Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Claire Louise Perry (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope not to try the patience of the House—I will be making a further statement on this topic later this afternoon—but I want to take this opportunity to join you, Mr Speaker, in welcoming Ms Thunberg and her team to the United Kingdom Parliament. We tried very hard to meet her personally but, despite the best efforts of our diaries, we could not do it. I know she has met many Members of the House of Commons today, including my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Watching the protests over the past few days, both here and globally, has raised slightly mixed emotions in me. First, there is excitement that the conversations that many of us were having about climate change 30 years ago are finally moving from niche to mainstream. The question is not "Why act?" but "How fast can we act?" Secondly, we completely understand the brilliant scientific evidence base, the motivation and the commitment that are driving people across the world to make their views known, but I worry that many of the messages we are hearing ignore the progress that is being made and, as such, make people fearful for the future, rather than hopeful Here in the UK, thanks to excellent cross-party working, we were the first country in the world to pass a climate change Act. We have led the world in reducing the carbon intensity of our economy over the past 40 years. We have made huge progress on plastics-free activity. Last month, renewables contributed to over 40% of our electricity supply. In fact, just this last weekend we had our longest ever period of no coal contributing to electricity generation in the UK; and we now have more than 400,000 people working in the low-carbon economy Of course we share the desire to raise this country’s ambition, which is why we asked our independent Committee on Climate Change to advise us on how best to reach our net-zero target—we were the first industrialised country to ask for that advice. I am also pleased to welcome the cross-party support for our bid to host the crucial United Nations climate change talks next year. I have to say that, although the protests have been respectful and good natured, they have caused disruption for many hundreds of thousands of hard-working Londoners, and they have required a heavy policing presence. I thank the police—I think we should all agree on that—for their professionalism and for their proportionate response, especially over the holiday weekend We know we need to continue and accelerate the decarbonisation of our economy, across all aspects of activity, and crucially to help other countries around the world, especially those not at the same stage of economic development as us. That is going to require a broad-based, engaged, informed debate to deliver the low-carbon progress we need; this must be fair, just and progressive, and able to be shared. I am pleased to say that our progress to date has been supported by all political parties, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his great leadership and continued support in this area. Our work has been supported by all political parties in the UK, and I hope we can continue to work together to drive the changes we must make in order to secure our future. We have to secure the future of planet A, because there is no planet B.