far smaller world population and a far smaller problem in the world. We are now being called on to face up to the need to use our most brilliant talent and to make real sacrifices in the interests of curbing the ever-rising level of emissions.

I have long argued, as have many others, that the immediate national role that we can develop—I should like to hear how the Minister thinks we are getting on with this—is using our technological skill to reduce and cheapen considerably the methods of carbon capture, storage and usage. We should also cheapen the methods of installing those carbon-capture technologies in, as I said, thousands and thousands of smoking chimneys from coal-fired stations across the whole of the developing world, particularly in Asia and Africa, and using that to start curbing the main sources of emissions growth. That is where these emissions are really coming from. America is the biggest source—it may be getting some kind of grip on it now, although it has a long way to go—but the really fast-growing sources are India and China. We do not really know about the figures for Moscow. They say they are doing things and planting trees, but the net effects are not easy to see.

These areas are where we can really make a contribution, nationally, with our technological skill, but I am not convinced that we are doing that now. I am not convinced that the resources we are putting into NZ might not be better used for contributing the technology that will actually reduce climate emissions globally. It may not make us feel so good, but that is where the real impact can be made nationally.

Then we come to the wider world effort, and here the scene does fall short. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, rightly said, it falls very considerably short of what we should be achieving. We must bring a halt to, or start reducing, the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, now reckoned to be at the level of 422 parts. That is much too high—it must come down. The UNFCCC says that it must come down, our own Climate Change Committee says that it must come down and every expert says that it must come down. How can it be done? The answer is that we have to move on to a totally new area of innovation in carbon absorption: the direct extraction of carbon from the atmosphere on a scale not yet contemplated—and, alas, not discussed very much at Cairo.

This is where we should take a lead nationally, in a huge international effort to create the kind of schemes that Imperial College is now proposing: huge new carbon sinks and huge new ecosystems of every kind around the world, which can be developed. The first is now being suggested in Morocco. The noble and right revered Lord, Lord Harries, mentioned Morocco, as I did the other day; it can supply us with about 10 gigawatts—three or four nuclear power stations’ worth—of solar, low-carbon electricity in a few years’ time. More than that, it and other countries can provide huge desert areas in which new ecosystems can be built.

None of this was discussed, as far as I can make out, at all in Cairo. Therefore, I think the time has come for us to raise our game massively and to recognise that this is the biggest single move in the organisation of our planet since the Industrial Revolution. I saw a figure this morning that said it would require $100 trillion. I think that is far too high and we can do it for less, but we need innovation and ingenuity on a scale we did not see at Cairo. I hope, however, that in this nation we can at least point out the realities and raise our game.

The outcomes from COP 27 in Egypt were profoundly disappointing. There were further delays and dilution of targets, promises of funding remained unfulfilled and there was a failure to agree stronger language around fossil fuels, despite extended discussions. World leaders need to do more, and to do so more quickly; they—we—must connect with the passion and urgency of our children and grandchildren now to safeguard the planet for the future. Yet I am hopeful because, in my experience, young people possess an incredible “can do” attitude and fantastic enthusiasm and optimism. This is not necessarily limited to one area of their lives. The passion and urgency with which young people engage with TikTok, Snapchat or the next level of computer games, as any parent who has tried removing them from their device of choice will know, is matched by their passion for preserving the planet, demanding action on climate change, and calling out their elders when they do not feel that we are doing enough, quickly enough.

The computer gaming industry is a huge UK success story of recent decades, contributing over £7 billion to our economy last year. There is no reason why the UK cannot lead the world and have even greater success in the growing green technology industry. Labour’s shadow Cabinet Ministers here and in the other place have already developed plans to drive this green growth, decrease our dependence on imported fossil fuels and create well-paid, high-skilled jobs in this sector.

We have seen the remarkable changes in a world that has shifted from analogue to digital. Generation Z and the generations beyond them—whatever they are to be called now we have reached the end of the alphabet—will experience a further leap from the digital to the quantum age. I want to find ways to harness the creativity, passion and energy of our young people to enable them to become environmental entrepreneurs; to equip them with the skills they need to survive in the rapidly changing world of their future and to be as agile, responsive and nimble in running their businesses as the avatars in their virtual worlds; and to empower them to meet the environmental challenges, known and unknown, that they will face through their lifetimes and into the 22nd century.

