Professor Tim Benton
Well, hello, everybody, lovely to see so many people, lovely to be back in the hall after what does seem to be quite a long and slow post-COVID recovery. Welcome everybody online, welcome everybody here.
This is a special event, which is the first in a series of what Waddesdon Club Seminars – Webinars, which is organised by Chatham House. The mission of the Waddesdon Club is to support the mainstreaming of climate change considerations into economic and financial decisions, both domestically and internationally. And it gives me extreme pleasure to – and honour to welcome the Rt Honourable Alok Sharma, COP26 President to speak, as we all know.
COP26 in Glasgow was the most important climate meeting since Paris. This was the first meeting to advance the NDC ratchet mechanism to drive up climate ambition. It was therefore a key opportunity to test whether the Paris Agreement is working to limit global warming to well below 20, preferably 1.50. It also builds on much new science, including the IPCC reports, especially AR6 that – which came out earlier and the 1.50 special report, which really highlighted that every 0.10 matters, in terms of its impacts.
COP26 also occurred in the year marked by extreme weather. Wildfires, heatwaves, floods that make the issue of climate change both real and tangible to citizens worldwide. As the COP26 President, Mr Sharma played the lead role in the preparations for the summit, rallying countries across the world to raise their ambition and brokering the Glasgow Climate Pact for some, its main agreement, a mammoth and emotional task right to the wire. Speaking shortly after COP26, Mr Sharma concluded that COP26 had kept 1.50 alive, but that its pulse was weak. It will only survive if promises are kept and pledges translated into action. Today’s event allows Mr Sharma to reflect on the success of the Glasgow Summit and set out the UK’s priority for the rest of the Presidency, up to COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh.
He has recently visited the hosting countries of COP27 and COP28, Egypt and the UAE together and so can also report on how COP26 and the UK Presidency can shape the immediate future of ambition, particularly around agreeing further revisions of the NDCs and on public and private climate finance, including greening the global financial system.
There is also the issue of how the UK Presidency plans to deliver for climate vulnerable countries, ensuring that richer countries honour their commitments on adaptation and loss and damage. So that is the topic of today’s event, but first, a little bit of housekeeping. This event will be on the record and it’s being recorded and livestreamed. If you feel you want to tweet, please do using the Twitter handle, the hashtag #CHEvents. We will have a question and answer session in the second half an hour and, if you are online, please go through the speech and put questions into the Q&A function. People in the physical audience will be able to raise their hand. So, without further ado, and without wasting anymore time, over to you, Mr Sharma. Thank you very much.
The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP
Thank you, Professor Benton, for that kind introduction and thank you to Chatham House for hosting me today. Friends, around the world, 2021 saw troops mobilise, violence erupt and relations between old friends and allies strained. Wars dragged mercilessly on and tensions mounted between some of the world’s great powers and all around us, we saw a fractured and fractious world, as the pandemic continued to cause devastation across the globe. And yet, in a temporary structure on the banks of the River Clyde, 197 countries came together at COP26 and they committed to take action on climate, and they forged the Glasgow Climate Pact. And they did this because they broadly recognised three truths. Truths which impact every country on earth. Truths which should be uncontroversial, though some still seek to undermine them.
First, that this planet is our only home and we are in danger of destroying it. The science is clear. Human activity is responsible for our changing climate. Second, that inaction or delayed action on climate will create immense risks and costs and populations across the world demand, need us to respond and to respond now. And third, alongside the invaluable environmental dividend, there is an economic dividend to be reaped from tackling climate change. In fact, it’s been recognised by global business and finance. In short, climate is a space where national and global interests align and as a result, leaders recognise that, despite other differences, co-operation at COP26 was in our collective self-interest.
12 weeks ago, from the start of that summit, 12 weeks exactly today, those same leaders who came to Glasgow have a clear choice to make, and it’s one to be made in full knowledge of its consequences. Do they match the powerful rhetoric that we heard with concrete action? Do they honour the promises made in Glasgow or do they allow our success to wither on the vine? I believe that the collective self-interest that helped COP26 to succeed must now drive us to nurture the spirit of global co-operation forged in Glasgow and honour the Glasgow Climate Pact. And that is the essence of the argument that I want to make today and I want to set out how the UK will work over our COP26 Presidency year to keep the world on course.
First, however, I want to unpack that central idea that collective self-interest led to success at Glasgow. In 2015, countries came together and formed the Paris Agreement and in it, they agreed to limit global heating to well below 20 above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, pursuing efforts to limit this rise to 1.50. And yet, in August last year, the IPCC published its sixth Assessment Report on the Physical Science of Climate Change, the findings of which are based on the distillation of 14, 000 scientific papers and agreed by 195 countries. And that report concluded that we have already reached average global warming of 1.10 and that human activity is unequivocally to blame and that we are on track to breach the 1.50 limit within two decades.
