Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: Environment
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): It gives me great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and other learned Members on this issue One of my constituents wrote to me about climate change recently. Monica was concerned that her "children would never know about the beautiful natural world that is ebbing away", and she told me: "We need to act fast." Monica is 10 years old and I had the pleasure of meeting her at St Mary’s Primary School the other week. She showed me around each class in the school; they all asked me questions and every group asked some about global warming. Children care about this; my 12-year-old’s most frequent question to me about politics is why in this House we spend so much time on Brexit and so little on climate change, so it gives me especial pleasure to speak today, and I hope he is listening In High Peak we are seeing the impact of climate change on the moorland of the Peak District national park. Not only was there the largest wildfire on Saddleworth Moor after the driest June on record last year, but even in February we are seeing wildfires. It is a sign that parts of our peat moorlands are drying deep down Peatlands are among the best carbon sinks on the planet. In England we store 580 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in our peat, but degradation caused by industrial use, climate change and fire means that those peatlands are releasing 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year I pay tribute to Moors for the Future and the moorland indicators of climate change initiative, which brings secondary school children up to the moorlands from our towns and cities to measure the impact of climate change on our peatlands. They are one of the best indicators Moors for the Future has EU funding until 2020 but after that it needs a long-term commitment to investment, and I call on the Minister to look at this and make a commitment to its vital work. Alongside beautiful moors, between Manchester and Sheffield we have seen cuts to our bus services and trains, with little opportunity for off-road cycling. People in my constituency are obliged to drive, and not just our cities but even towns in the countryside like Glossop and Tintwistle are seeing air pollution exceeding safe levels. But we have only one public electric vehicle charging point in High Peak. Electrification by 2040 is just too late Our bus services are still being cut, and there are cuts to commuter trains, giving my constituents little choice. But I pay tribute to all my constituents in Sustainable Hayfield, Transition Buxton, Transition Hope Valley and Transition New Mills who are working locally on developing sustainable transport and energy solutions, on tackling plastic, on refillable water bottle schemes, on locally grown food and on the first community-owned hydroelectric scheme in the UK in New Mills. Our communities are acting, but they see us in Parliament doing little, as colleagues have mentioned. We cannot just pay lip service. We have great recycling bins with big stickers on, but all the rubbish from Parliament goes into the same bags. We must commit to doing, as well as to just talking. We must commit to zero carbon by 2050 and to reinstating the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which will offer a much better opportunity for Conservative Members than fishing, I am sure. This will help us as a Government but it will also create a better society.