Yesterday, Peers for the Planet held a parliamentary reception to celebrate three years of cross-party action on climate and nature.
The event, held in the River Room in the House of Lords, brought together cross-party members of the grouping with a wide range of supportive stakeholders, showcasing the policy breadth and sectoral reach the group has achieved over the past three years.
The Lord Speaker, Lord McFall of Alcluith, opened the event and congratulated the P4P grouping on its cross-party reach and inclusivity, its sense of responsibility to society and achievements in convincing Government that real measures of change are essential and possible.
Sir Alok gave a keynote speech reflecting on the achievements of COP 26 and how for three years domestic leaders in the UK showed they can work together to achieve common goals, resulting in one of the most successful COPs and demonstrating the UK’s international leadership and soft power capabilities.
Sir Alok welcomed the recent acceleration in deployment of renewables, EVs and the progress made on Loss and Damage, but said there was much progress to be made. He warned even if the commitments made so far are delivered this will still mean 1.8 degrees of catastrophic warning, and our net zero targets therefore remain on life support. He said at COP 28 there will be a global stock take on progress and the key issue will be how the world responds to keep 1.5 degrees alive.
Finally, Sir Alok said that we will not get to net zero unless we can unlock finance at scale and called for reconfiguration and reform of international financial institutions to put the fight against climate change central to what they do. As next year will be the 80th anniversary of Bretton Woods, he called for parliamentarians to join him in pushing for a ‘Bretton Woods II’ – as if we can reimagine the global financial system, we can have a fighting chance of keeping 1.5 degrees alive.
P4P Co-Chair, Baroness Hayman and P4P Director, Lynette Huntley then led reflections on the group’s successes over the past three years and highlighted the strength of the now proven P4P model in bringing together a cross-party group of talents and expertise. They urged the P4P grouping and broad supporter base to now look at the tremendous task – and social and economic opportunity – that lies ahead of us, and why in these next crucial years of delivery it will be more important than ever to continue to work together to secure practical action to deliver on our climate and nature goals.
“It was an absolute pleasure to speak at the Peers for the Planet event. We discussed the need for the international financial system to get more finance flowing at scale and to put consideration of the systemic risk of climate change at its heart. It’s time to build momentum towards a Bretton Woods II moment.” Sir Alok Sharma, former COP 26 President
“There are so many different interests and groups represented in this room which is why we have so much work to do across so many areas to place a climate lens on things. It has been a good three years but there is so much more to do. The public as a whole understand the severity of the situation and want politicians to do something about it – we need to follow public opinion on this and recognise the huge agenda and opportunity ahead of us.” Baroness Hayman, Co-Chair, Peers for the Planet
“Everyone in this room knows how hard it is to make change, but this is what cross-party collaboration and a step change in political momentum looks like, and also what UK international leadership looks like in terms of domestic delivery”.
Lynette Huntley, Director, Peers for the Planet
コメント