So, when we arrived in Glasgow it was clear that COP26 was our last, best hope of keeping that 1.50 limit within reach and leaders understood that and they could see the effects of our warming world around them. Last year, we saw devastating floods across Asia and Europe, wildfires raged in the US and Australia and reports of storms, cyclones and record-breaking temperatures were everywhere, and the science is very clear. The higher temperatures rise, the worse the situation will become and every country will suffer the consequences.
Climate change does not recognise borders. At 1.50 warming, 700 million people across the world will experience extreme heat. At 20, it’ll be two billion. We also know that there are, what our host Chatham House calls the systemic cascading risk of global heating. These are the knock-on effects resulting from climate impact, such as food and water insecurity, pests and diseases, and the loss of lives, livelihoods and infrastructure. Indeed, in one of its recent reports, Chatham House makes the case that such factors could ultimately displace people, disrupt markets, undermine political stability and exacerbate conflict. Where people’s ability to feed their families becomes precarious and extreme weather and diseases wipe out livelihoods, people may be forced from their homes and civil unrest may ferment. Events that can undermine fragile government and reverberate around the globe. And it is because climate is central to geopolitics that the UK’s integrated review established tackling change and biodiversity loss as the UK’s top international priority.
But friends, this is as much a question of economics as security. Climate change also threatens catastrophic economic damage, just as we’re repairing the harm inflicted by the pandemic. Lord Stern and others have described how climate change will damage the productive capacity of the world economy, harming natural human and physical capital and ultimately, it will disrupt the trade that criss-crosses the planet and restrain the global economy’s ability to grow.
Back in 2006, the Stern Review estimated that unmitigated climate change could incur equivalent costs to wiping out as much as 20% of global GDP every year. And here, in the United Kingdom last year, the Office for Budget Responsibility projected that unchecked climate change could leave the public debt, reaching a staggering 289% of GDP by the end of the century. And this of course would be the result of coping with extreme weather at home and the knock-on effects of even greater damage in hotter countries.
Anyone who believes in fiscal responsibility should balk at the idea that we would laden future generations with such unsustainable levels of avoidable debt. By contrast, the OBR estimates that if we act now, the transition net-zero could add around 21% of GDP to government debt by mid-century, though of course, policy choices could reduce this figure and I would add that it includes investments with long-term benefits.
Given the impacts of global heating, it’s not surprising that people around the world are demanding action as indeed I’ve heard first-hand from civil society and young people across the globe. Last year, a survey of over a million people in 50 countries found that almost two thirds described climate change as an emergency. Research published last September found that almost 60% of young people globally felt that governments were, and I quote, “Betraying me and future generations.” And I’m absolutely certain that the unrelenting cause from civil society for leaders to act helped to focus minds in Glasgow.
So, just as the science has become starker and the risks have become clearer and the calls to action have grown louder, the opportunities presented by tackling climate change are increasingly evident. Net-zero is one of the clearest economic trends there has ever been. It is vast in scope, encompassing every country and every sector and it represents an enormous economic opportunity, one that is being seized by companies, by countries, and by financial institutions around the world.
I’ve travelled on a prototype hydrogen bus in India. I’ve witnessed agricultural innovation to reduce emissions and boost productivity in Brazil. I’ve met communities in Kenya connected to reliable power for the first time, thanks to solar, and around the world, markets are on the move. The amount of power generated by solar and wind has increased close to sevenfold in a decade. Internationally, the coal power pipeline has reduced over 75% since 2015 and domestically, the answer to cutting emissions, keeping bills under control, and ensuring domestic security and supply is to continue to build out our world-leading, offshore wind sector and invest in nuclear and hydrogen as the government is doing.
Major car manufacturers such as General Motors, Volvo and JLR have committed all of their new car sales to being zero emissions by 2035 or earlier. Financial institutions, with over $130 trillion of assets on their balance sheets, have committed to stringent net-zero targets to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero and over 60% of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies have done the same for the Race to Zero campaign.
As the CEO of a major multinational said to me recently, a few years ago a corporate was considered an outlier if it was setting out plans to go to net-zero. Now, they’re an outlier if they’re not. And an explanation for this was set out clearly in a letter last week from Larry Fink to Chief Executives of companies in which BlackRock invest. He wrote, and I quote, “It’s been two years since I wrote that climate risk is investment risk and in that short period, we have seen a tectonic shift of capital. Sustainable investments have now reached $4 trillion. Actions and ambitions towards decarbonisation have also increased. This is just the beginning. The tectonic shift towards sustainable investing is still accelerating. Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net-zero world. The question is, will you lead or will you be led?” I agree. That is indeed the question for business. Clean is competitive and the global race to supply the technologies and solutions a net-zero world needs is on. The train, my friends, is pulling out of the station and countries and companies that want to remain competitive need to leap on now.
We know too, that the move to green economies creates good, green jobs. The International Energy Agency has estimated that about 30 million new workers are needed by 2030 to meet increased demand in the clean economy. The International Labour Organization has projected that the – in the transition to a low carbon economy, some sectors could see four times more jobs created than there are lost. And there is a clear economic case to adapt to climate change to protect people and nature from its effect. The United Nations Environment Programme, for example, estimates that investing in measures like early warning systems and flood defences could yield over four times the return in avoided costs and social and environmental benefits.