I look forward to working alongside many noble Lords across the House during the months and years to come on the challenges laid out in this debate. As I do this, I shall always imagine my mother watching me from the Public Gallery, as she did last week, expecting and encouraging me to do better, to do more and to make a difference for those who will be here long after I have gone.

“Emissions peaking before 2025 … Not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase down of coal. Not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text. And the energy text, weakened, in the final minutes. Friends, I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5 degrees was weak. Unfortunately, it remains on life support.”

That is not an optimistic view of COP 27.

However, there is reason to have hope. The Prime Minister went to COP 27, which was important in terms of UK leadership—an issue that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, spoke about and that I will come back to later. The Prime Minister said—I think this is very important for those of us in this House—that in playing our part,

“Keeping the 1.5 degrees commitment alive is vital to the future of our planet … More must be done.”

He went on to say:

“It is not the work of any one Department or any one Minister; if we are going to make this commitment work, we are all going to have to play our part.”—[Official Report, 9/11/22; col. 263.]

That is absolutely right.

We made important commitments at COP 26, and we made a historic breakthrough at COP 27 in agreeing to set up a fund to assist vulnerable nations hit by climate disasters. But much more difficult will be delivering on commitments and getting agreement on how the world can come together to fund this and, crucially, how we can resurrect global ambitions for reducing the emissions that cause the damage in the first place.

The other thing that discussions at Sharm el-Sheikh brought into sharp focus was that while the destination we are all aiming for may be the same, the challenges we face as individual countries in responding to the climate crisis are not. In the UK, legislators focus on the potential of a green economy, the opportunities for better health, air quality and jobs, and all sorts of opportunities for our entrepreneurs and innovators in the new industries that the noble Lord, Lord Leong, spoke about. But for legislators in other countries, their focus is on survival, and on managing the devastating impacts of climate change they are facing immediately. Every country will have its own unique climate challenges and will have to plot its own pathways out of the crisis.

There is much we can do nationally, but there are many issues where we do not have that pipeline or attention in every department in every way. The Minister will not be surprised that I raise the issue of onshore wind with him; it is a perennial favourite, and one I would be very happy to ditch by getting a good result on it. In this country, if we cannot even agree that we should have a normal planning process for onshore wind development and the replacement of existing onshore wind, I will lose the will to live on how we will achieve all the much bigger things that we need to do. It is one example, but there are many others. The Procurement Bill, which reaches Report in your Lordships’ House next week, still has no reference to climate change, despite the enormous potential in it for both good and bad in terms of climate. So there is much that we can do to put our own house in order.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, talked about our contribution as a country and whether other countries looked to our example. He is absolutely right that we will not be judged by the quantity of the emissions that we reduce as a country compared to everywhere else in the world; we will be judged by the quality of the leadership we give and the innovation we nurture and showcase, which can be used in other countries. I believe that we will not have the credibility to do that unless we put our own house in order. That is why the ongoing work of achieving our own goals and creating the green economic future that we talk about are so important, and why I feel hopeful—if not optimistic—that we can build on what came out of COP 27.

Without the COPs, progress that has been made to date would not have been possible. The rise in energy from renewable sources has been given momentum by these annual talking-shops, and the role of fossil fuels is becoming more marginalised. We could all hope for a far faster elimination of fossil fuels, but I think that is only a matter of time, given that the economics are so much against fossil fuels at the moment.

What has the 27th Conference of the Parties achieved and not achieved? I will focus primarily on two issues: first, one that is seen as a success of this COP, that of climate justice for vulnerable countries, known as loss and damage; and, secondly and to a lesser extent, on fossil fuels, a lack of action on which can be seen as a shortcoming of this COP.

