HL Deb 23 June 1992 vol 538 cc416-34

5.21 p.m.

Lord Hatch of Lusby rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what new initiatives they intend to take following the Rio Conference on the Environment and Development.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, it has been suggested, especially in government circles round the Rio Conference, that the conference should be considered as a beginning—that is, the starting point —rather than as an achievement. However, some of us have been engaged in preparing for the conference for over two years. I have been working for well over two years particularly with third-world governments. Indeed, only last year I travelled among the SADCC countries to assist them in preparing their case for Rio. We know that negotiations have been taking place in a variety of centres during that two-year period. We have been constantly saddened, and at times angered, by the failure of those negotiations to achieve the central purpose of the Rio Conference.

I fully admit that Rio had some positive aspects. Above all, it provided an extension of public consciousness and public awareness of the issues of the environment which many of us believe will dominate the next half century in all continents. But there is a worry in that connection. Noble Lords will remember that just over 10 years ago there was another such conference at Cancun in Mexico. It was based on the report of the Brandt Commission and also raised public consciousness and awareness. But what did it achieve? What has happened since that conference?

The object of Cancun was to bring together, as in Rio, the first and the third worlds in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two of them. However, since Cancun, that gap has widened; it has not been narrowed. As has been vividly illustrated in the past few weeks from the United Nations development programme report, if we look back over the past 30 years from 1960 it will be seen that in 1960 the richest 20 per cent. of countries had incomes 30 times greater than the poorest 20 per cent., but that in 1990 the richest were 60 times more wealthy than the poorest. Moreover, if one looks at people rather than nations, the gap between the richest 20 per cent. and the poorest 20 per cent. among the people in the world is now well over 150.

Cancúun provided us with fine phrases and fine words, as did Rio. But even before the Rio Conference met—and as I suggested in our debate before the conference took place—cracks had deliberately been developed in the pillars which were to bear the Rio Conference. I have in mind especially those in the climate treaty, a treaty in which I have a particular interest having worked with the climatologist at the University of East Anglia for some years on that very issue. That treaty was emasculated. It was emasculated before Rio. It became quite clear that the British Government were playing a part in the emasculation process. The British Government were making it easier for the United States phraseology to be used in the treaty which removed the commitments, and the targets, that had been fought for over that two-year period of negotiation and substituted mere empty aims.

When the final negotiations were entered into, it was seen that it was the United States, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that were the main opponents to making commitments in the climate treaty. Why was that? It was because they were anxious to continue the use of oil, and in the case of the United States it was the use of oil and coal. That was borne out by President Bush in the statement that he made just before Rio when he said that the environment movement would not be allowed to shut down the United States. What short-term, blind myopic language to use!

Such language is short term because, by any test, a programme of energy efficiency, allied with the development of high technology, could very well increase economic progress, wealth and recovery in the United States. It is in their interests, just as it is in ours, to pursue the path of reducing energy waste, which surely is seen to make them especially uncompetitive and which has added to their national deficit. To follow the policy of energy efficiency would be in the economic self-interest of the United States and of the rest of the developed world. However, there is this constant obsession with market forces: in other words, leaving things to the free market. As the report to which I referred—namely, the United Nations development programme report—both states and illustrates, market forces always work for the benefit of the strongest; and the weakest go into the process weak, and come out weaker.

I welcome the fact that the British Government have stated that they will provide a new chance to assist the third world countries in developing without polluting. But there are questions that need to be asked. First, as I understand it—and perhaps the noble Baroness will either correct me if I am wrong or substantiate what I say—the secretariat of the conference has estimated that Agenda 21 would need 125 billion dollars a year. I understand that Her Majesty's Government have offered £100 million and the Germans have also offered something, and this is to be paid into the global environmental fund facility. Yes, that was a start in the internationalising of environmental aid, but unfortunately the global environmental facility has been placed in the maw of the World Bank. That is not only resented by the third world countries; it is also seen by them and by many of us to be a contradiction in terms.