So, what I came to understand, from the numerous conversations I held with leaders and Ministers over the past two years, is that countries recognise all of this. They can see domestically what is happening to their climate and its consequences. The science has hit home. The risks have resonated and the opportunities are increasingly clear, and as a result, a collective self-interest emerged. All countries saw that it was in their interest to come to Glasgow to co-operate and to keep the 1.5 limit alive. And we did 1.5 alive, thanks to what we achieved both in and outside the negotiating rooms. Ahead of the summit, a number of countries, though not enough, came forward with enhanced emissions reduction commitments or NDCs, showing that the Paris Agreement is working and at COP26 almost 200 countries came together and agree the historic Glasgow Climate Pact. And in doing so, they demonstrated that climate can create a space for co-operation amongst a splintered, global politics. That the world can work together to improve our common future, to address major global challenges and to seize opportunities.
The Glasgow Climate Pact recognises the science. It calls on countries to phase down unabated coal power and phaseout inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. It requests countries to revisit and strengthen their 2030 emission reduction targets, as necessary, to align with the Paris temperature goal by the end of this year and it contains ambitious text on loss and damage.
It commits us to rapidly scale up climate finance and to double finance for adaptation by 2025. And of course, we finalised the Paris Rulebook, the rules governing the Paris Agreement, the thorniest issues of which had remained unresolved since 2015. And outside the negotiations, we heard commitments from countries, from businesses, and finance to clean up sectors like power and road transport, to put an end to deforestation, to accelerate the pace of new technologies and to support developing countries. For example, 34 countries and five public finance institutions committed to stop international support for fossil fuel energy by the end of 2022. And I want to thank the Chief Executives and the business owners from the FTSE 100 to the SMEs who came forward with commitments. As well, of course, as our COP partners and some of whom are here today, a huge thank you to you as well.
So, friends, I believe that what we achieved together in Glasgow was significant and when my team and I established priorities in 2020, with the support of our friends of COP group, frankly we questioned whether we were setting ourselves up to fail and indeed, some thought that we were. And I have to tell you, I was advised that the chances of completing the Paris Rulebook were pretty slim. After all, completion had eluded the world for a full six years. And when my team and I were deliberating on whether we should aim to consign coal power to history, I was warned that we would never get the word ‘coal’ in a COP text and yet, every country at COP has agreed to phase down coal power. And we can confidently say that 2021 was the year that killed off public financing of coal power. Under the UK and Italy’s respective G7 and G20 Presidencies, we committed to end new, international coal power financing by the end of 2021.
And I have to say to you that a transformation is now afoot across the world. Last week, I spoke to a Minister from a country that wasn’t even talking about coal a year ago and now they are saying no to new coal power. Frankly, many doubted we would see a shift of this sort. Yet, we delivered our Glasgow goals and we were able to do so because of the trust between countries that we’d worked so hard to build as a Presidency. I spent much of last year building relationships. We held meetings in-person ahead of COP, despite the pandemic and to ensure that it was a truly shared endeavour, we asked individual Ministers from governments around the world to lead on critical negotiating issues. The Glasgow Climate Pact, I believe, is a product of international co-operation and a practical demonstration of Global Britain in action. And of course, the climate attachés in the UK’s diplomatic network played a vital role, just as they will throughout this year.
All-in-all, there is no doubt that the commitments we secured at COP26 were historic and yet, at the moment, they’re just words on a page. And unless we honour the promises made to turn the commitments in the Glasgow Climate Pact into action, they will sadly wither on the vine. We will have mitigated no risks. We will have seized no opportunities. Instead, we will have fractured the trust built between nations and 1.5 will slip from our grasp. So, my absolute focus for the UK Presidency this year is delivery. I’m under no illusions as to the scale of the task that we face, the difficult choices, which countries must make and the challenge we have as a Presidency now that the lights have faded on the global stage in Glasgow.
Working with Egypt, we must maintain the urgency and the energy as we approach COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh and just as leaders understood that it was in our collective self-interest to come together and forge the Glasgow Climate Pact, so that same collective interest should spur us to deliver at COP27. And that will become increasingly clear over 2022 and beyond as renewable prices fall further, the risks and opportunities become more apparent, and the science grows starker. And new reports from the IPCC this year will show the monumental risks that we face. So, action must begin now.
And it’s precisely 12 weeks since world leaders held their summit in Glasgow where they listened. As Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados told us that a 20 world is a death sentence. Where leaders sat in compassionate silence at the request of Youth Activist Elizabeth Wathuti who asked them to think of those whose stories are not heard and whose suffering is not felt. Where Sir David Attenborough inspired the world with his message that our motivation should not be fear, but hope. So, it is now time to honour our promises, to build on the trust and consensus generated in Glasgow and deliver with integrity, and that requires action on both a domestic and international level. We need every country to play its part and honour the promises that they’ve made, but we must also work together.