First, the bald fact is that loss and damage matters, because countries in the global South cannot lift themselves out of poverty if they face increasing devastation from climate-related disasters, which for some of them are becoming routine occurrences. Failure to tackle the climate crisis has been perpetuating reliance on a humanitarian aid system that was not designed to respond to cyclical shocks of such scale and frequency. The polluter pays principle is well established, but are we really saying that it is only applicable for western entities? Why does it not apply to countries in the global South that are bearing the brunt of climate devastation, which they, in practical terms, did not cause? Justice must prevail. It is utter hypocrisy to insist that developing countries must reduce their reliance on fossil fuels when they are the ones suffering the effects of our historic emissions today, with, to date, no funds in place to help them cope with the loss and damage they suffer. So I welcome the major achievement of COP 27 in establishing for the first time a fund for loss and damage. This is a historic achievement, and it is crucial that it is urgently operationalised so that countries on the front line of the climate crisis can quickly access fair and automatic financial assistance and support in the wake of immediate climate impacts and slow-onset impacts such as sea level rise.

I have two questions for the Minister. How does His Majesty’s Government believe that a loss and damage finance facility should function, and how should contributions be calculated? Will the Government consider a debt swap arrangement, like the one advocated by the Maldives, where the debt of vulnerable countries is cancelled in exchange for commitments to invest in high-quality decarbonisation projects, which they would dearly like to do but cannot afford to do both?

Secondly, I turn to fossil fuels. While emissions already in the atmosphere mean that further heating of the planet and associated loss and damage are unavoidable, the best way of minimising loss and damage is to ensure that fossil fuels stay in the ground. It is deeply concerning that countries have failed to agree on an equitable and urgent phase-out of all fossil fuels at COP 27, and, as hard as it may be to believe, it is a fact that coal, oil and gas still enjoy massive financial support from both state players and commercial entities.

The COP 27 decision text agrees to phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Our Government have argued that they do not give any fossil fuel subsidies because they use an International Energy Agency definition of consumption subsidies as

“measures that reduce the effective price of fossil fuels below world market prices”.

However, the IEA does not claim that this is the only type of subsidy. Indeed, the OECD has done a more detailed analysis of consumption and production subsidies, which found that UK subsidies in 2021 gave £200 million for decommissioning, £250 million for oil and gas investment, £l billion for fuel oil, £1.5 billion for ring-fenced oil and gas trade corporate income tax relief and £2.1 billion for red diesel. Each of these measures provides support to the oil and gas industry which could otherwise be supporting rollout of low-carbon electricity, heating and transport.

Are our Government committed to phasing out all forms of fossil fuel subsidy, and in a way which supports the UK’s net zero objective by transferring the support to low carbon technology? We must walk the talk at home and fulfil promises made on the world stage to phase down reliance on fossil fuels. A year ago at COP 26 we asked countries to accept that fossil fuels must be phased out. How does the Minister reconcile that statement with the announcement that we will resume the issuing of new licences for oil and gas exploration? The fact is that just a few weeks ago, the UK opened up a new licensing round to allow oil and gas companies to explore for fossil fuels in the North Sea, despite threats of a legal battle from climate campaigners. Almost 900 locations are being offered up for exploration.

Finally, will the Minister urge the Government to revoke licences for North Sea oil and gas exploration, scrap plans for the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria, and urgently roll out a just transition to renewables, which would secure our energy supply and prevent further emissions in the atmosphere devastating communities and the environment?

None the less, when I look back to COP 26, my most memorable recollection is a speech by Jumas Xipaia, from the Xipaya people in the Pará state in Brazil, at an event I chaired on ecocide. That was such a powerful voice that it moved everyone in the room. Voices such as that, which I have often called the “shadow COP”—not the official negotiations, but the gathering of civil society, people, campaigners and indigenous groups from around the world—have an enormous impact. I will come back to that.

An account in the London Review of Books by Laleh Khalili is well worth a read. Wandering around the pavilions she sees PwC, Deloitte and EY—representatives of the financial system that is built on and continues to fund the ongoing oil and gas exploration and exploitation that the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, referred to. She also noted the presence of Agip, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Total. Will the Minister make a commitment? Will the UK agree to push at future COPs to exclude oil and gas lobbyists, just as big tobacco lobbyists are excluded from WHO deliberations on tobacco control? The model is there.