The World Bank is part of the Western economic programme and strategy. It has become notorious for its spending of aid on large capital intensive projects. What the third world has been asking for during the period leading up to Rio to which I have referred is that a new fund be set up and that in it there shall be participation and influence from the third world over how the money should be spent. Even Chancellor Kohl when in Rio called for an increase in the democratisation of decision-making within the World Bank so that the developing countries could participate in and influence the use of the money that was provided. To leave the World Bank as the sole repository of the money and the sole arbiter of how it is to be used is, I suggest, a contradiction in terms. The World Bank, as presently constituted, will not and cannot participate in what is, above all, the means of enabling third world countries to avoid the polluting patterns of the first world and at the same time to avoid coming under the control of those economic forces which are based in the Western world.

So what was the scenario to be discussed at Rio? What is the stage on which this drama is being played out? It can surely be seen as a world divided into two halves. On the one hand there is what we commonly call the South, half the world, characterised by spreading deserts, water deficiency, high population, low energy consumption, high illiteracy and diarrhoea, low employment and low industrial output, high debt and low income—the South, which owes the North 20 trillion dollars and has a net outflow of 50 billion dollars a year. It is a third world which naturally and inevitably therefore is looking first to development, because development is the only hope for the maintenance of life itself.

On the other hand we have the North, based now on wasteful production and wasteful consumption, on increasing pollution and on a growing consumption of resources. Many of its countries are occupied now by juggernauts spilling out their carbon dioxide, their nitrous oxide and their ozone fogs. There is increasing air traffic, and we know very little about what effect air traffic is having on our upper atmosphere. There is a proliferation of motor vehicles, and it is estimated that there will be a 75 per cent. increase in vehicle kilometres travelled by the year 2010. In this country we are spending £15 billion on road building so that we can increase the number of cars until we get to the point of one car per adult-50 million cars in this country alone. We have the increasing use of energy-guzzling appliances, with the inevitable consequence of the search for a new means of energy, turning again to nuclear energy and all the problems of nuclear accidents and the disposal of nuclear waste.

All this is taking place while the Western world is in recession. Yet during the recession pollution has increased. It is estimated that over the past two years in this country alone—during the depths of a recession —the emission of carbon dioxide has increased by 2 per cent. What will happen when there is an economic recovery? What effect will that have on the environment? Do we really consider that in the picture that I have painted the lifestyle of this country and of the Western world as a whole can be sustained and go on with its constantly upward movement? Can it be sustained—indeed should it be sustained? Should we continue to use the resources in this country and in other Western countries out of all comparison to our populations and, as the Brundtland Report showed 10 years ago, taking away from the poor of the world their means of sustenance and development? Yet the third world has been encouraged and is being encouraged to follow our example.

What is going to happen when China and India follow the example of the industrialised world? Are we going to have 700 million more cars? If not, what is the alternative? Surely this is the context in which we are talking and have been talking about the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent. of GNP aid. That is 0.7 per cent. of our massive national income, not just as charity but as investment in a new kind of world and a safer world. How is it that in this country we have not been able to approach the 0.7 per cent., even when members of the Government were claiming that they had achieved an economic miracle?

How is it that during the past 13 years, whether we have been in a depression or in a boom, the percentage of our income being spent on overseas aid has never reached above half of what it was 13 years ago? How is it that the Dutch, the Danes and the Swedes can achieve this aim? Are their economies so much stronger than ours? Are their governments so much wiser? Are their economic policies so much more constructive and positive than ours?

Why cannot we, even at this stage, set ourselves the target which was accepted 10 years ago? What was the point of agreeing a target 10 years ago when we have been sliding away from it ever since? Why cannot we accept the target, as we were asked to again in Rio, when the French, the Italian, the Dutch and the Danes have all agreed? Why is it that in this country—a country which is noted for its charity and where donations to third world charities have been rising, even during a recession—there is such a contrast between the generosity of the people and the paucity of the aid offered by the Government?

I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some replies. I was glad to see that she was reported as being angry when she was in Rio because she was not allowed the resources for overseas aid that she would like. We shall back her in her anger, but we are entitled to know whether her anger has had any effect on her colleagues in government.