By aligning efforts internationally, countries can accelerate the pace of technological change. They can increase incentives for investment and innovate faster. Working in partnership, we can support a truly global transition and at COP26, for instance, we launched the South Africa Just Energy Transition Partnership through which countries came together to mobilise an initial $8.5 billion, and through international fora, we can set direction and we can spur action, as we did ahead of Glasgow at the G7 and the G20.
So, the UK Presidency will both urge countries to act individually and encourage co-operation, and we will do this around four key priorities. First, to ensure that countries reduce emissions as promised and go further to keep 1.5 alive. And that means, encouraging countries with a net-zero target to make a plan to get there if they haven’t already done so. It means urging all governments to honour the Glasgow Climate Pact and revisit and strengthen their 2030 emission reduction targets as necessary. The G20 is my personal priority here, given that they’re responsible for 80% of global emissions. That means asking all countries to turn their NDCs into policies and plans to deliver.
Second, we aim to progress work on adaptation and loss and damage. We will work with donor countries towards a commitment to double adaptation finance and with all parties to make progress towards the global goal on adaptation. We’ll aim to progress the Glasgow dialogue on loss and damage and we will further operationalise the Santiago Network, including its funding by COP27.
Third, we want to deliver finance to support these efforts. We will urge developed countries to implement the delivery plan on the $100 billion goal and support developing countries, and by COP27 we must be able to show that we are on a trajectory to meet that $100 billion goal. And we will work with all parties to make progress on the post-2025 climate finance goal as well. We’re also going to have to encourage the financial firms and the DFIs, the development financial – finance institutions that have made commitments to deliver with integrity and with others, we will build on the work that we have done with South Africa to unleash private and public money to fund the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, in other high emitting countries, supporting their national plans.
Our fourth and final goal is to push for further action across critical sectors, such as coal, cars, and ending deforestation and we will urge countries to act and we will work with partners to turn promises into clear delivery plans through the Energy Transition Council, the Zero Emission of Vehicles Transition Council, the FACT Dialogue and the Breakthrough Agenda. And in all of this, we will work hand-in-hand with our COP27 partner, Egypt, and support the holder of COP28, the UAE, both of which I visited earlier this month. And we will learn from the success of Glasgow, continuing to build trust and relationships, working through international fora and continuing to engage with civil society and young people.
So, friends, these are ambitious plans for our Presidency year and rightly so. Because as Margaret Thatcher, one of the first major international leaders to sound the alarm on climate change argued in 1989, “The environmental challenge, which confronts the whole world, demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no-one can opt out.” Her words are as true today as they were then, more than 30 years ago. What has changed in that time is the extent of our knowledge and the urgency of our task. Such awareness has given rise to a collective self-interest, powerful enough to deliver an international consensus in a fractured world.
The question now is whether, in full knowledge of the consequences, we choose to squander or realise that gain. The answer should be obvious. I have to say to you, after what was a pretty exhausting year, I settled down to catch up on some popular culture over Christmas and, like many others including you I suspect, I watched Don’t Look Up. You’ve seen it. But that final line stayed with me. “We really did have everything, didn’t we?” So, I say to you today, we do have everything, and we mustn’t throw it away. There is no more time to sit tight and assess. We must deliver, together, now. Thank you [applause].
Professor Tim Benton
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for a fantastic speech. While everybody is thinking about their questions and people online, if you can carry on typing in questions, I’m going to take Chair’s privilege and ask one myself and that is – no, I’m going to ask two, actually, briefly. You put a lot of emphasis on the Presidency on delivering the enormous public and private financial flows. You made a lot of progress, you made a lot of pledges, but what are the kind of, key and concrete next steps because, despite all the pledges, there is still very much a gap?
And then my second one, if I can just slip that in while others are thinking, a lot of the zeitgeist around COP was about raising the ambition, coming back with new NDCs. How optimistic are you that countries will come back with revised NDCs in the short-term and a bit cheekily, will the UK be one of those? So, if you could answer those, people think about your questions and then I’ll come back to you in a second.
The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP
Thank you for that, Tim. So, look, I mean, I think in terms of finance, you know, I’ve said this before, the reality is, without finance, it makes everything else very difficult, particularly for developing nations and that’s why, you know, I was very keen that we set out this delivery plan on the 100 billion and I want to thank our friends in the Canadian and German Governments for working with us on that and, of course, the OECD. What we saw in that plan is that whilst we are pretty unlikely to hit 100 billion in 2020, which I think was the original plan, we should get there in 2023 at the latest and we expect there’s a 500 billion will be deployed over that five-year period from 21 to 25. But you will also have heard there were announcements made from Japan, Norway and others at COP26, so I think one of the things that we need to do is see whether we can accelerate the plan, in terms of getting to the 100 billion.