That point is particularly interesting because the next COP will be in the UAE. Your Lordships’ House has just debated the World Cup in Qatar, which has some similar parallels. We have heard how the UK has been lobbying for respect for human rights and an open voice for civil society. Will the Minister commit the UK to pushing the UAE to have as open a COP as it should be?

I have been a bit depressing up until now, so I will get more cheerful. Despite all those barriers and difficulties, there was powerful evidence at COP 27 that campaigning works, although not that it is always very quick. For 31 years there have been calls, pushes and work on getting loss and damage payments—what is, in effect, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said, the polluter pays principle put into action. Finally, it was delivered, or at least started. There is still a huge way to go, but this was a big win for climate justice and, I would posit, a win for something much further. It is a win for the whole issue of reparations and the damage being done by robbing the global south of wealth and resources and the labours of its people to enrich the global north. A principle has now been set. What plans do the Government have to work with others—the G77 plus China and civil society groups—to deliver on loss and damage?

I apologise for now going back to being depressing. Noble Lords may not know that there is one country in the world that is on the path to deliver the 1.5 degrees that the world agreed to at COP in Paris: Gambia. Well done, Gambia. That does not, of course, cover the UK. The practical reality is that talking about net zero by 2050 and all that the Government plan is just kicking climate action down the road. We cannot afford to do that. What the UK has to do is to commit to net zero by 2030. That is the figure that is in line with 1.5 degrees. It should be put out loudly and clearly that that should be our contribution. I do not expect the Minister to commit to that today, but you never know; I will put it on the table, at least.

It is worth looking at the words of Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders, a group of former world leaders, and a very respected, clear voice. She says that

“the world remains on the brink of climate catastrophe … Progress made on [cutting emissions] has been too slow. We are on the cusp of a clean energy world, but only if G20 leaders live up to their responsibilities, keep their word, and strengthen their will. The onus is on them.”

As we stand in your Lordships’ Chamber today, it is clear that the onus is on the UK Government.

I want to point to some positive things and have questions for the Minister. If he is not able to answer them now, perhaps he could write to me. We have seen agonisingly slow but significant progress in just energy transition partnerships, with South Africa at COP 26 and with Indonesia at COP 27. Can the Minister tell me what accelerated progress is expected and what the UK is doing to contribute to more and much broader ways in which we can deliver essential development for the global South with the support of the global North?

I come back, finally, to the point that I made about the shadow COP, and the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about hope and optimism. It is worth noting that, as is often the case, one of the best events at COP 27 was the people’s plenary. During that event, the participants drew attention to the continuing incarceration, as I speak, of Alaa Abd el-Fattah. They chanted, “Free Alaa!”, and chanted his watchword, “We have not been defeated”.

The message that comes from COP 27 is the one that comes from all COPs: that we have a huge societal determination to stop trashing this planet as we are doing now, while also delivering a society that works for all the people on this planet. We have to change COPs and change our politics, and we have to change our society. The slogan that I have chanted on many a street is, “System change, not climate change”. COP is part of this process, but only a small part of it.

Supplementary treaties and negotiations are almost certainly needed. There is already one—the Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol was recently ratified by the US. It is a sign that we can, when we put our minds to it, come forward with much tougher, top-down regulations that constrain the source of the problem. There may be other gasses for which we can do this. Perhaps we need to start thinking about the supplementary treaties we need to request the UN to initiate. Methane might be a good example. Methane emissions are rapidly rising. They do not receive the degree of attention that they need. There are many technological fixes for methane, in the oil, gas and coal sectors, for example. New solutions are also coming to market in agriculture. More targeted and focused negotiations on this problem may produce a more rapid response and results than UNFCCC can be expected to manage within its broad framework.

Another example is a plastics treaty. In March, a new mandate was adopted to negotiate a formal plastics treaty. Talks in Uruguay in the coming weeks will begin to put a shape around this international agreement on plastics in response to the huge, growing concern about the impact of plastics on the environment. It should be noted that plastics are one of the fastest growing sources of demand for fossil fuels. There is a direct read-across from it to our climate goals.