5.41 p.m.

Lord Pitt of Hampstead

My Lords, I should like to join my noble friend in debating his Question. It is right that we should ask the Government what new initiatives they have in mind following Rio because the Prime Minister said that there should be a follow-up. I shall suggest a few initiatives that I believe the Government should take.

I follow what my noble friend said about providing 0.7 per cent. of GDP as aid. One of the initiatives that the Government can and should take is to name a date by which they will attain that objective. The objective has been accepted but we are failing to achieve it, as my noble friend said. At this stage, especially as the Prime Minister identified poverty as one of the issues that needs to be dealt with, we should undertake to reach that target of 0.7 per cent. of GDP. I would set the end of this Parliament as the date, but I accept that we would probably not achieve it. Whatever date is set, we should strive to reach it, because it is one of the contributions that every developed country can make towards bridging the gap between the haves and the have nots, which is one of the big issues of the world.

The Prime Minister spoke also of the reduction of debt. It is to his credit that it is not the first time that he has raised that issue. He has been responsible for initiatives designed to reduce the debt of the poorest nations. Another initiative the Government can take is to liberalise that approach. That is what is now required. Having agreed that the poorest countries should have their debts wiped out, we should now liberalise the definition of the poorest countries and gradually increase the amount that we wipe out in that way. That is another initiative that we could take following Rio.

The Prime Minister talked also about the expansion of trade and private investment. Since all Western countries without exception insist that the development of the third world must be undertaken through private investment, we should find a way to provide incentives to private investors to invest in the third world. That is another contribution that developed countries can make. I put that suggestion forward as an initiative that Her Majesty's Government can take. They can offer incentives for private industry to invest in the third world.

The Government are in a good position to do something about all those initiatives because of their membership of the G7, the European Community and the Commonwealth. They can use their influence in all those organisations to obtain action along the lines that I have suggested. I should like to hear that the Government are planning, thinking or considering the possibility—I do not care what words are used—of doing something along those lines, especially during the next six months, when this country has the presidency of the EC.

That brings me to another issue—the Iwokrama rain forest programme in Guyana about which I thought we should have heard more from the Government. The Government are contributing to it. The ODA is making a contribution. The Natural Resources Institute in Chatham is conducting a survey, but I have heard nothing about it. It is a Commonwealth initiative. The President of Guyana offered the project 900,000 acres on Guyana's border with Brazil. The core of the scheme is the establishment of an international centre which to begin with would conduct research and educational programmes. It would be responsible for developing co-operative programmes with other institutions in Guyana and internationally. Although it is a Commonwealth initiative, it is intended to be an international project.

There is widespread anxiety about the destruction of the world's tropical rain forests which is supposed to be an important factor in the so-called greenhouse effect and global warming. The Guyanan experiment is of the utmost importance. It is envisaged that academic institutions and other interested bodies will be associated with the project through different types of membership, including cash subscriptions or staff secondments. The research institute would be international, and academic bodies all over the world would be associated with it. It would be a genuine attempt to investigate a problem in that area. The site of the project has many interesting features, apart from being breathtakingly beautiful. There is no human activity in the area except for a new road from Lethem, on the Brazilian border, to Georgetown, the Guyanese capital on the Atlantic coast. It is an area rich in tropical flora and fauna, with a good mix of forest species and terrain. Rivers and streams flow through the lush green hills and mountains. I have read in the literature that black cayman crocodiles, which are an indigenous species, can be found in the swamps. Thus it is a good area for the experiment being considered.

A large section will be set aside in its pristine purity as a wilderness reserve, to act as nature's evolutionary laboratory. That is an inviting project. It is hoped and expected that the international centre will start work by 1994, after legislation in Guyana and the receipt of extra funds. I gather that funds have already come from the UNDP, but they are small. I know that Her Majesty's Government have contributed through the ODA towards the survey of the site. As I said earlier, the Natural Resources Institute in Chatham plays a major part in the project.