I think the second issue, which I referred to in my speech as well is on adaptation and I think, for a long time many developing countries have failed and adaptation has effectively been the poor cousin of mitigation and that’s why the doubling of climate finance for adaptation by 2025 really was well-received, but then we need to show that that is starting to happen. And, you know, we talk a lot about the 100 billion, and that’s absolutely, vitally important, it is a totemic figure, but actually, we also need to unleash more private finance here as well, and I think there’s a real role for the multilateral development banks working together with the private sector to play in getting more money into developing countries. And I actually think, you know, Mark Carney and the team have done a great job in making sure they’ve got $130 trillion of assets committed to net-zero. But my ask of them has been, how is this actually going to translate into money on the ground in developing countries and there is a workstream as part of GFANZ actually led by the CEO of Macquarie Bank looking at precisely this, how do we ensure that that money comes across?
And the final thing I would say to you is that, and I talked about this in the speech is that, in the same way that we got countries to come together to provide a package of £8.5 billion to help with the energy transition in Eskom in South Africa, I think one of the things we need to look at is, there are other such country platforms that we could also coalesce around as part of the international community.
And, in terms of NDCs, well, as I said to you, I mean, I think we’re going to ask every country to come forward. The big focus for me is going to be on the G20 and will the UK come forward? Well, you know, I think we’ve got a pretty ambitious NDC and many of you will have seen the report that the CCC, the Climate Change Committee produced after COP setting out what they wanted us to be doing and I think they made the point that the UK needs to focus on delivery and clearly, we’re going to have to follow the science along with everybody else and see where we go, but it’s going to be about delivery and they also made the point about how we work through international fora like the G7 and G20 to urge others to come forward as well, and that’s clearly what – something that we will be doing.
Professor Tim Benton
Great, well, thank you very much. Right, I don’t quite know how we’re going to do this because we’ve already got 20 questions online and I can probably see 20 hands and we’ve got 20 minutes. So, I will pick three questions and if you can wait, if I call you, wait sitting down, a boom mic will come to you, take your mask off, ask your question, come back on. Online audience, I will come back to you three questions in a minute. Because of the complexities of what we’re trying to do, and we’re very concerned about this sort of thing, I will try and not just have a white male audience, if that’s alright, and so more women put their hands up. So, let’s just go – start off at the front here. One, two, three, and then I’ll try and be a bit more equitable towards the back.
Hilda Rapp
First of all, thank you so much for your wonderful message of hope because, without kind of, a real will to have a new vision for humanity and for investing in wellbeing, we are not going to do this. But you talked very lucidly about the new arrangements around adaptation and how we need to work together more closely to co-ordinate delivery of the monies that will be made available through private and public sector finance and development banks and what has been implied, but you haven’t said explicitly, is how you envisage a co-construction as it were, between local communities who need this money and de-risking the capital for them to use and to make sure that there is a coherent nationally aligned programme that allows this to really deliver on climate adaptation and lowering the risk of warming by restoration of environments? That was a long question, sorry.
Professor Tim Benton
Can you just introduce yourself, sorry, I forgot to say?
Hilda Rapp
Oh sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, I always do. Hilda Rapp, Centre for International Peace Building.
Professor Tim Benton
Are you alright to write these down as we go through? Number two, then, please, sir.
John Wilson
John Wilson, I’m a member of Chatham House, a Journalist and a member of a number of other think tanks and involved in politics. Mr Sharma, despite your best endeavours, I put it to you that the COP26 Glasgow Summit was in fact a failure and your ensuing year as President will be blighted because Russia and China are now too powerful to be made to abide by your rules, which, as we all know, are really necessary to achieve proper – global warming.
Professor Tim Benton
And the question?
John Wilson
That is the question.
Professor Tim Benton
It sounded more like a comment to me, but I’ll pass that to Mr Sharma in a minute. Final question in this round.
Trisha de Borchgrave
Thank you very much. Trisha de Borchgrave, Chatham House member and Current Affairs Writer. I really – I know it’s a bit of a loaded question, but I really would welcome your thoughts on the role on nuclear energy with regards to climate action. We all know this is dual use technology. We have yet to find safe and sustainable ways of the disposal of radioactive waste. This needs politically stable countries, it needs environmentally stable conditions, and this is an industry that I don’t – I won’t put it in your words, but in my words, is renowned for its lack of transparency when things go wrong, and you’re talking now about a global collective action.
I just wanted to very quickly say on these small, nuclear modules that everybody thinks are very sexy right now, we – there is evidence to point that we will need about ten of these small nuclear reactors to do the job of one large modern reactor. It’s extremely expensive technology, especially compared to renewables whose own lack of baseload capacity, if you want, really should be put into that context, that these nuclear reactors will take at least ten years, if not more, to come online and from an industry that, I hate to say, is known for its delays and cost overrun. So, my rather loaded question, I’m afraid, to you, since I think it’s pretty obvious where I’m coming from is, given the nature of today’s sadly inescapable realities and that will have to include cyberattacks and terrorism and new duo-political rivalries, you name it, as well as tsunamis and deadly storms etc., in your view, is nuclear power an acceptable source of clean energy? Thank you.