A resolution was agreed at UNGA very recently on international tax co-operation. If we are to solve this problem, we need to work out how we will pay for it. Private sector investment will be a key feature. As Governments, we are not unable to collaborate on finding new sources of revenue. The effect of an international tax co-operation mandate under the UN could reveal new sources of finance to help us bring about the huge transformation that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed to. It is an extraordinary undertaking. We need to harness all the tools available to us.

Another example where a dedicated treaty could be considered is in the fossil fuel supply sector. Paris, by and large, involved all nations in looking at the demand for fossil fuels and their combustion at a country level. However, fewer countries are responsible for the supply of those fossil fuels. At present, there is nothing to stop them continuing to exploit and develop fossil fuels to the extent that they will rapidly burst through any kind of safe climate budget.

One example of why supply is such a difficult problem can be seen in the UK. Here we are, leading on climate change and recognised globally for that leadership. Yet we are considering licensing new coal mines and new rounds of oil and gas and, not long ago, we even considered fracking. It shows a real tension. This cannot be solved by cutting with one side of the scissors; both blades are needed. Both supply and demand sides need addressing. A fossil fuel treaty which negotiates a fair and equal glide path to constraining supply, with the rich and more developed countries going first, would allow some room for developing countries to continue to exploit it. This makes absolute sense. Calls for it are growing. Two countries—Tuvalu and Vanuatu—have already taken this idea to the UN. I hope this is a sign of growing interest in constraining supply and in deciding on a fair and equitable rulebook that can help us take action to constrain the ultimate tragedy we have in common. Every country will want to extract and sell fossil fuels. Without a rulebook, I cannot see how we can prevent a huge overshoot in our climate emissions.

In other sectors, there is already the potential for rules to be written. The IMO governs shipping. The ICAO governs aviation. These are examples of UN treaties brought into being in the 1950s to facilitate global trade. They now exist as rule-making bodies which can pass ambitious laws to help us decarbonise these sectors. I recently noticed that the global steel industry is asking for something similar. It has come together under the Global Steel Climate Council and is now calling on legislators to bring in a global standard for environmentally friendly steel. This is a call to the UN to legislate. This kind of level playing field will facilitate industry and benefit everybody. We need to see much more attention given to sectoral level standards to drive investment.

I will quickly touch on agricultural subsidy reform. Agriculture is responsible for a quarter or more of our global emissions. It is the one sector where public money is driving the problem. In most other sectors, some sort of tax has to be levied or regulations imposed. With agriculture, all that is needed it to divert current public spending into solutions and away from problems. We need a G8 a G20 or some form of GX conversation around agriculture subsidy reform. It is an easy lever; we should be pulling it as fast as we can.

In my remaining time, I will pick up on the role of legislators. I was lucky enough to attend a grouping of parliamentarians in Luxor ahead of COP, organised by the Climate Parliament. It brought together over 100 legislators to discuss important issues, including how we can make greater progress domestically and have our voices heard internationally. It is time we recognised the hugely important role of legislators in the COP process. Often, they are forgotten and not even classified as stakeholders, yet when countries come back from talks and want to see action domestically, they need their legislators to be able to support it. They need an informed, cross-party consensus that action is needed. If we can include legislators more formally in this process, we will see a smoother transition from pledges made at international talks to domestic delivery. So I encourage all future COPs to make a more formal arrangement for the role of legislators in driving both collaboration and domestic action.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, in opening, mentioned technology and what the UK can offer in this respect. There are two technologies where we are world-leading, and we should be very proud of this. The first is in transmission: the boring process of connecting countries together with sub-sea cables to allow us to trade electricity across borders. We have a hugely important story to tell there, as it is a fundamental aspect of any kind of transition to clean electricity. We have already demonstrated that we can lay these cables over thousands of kilometres and other countries are looking to follow our lead. We should be very proud and encourage others to do the same.

The second technology is nuclear. We have a choice ahead of us. We can either become an importer of technologies from other countries or go back to our strengths and develop a UK reactor that has export potential. We can develop a modern, high-temperature nuclear reactor in this country that all countries, especially those in Asia, can use rapidly to replace their coal-fired power stations, repowering those sites with high-temperature reactors. The UK can lead in this. I strongly encourage the Government to continue on the path they have already started, as these advanced reactors will be hugely important. We are at the lead and should continue on that path.