I hope that when the Minister replies she will be able to tell me that all the initiatives that I have mentioned are either being considered or are in hand. I believe that it is not enough merely to say that we wish to follow up what has happened in Rio. I agree with my noble friend that we must have initiatives aimed at gaining from what has been achieved in Rio. I know that my noble friend is disappointed, as are many people, but there is no doubt that Rio is a start. Everything is now on the agenda; therefore there is everything to play for. I know that the Minister's heart is in the right place and I hope that she will tell us that she has been able to persuade her colleagues that there can be action.

5.53 p.m.

Baroness Seear

My Lords, there can be no doubt that environmental problems spring in no small part from the activities of the developed world. There is the absurd excessive use of energy, the guzzling of petrol and unnecessary trips in unnecessarily large cars at unnecessarily low prices. There is the encouragement to use the road rather than to get the freight in the appalling juggernauts back on to the railways. These all contribute greatly to environmental depredation. It is within our power to deal with them if we are sufficiently prepared and mindful of the consequences.

I should be the last person to say that all, or even a major part, of the issues on the environment are to be found in the problems of the developing world. But the fact remains that many serious environmental problems are to be found in the developing world and are likely to become more, not less serious.

I wish to concentrate on certain aspects of the problems of the developing world. Basically, the problem is deep, grinding poverty. When people are so poor that the difficulty is how to survive not even for the next year but for the next month or, in many cases, the next week, they are not interested in environmental matters. Why on earth should they be? They cannot get their heads sufficiently above the parapet to think of anything other than how they and their immediate family can keep going.

Thus, if we wish to deal with the environmental problems located in the third world, we must mean business about its poverty. Survival is an immensely powerful incentive and people there will be determined to raise their standards of living somehow. Wouldn't we all? Therefore, they will want to do what we have done in order to raise our standards of living. They will not be so concerned about what happens to forests when they need to clear ground in order to grow food or graze cattle or goats. They will not be so concerned about the future of the environment when they are worried about the future of their own immediate family the day after tomorrow.

If we want people to act in an environmentally friendly way —an over-used expression—in their own development, we must find ways to work with the grain of what they wish to do and what is beneficial both for them and for the environment. I thought that a recent article in the Econotnist summed up that approach very well. It stated: In many poor countries, inadequate environmental policies still kill people or make them ill, or leave them hungry. Dirty water, sooty air, the fumes from charcoal cooking fires, soil erosion and flash floods are all hazards that have long since been tackled in the rich world. Decent sewerage, safe drinking water, simple technology to control smoke and dust and farming methods that protect soil may not be environmental priorities with much appeal to the green lobbyists, but they are the reason why the governments of poor countries should he environmentally friendly". That is so because it works in the direction in which they wish to go and does not demand sacrifices from those countries of the kind— though with far less excuse—we ourselves are not prepared to make.

Thus, to find ways in which, with our aid, we can develop the kind of projects which are beneficial and help both the prosperity of the developing countries and the environment must be one of the major objectives of our aid policies.

However, poverty expresses itself in many other ways. Where there is no security to fall back on, no old age pension, no national health service, no unemployment pay, people must have children. That is their only security against life's inevitable catastrophes. It is folly to talk about population control—important though that is—as long as grinding poverty makes it absolutely necessary that people should invest in the family. It is the only investment, as they see it, which is likely to give them a reasonable return in terms of security.

If we talk of population control—as I certainly do —and encouragement of the voluntary restriction of families, it must be linked with an increase in wealth and prosperity. It must be linked with education. I have talked about that before in your Lordships' House and shall not do so again tonight. As long as just over 20 per cent. of the women of India are illiterate and therefore cannot even read the instructions on the birth control pamphlets that are given to them or on the equipment, it is not likely that they will be effective in controlling their families. Poverty underlines, and underlies it all.

Other speakers have talked of the poverty of the third world, of aid and debt. Those factors are important, but by far and away the most important is trade. That is what we must face. I am saddened as I believe no other speaker so far has mentioned the importance of trade. If we are serious about trade for the developing countries, that will cause problems for ourselves at home which are politically inconvenient for all political parties and all candidates in political elections.