Professor Tim Benton
Thank you, and can I add to that question, the follow-up question, which is, where does gas fit into what is a sustainable energy source? Because we’ve had lots of questions about that, so, over to you, sir.
The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP
Shall I have a go? Thank you. Look, I think the first question was around – effectively, it’s around sort of, access to finance and one of the things that I think we, when we took on the COP26 role understood very quickly is that, you know, you can talk about the billions and the trillions, but actually, what you need to make sure is that this money is actually getting on the ground and that people are able to get access to finance. So, one of the things that we did very early on – actually, we had a very good discussion with civil society before we set this up, was a Climate and Development ministerial meeting in March and coming out of that, we set up an Access to Finance Task Force, co-chaired by the UK and Fiji, and at COP26 we then announced five pilot projects in developing countries, around Jamaica, three others, and Bangladesh that – where there are pilots going to be run. So, we can precisely get information how you improve the access to finance in these countries and get that money on the ground.
And I think in terms of you know, the MDBs for instance, I mean, one of the, one of the big discussions that there has been, if you talk to the private sector, is that you know, whether there is scope to set up for instance, first loss capabilities through MDBs, through the international financial institutions, to then allow on the back of that for the private sector to come in. And I think we need to see a lot more of this innovation quite frankly in the financial space, ‘cause otherwise, you know, we’re always going to be talking about those trillions and they will be unconnected with actually getting money on the ground.
And then the second issue, so you asked me whether Glasgow was a failure. It won’t surprise you to hear that I don’t think it was a failure and I’ll tell you why I don’t think it was a failure, is because firstly, we managed to get almost 200 countries to agree to this pact and, as I described to you, you know, we are – we were in this position last year as well. A really fragmented world, and you can see around you what is going on in the world, in terms of the conflicts and potential conflicts. We were in the same place last year and yet we did manage to get almost 200 countries to sign up. And we had a number of firsts that came through in this pact. The first is, that we got every country to agree to come back by the end of 2022 to look again at their 2030 emission reduction targets. No-one thought that was going to be possible. Literally no-one thought that was going to be possible. We agreed the rules of the Paris Agreement. Again, very few thought we would get, you know, things like Article 6 transparency frameworks agreed. Very few did. And then, of course, we also managed to get decisions on coal.
If I had been giving a speech here, this time last year and I said to you, by the time we get to the end of Glasgow not only will every country, every major country have committed to not do any more international coal financing, but actually, they will all have also signed up to phase down coal use, frankly, can I ask you, how many of you would have said that was going to be possible? Show of hands. No. Okay, well, we got that over the line. And when we set out, we had less than 30% of the global economy covered by a net-zero target. We’re now at over 90%. So, you know, I would say that actually what we achieved was historic. Certainly, that’s the feedback I’ve had from many governments and from society, but none of that will matter, literally none of that will matter, unless those commitments are turned into action, and that’s why I think, as Tim said, you know, I said after Glasgow and I’ll repeat it again, it was a fragile win. But it’s only going to be that heartbeat of 1.5, will only be strengthened if people continue – countries continue to deliver.
I think the issue on nuclear, look, you know, I – I’ve said, whenever I’ve gone round the world to every country, they have to decide what their energy mix is. But what you are increasingly seeing is the desire and the move to renewables, to clean energy. When I was BEIS Secretary of State, we put out a ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution, it’s the Prime Minister’s plan, and part of that, we were very clear that, as a government, we supported nuclear, both big nuclear and small nuclear, but yeah, every country has to make a choice. There are some countries in Europe, in Asia for whom nuclear is not going to part of the mix. Nevertheless, they also want to get to the point where they have a clean energy transition.
So, one of the things I’ve made sure I do not do, is go around the world and lecture people and tell them what their energy mix should be. It’s up to them to decide, but where we can support them, as we’re doing with South Africa in going from coal to a clean energy transition, that’s something that developed countries are going to have to do increasingly.
Professor Tim Benton
Thank you very much. I’m going to take a couple of online and then I’ll come back to the audience. So, I have to remove my glasses to do this. Daisy Dunne from Carbon Brief, “What are your thoughts on calls from some in the Conservative Party for the UK to invest more in UK oil and gas because of the energy crisis? Is this in the spirt of what was agreed in Glasgow?” Then from Megan Rowling from Reuters, “What do you see as the Presidency’s concrete next steps on loss and damage?” And then, from Ben Webster of The Times, “Have any of the G20 countries indicated to you since COP26 they will increase their NDC ambitions?”
The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP
Great, thank you for that. So, I think that the first question I think Daisy raised is about, you know, our, our energy mix. I think the – I think we need to – there’s a certain conflation that is going on about what is happening, in terms of gas prices right now and what that means, in terms of net-zero. I mean, I have to say to you that I do not believe the two are connected. The reality is, the reason that we have got gas prices going up 3/400% from last year is a combination of macro-economics and geopolitics and, I mean, you all understand that. So, we don’t need to go into that but, clearly, you know, people in the UK will want to see a support coming through with the cost of living, and there is support being provided through the Warm Homes Discount, the support that’s provided to pensioners and, of course, there is extra money that’s been given to local authorities again, to support those who are most in need.