I fought—as always, unsuccessfully—as a parliamentary candidate in Lancashire in the 1960s. The entire weavers' organisation was against me because I talked about free trade in a textile area. That was not a popular thing to do and it did me no good. It did no one any good but it gave me the opportunity to voice a point which needs to be made again and again if we really mean business about trade. If we are not serious about trade, it is not only the environment that will suffer, serious though that is, but it will also affect people as they will not stay in a country to starve. Despite the population increases in developing countries, we are asking them to stay put. They will find their way to other countries. That is happening already, and the racism that is developing on the north Mediterranean coast is a direct result of the fear that people in North Africa who have inadequate living standards will try their luck in the more prosperous parts of southern Europe. The consequences of that are already horrible to behold and they will become a great deal worse.

We must put the trade issue at the top of environmental issues. That means inevitably that we must address GATT. Where have we reached on GATT? Yet again, countries have experienced difficulties with GATT. I know the French farmers are roaring at the gates of Paris but they have roared before and they will roar again. Although they are worthy men in many ways, their problems are not to be compared in any way whatever with those of the people in developing countries. Surely it is time we learnt that. It is time too that those in the developed countries—if they are really to enable those in the developing countries to develop and to trade—decide where the price will be paid. It cannot just be paid by the people in the industries that will be badly affected. Of course those people will protest. They always have done and they always will. There must be a corresponding policy so that those who will lose out as we develop trade with the developing countries will in their turn gain the prospect of an alternative way of earning a living. These are big issues of policy and unless we face them, to a large extent it is humbug to talk about environmental issues.

6.3 p.m.

Lord Judd

My Lords, it is frankly intimidating to speak, even in a brief debate such as this, after such powerful contributions have been made by previous speakers. The whole House should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Hatch for the particularly powerful way in which he introduced this Unstarred Question tonight. I have known my noble friend for many years as a personal friend. If I have come to respect anything, it is his moral obstinacy and his resolute commitment to social justice. Those qualities have not always won him friends, but I believe that the third world's poor have had no more consistent champion in British politics than my noble friend Lord Hatch.

It has been salutary to hear another consistent champion of the poor speaking tonight, my noble friend Lord Pitt. He, too, has brought his commitment to bear this evening. We also heard the characteristic contribution—I hope I may use that term—of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who, again, has a formidable mix of tough intellect with moral fervour which she deploys to such effect. My noble friend Lord Ennals had very much wished to be here but due to a longstanding commitment he found it was impossible to be here for the closing part of the debate. My noble friend had been in Rio and he asked me to stress how sad he was not to be able to participate in this debate.

Whatever the unrealistic expectations in some quarters, UNCED was never going to be the occasion that saved the world. Even such a prestigious gathering as that which assembled in Rio could not achieve that. It would have been naive to suppose otherwise. However, countless people across the world, both rich and poor, looked to UNCED to put sustainable development at the heart of economic and political strategy and decision-making. They looked to it to provide at last the impetus and resources which were necessary significantly to reduce global poverty and to prevent unnecessary and irreversible damage to the environment. For that words were never going to be enough. Nevertheless, as my noble friend Lord Hatch has said, I fear that, to far too great an extent, words were largely what we got.

The outcome of Rio was rhetorically strong on ends but disappointingly weak on the practical means to secure the future. The watering down of commitments and the absence of firm timetables on issues such as aid flows, mean that it will be difficult to put in place effective and appropriate follow-up mechanisms. We can only hope that the Sustainable Development Commission will be given enough bite in the wranglings ahead to ensure that sufficient funds are provided to implement the list of good intentions spelt out in Agenda 21. But let us be clear on one point. Any obligation for this commission to work through the economic and social council of the United Nations will be the seal of cynicism. It is difficult to think of any UN body which, because of the absence of commitment by member governments, more lacks teeth than the economic and social council. The commission must have direct access to the General Assembly.