Ultimately, that issue, in terms of helping people with the cost of living is a matter for the Chancellor and the Prime Minister and I hope we will hear more on that. But I do think that is separate from the issue of achieving net-zero, and I go back to the point that, if you want to have security of supply domestically and if you want to keep prices low and you want to cut emissions ,which is what, by the way, we have signed up to in the Conservative Party Manifesto, then what you need to do is more of what we have been doing, which is continue to build our renewables. You know, we’ve got, I think, about 11 or 12 gigawatts of offshore wind right now. It’s been a huge success story.
Right, when I’ve gone round the world, you know, people have said, you know, this is the UK leading the way. We know that by 2030 we want to push that out to 40 gigawatts. And of course, on top of that, you need to make sure that you push further, in terms of the baseload and that’s why we’re going to be doing more on nuclear. And by the way, this isn’t sort of, me saying this, if you listen to people like Fatih Birol who runs the IEA, I mean, he will tell you that, you know, this is – what is happening, in terms of gas prices, is not a reason to stop the move towards clean energy and net-zero. In fact, it should provide a spur for countries to do more in this direction.
The – I think, Megan from Reuters asked about loss and damage. Well, we agreed the Glasgow Dialogue ultimately – sorry, I’m getting a bit techy here, but the subsidiary body is going to be leading off on this. The key issue, I think, during this year is to see progress in that area and I know that having talked to our colleagues in Egypt, that’s again, something that they will want to see. And you know, people have different views about where the conversation ends. They key thing is that we try and build consensus around a common solution and that’s work that has already started.
And I think the final question from Ben is, do I expect any of the G20 to increase their ambitions? I mean, what I’d say in response to that is that, if you have a look, there were a number of G20 nations that announced their NDCs which have not yet thought – improved NDCs actually, which have not been formally reported to the UNFCCC, so they count as part of the process. That’s obviously something that we will want to see happen during this year. There are a range of countries that announced new policy formulations, which are not reflected in their NDCs. Obviously, we would want those to be reflected as well by the end of this year. And then, of course, there are countries that just haven’t improved their NDCs at all and we will be pressing them to improve those NDCs.
Professor Tim Benton
Great, thanks very much. Right, we’ve probably only got time, if you keep your questions brief, I will go one, two, three, and then, if questions are brief, there’s a chance for another round. It’s above you.
Nicholas Mclean
Can you do more to callout greenwashing and can you be specific on how coal can be phased down? Nicholas Mclean.
Professor Tim Benton
Thank you.
Natalie Seddon
Hi, thank you. Nat Seddon, President of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford and a friend of COP. Thank you for your vision and your leadership. Just reflecting, if I may, on your words about net-zero. Clearly, we embrace the fact that companies and governments across the world are embracing net-zero, but very, very few of them are underpinned by robust, science-based plans. Many of them rely on negative emissions technologies, which are in no way yet ready to go to scale and have an over reliance on tree plantations, which could do a lot more harm than good. So, I want to know what we’re going to be doing this year to ensure that the UK particularly delivers a very robust science-based net-zero plan and linked to this, what are we going to be doing to ensure that the Glasgow leaders’ pledge or Declaration on Forests is the success that the New York Declaration on Forests was not? Thank you.
Professor Tim Benton
Now blue shirt, lady in the blue shirt, Emily.
Dr Emily Shuckburgh
Emily Shuckburgh from the University of Cambridge. One of the innovations of the UK Presidency was the focus on sectors with coal and electric vehicles and deforestation and so forth. I wonder whether you feel that that’s been a successful model and whether you would like to see it extended to other sectors?
Professor Tim Benton
Just one final question because we need to – Fiona, if you can ask your question.
Fiona
I think I need…
Professor Tim Benton
You can take your mask off.
Fiona
Thank you. Thank you. I think any fair-minded person would say that Glasgow was a huge achievement, but since then, we’ve seen some terrible things happening. In the United States Joe Biden is having great trouble pushing forward his agenda, China is expanding its coal production and around the world, in fact, it’s party time for coal in the context of the post-COVID energy crisis. Mr Sharma, everything’s falling apart, isn’t it?
Professor Tim Benton
A good, sharp question from the Press. Thank you very much, Fiona. Okay, so, Mr Sharma, can you manage those?
The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP
Yes, thank you so much. I think that the first question is on greenwashing and, I mean, I think this is something that quite rightly, frankly, has been raised by civil society that, you know, commitments ultimately have to be underpinned by the science. And, I mean, if you look for instance at GFANZ, I mean, those who are committing to it are required to set out their decarbonisation plans up to 2025 and – or 2030 and to do that on science-based targets. And there is, sort of, an annual review of this process and clearly, those who have signed up to GFANZ have to up 18 months to set out these plans. I think so what we’re all going to have to see is what happens in 18 months from now and if those institutions that have signed up are not, you know, having science-based targets on decarbonising, then they should no longer part of that GFANZ grouping. I mean, that’s the whole intention. And I think that’s something that, you know, everyone will look to.
The other thing, I think the other issue that was raised was, in terms of a coal phase down. So, I talked about the reduction in the pipeline and I think it’s been really quite significant over the past five, six years. I mean, if you recall, it’s only the commitment to end international coal financing from, you know, some of the countries that have been doing it. It came into place at the end of 2021 and I think that was really quite significant and we will see the impact of that over the next few years and anyway, if you talk to the private sector, you know, they are really reluctant to invest in coal because what they can see is the direction of travel. They can see that they’re going to end up with potentially stranded assets and, you know, that is a reason that you will not see a great deal of private sector money going in there. So, I mean, what I would say is that, you know, let’s have this conversation again in a few years and see where we’ve got to, in terms of coal. I mean, domestically, of course, you know, we had around 40% of our electricity mix was coming from coal in 2012. We are now at you know, below 2% and I think by – I think by October 2024 we want to ensure that there’s no more coal in our energy mix. So, again, the UK has been leading on this issue.
I think in terms of – I think the second question was again similarly on, sort of, science-based targets. One of the things that you will have noted that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced at COP26 is that UK financial institutions and listed companies will be required to set out their own transition plans and to ensure that these are robust, there is going to be a task-force, which will be appointed, which will look to ensure that these plans are indeed robust and are science-based. And I think that actually is a really very positive development, in terms of what we are doing domestically. And, in addition to that again, at the World Leaders’ Summit, you will have heard António Guterres talk about setting up his own task force in looking at these issues, so, I mean, let’s see how that work moves forward.
On the issue of the forest pledge, yes – actually, this is the case for all of the commitments that we’ve made. There are a whole range of mechanisms already in place to track them. I think in the case of forests again, there are a number of existing mechanisms that are in place. But I think the really positive thing here is that underpinning the requirement of these pledges was about $14 billion and I am pretty sure that both the public and private sector institutions that are going to be putting money in to end deforestation will want to see results. I mean, it will be on the basis of producing results as well, so that I think, if nothing else, will ensure that people do keep to the commitments that they have made.
I think Emily raised this issue about different sectors. Yes, I mean, you will know the Prime Minister’s talked about coals, cars, cash, and trees and actually, it’s worked because one of the things that we did at the start and when we sort of took on this role back in 2019, was to say that not only were we going to focus on the technical negotiations, but also, we were going to connect the real world economy to what was going on at COP26. And we decided that we would have sector focus, so we – very early on, we said we were going to have a Transition Council made up of Ministers around the world looking at energy, looking at transport, and we followed this through, agricultural as well, we followed this through to the commitments that you saw from the private sector as well, in these sectors. So, yeah, I mean, I hope there’s an opportunity to build through other sectors, as well and as, you know, the Glasgow Breakthrough as well, has set out a whole range of sectors that would be covered. So, we’ll see where we get to. Maybe I should come back this time next year and we’ll see what’s actually been achieved.
And finally, the question about whether everything is falling apart. Look, I don’t think things are falling apart. I think what we’re going to have to look at is what happens over a period of time? What happens over a cycle, in terms of the movement? If I said to you, you know, if you look at coal and the pipeline, significantly reduced over the last six years. I mean, let’s see what happens over the next few years, as I said, particularly when you look at the commitments that have been made on ending international coal financing. I think that would make a big, big difference as well and, you know, in terms of the US, I mean, I very much hope that the US, the current administration will push forward and get over the line the commitments that they’re seeking.
Actually, having the US back on the frontline, the fight against climate change has been very positive and I want to pay tribute of course, to John Kerry as well, who’s done a really, sort of heroic job, together with many others, to ensure that we had success at COP26.
Professor Tim Benton
Right, thank you very much, Mr Sharma. I’m sorry, we don’t have any more time because we are already 30 seconds past 1 o’clock. I have done very badly. We’ve got 40-odd questions online and hundreds of people in the room who would like to ask extra questions. A really big thanks to the Rt Honourable Alok Sharma for coming and talking to us. Whatever one might think about the success, the ambition of COP26, no-one can doubt his personal commitment to drive things forward, so really great thanks for you coming here [applause].
So, thanks very much to you online and in real life. In a couple of minutes, if you could just wait for us to leave the stage, there will be cups of coffee upstairs at the top of the main stairs in the Neill Malcom room. Thanks very much to Cabinet Office Team for helping us put this event on. Thanks very much to the Chatham House behind-the-scenes team and thanks to you all for being really engaged, and I’m very sorry we didn’t get to all of the questions, but there might be ways of harvesting your question and getting a response. Thank you very much. So, if you’d just like to run away first and then follow us out through the door. Thank you very much.