The Rio winners, at least in the short term, are undoubtedly the industrialised countries which, despite their rhetoric, can maintain the status quo. They generate 80 per cent. of global environmental destruction and consume 80 per cent. of the world's resources but they refuse to take responsibility for doing so.

World consumption patterns were not up for negotiation at UNCED; nor were the existing arrangements for world trade —the latter was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear—with all their inbuilt protectionist advantages for the wealthy at the expense of the poor. It is estimated that those trade arrangements cost third world producers some 75 billion US dollars. That is equivalent to 3 per cent. of their GNP. Nor was the European Community's common agricultural policy up for negotiation with its grotesque overproduction and export dumping, which so badly aggravate the trade and food security problems of poor countries.

Debt was not up for negotiation at UNCED, with the Prime Minister's much-heralded Trinidad terms still to be convincingly applied and still to win the backing of the US, let alone be extended. I know it will be argued—indeed my noble friend Lord Pitt has argued this tonight—that GATT, the Paris Club and the G7 are the places for these issues to be tackled. However, it is dismally clear to me that in those councils the powerful have not yet accepted that unfair exploitative trade policies, unfair agricultural competition and heavy debt burdens accentuate environmental degradation as the poor become more desperate in trying to survive.

UNCED, if anywhere, was the place to come to terms with those matters and to give the marching orders to the other institutions. Perhaps the biggest institutional winner of all is the World Bank representing, as in effect it does, the doctrines of the wealthy nations. As my noble friend Lord Hatch has reminded us, the bank is now set to implement most of what little emerged from Rio, with the additional resources contributed by governments, including our own, to the global environmental facility. While any additionality at all is to be welcomed, what is disturbing about the GEF is that, despite the improvements which have been made, it is still all too characteristic of the most serious developmental weaknesses in the hank's approach: those are a lack of openness and a lack of public accountability. In fact, more than half the GEF projects in the first and second tranches have been bolted on to existing World Bank projects, many of which in practice, environmentally and socially, leave a great deal to be desired and some may even be downright destructive. The bank now has new policy guidelines, which were much hyped at Rio, but at project level those reforms have yet to be convincingly applied.

Despite those criticisms, there was, as my noble friend Lord Pitt stressed, a vital, positive and even exciting side to Rio. The fact that the conference took place at all is a tribute to all those involved and especially to Maurice Strong, its indefatigable organiser. It was an important learning experience for governments and world leaders. It has strengthened and legitimised the partnership between governments and non-governmental organisations. Most important of all, for everybody with the wit to see it, it has established beyond doubt the inseparable link between development and environment.

Greatly to its credit, despite the sad, unimaginative intransigence of the United States, it has also inspired the conventions on climate change and biodiversity, although their effectiveness will be undermined by the absence of the additional financial support for the third world to make a success of them. I hope that we shall see speedy action on negotiating their protocols and on their ratification and that during the forthcoming presidency of the European Community the Government will take a lead.

The forest principles are weak, but at least they provide a basis for further negotiation. I hope that the new funds pledged for forests will be used in a way which benefits the forest dwellers—poor rural people and indigenous groups —rather than being channelled mainly into the development of commercial plantations, costly scientific research or the establishment of biological reserves. All new forest projects should involve local people, especially poor women, in their design, implementation and monitoring.

Many of the aspirations of Agenda 21 are far sighted. That is what makes the failure to provide the resources to implement them all the more frustrating. The emphasis on empowering the poor in their own fight against poverty is salutary. The sections on poverty, primary health care, education, female literacy, human settlements and sustainable agriculture should become firm guidelines for implementing bilateral and multilateral overseas development assistance everywhere, not least our own. The sensitive issue of population was approached positively and sensibly in a meaningful social context, an achievement for which the noble Baroness and her advisers can certainly take a good deal of credit.

But what, more generally, of the United Kingdom's position at UNCED? Verbally the Government undeniably took a positive line on many of the substantive issues. The Prime Minister's idea of an international non-governmental organisation forum in 1993 to assess implementation of Agenda 21 is a good one. We should like to hear more about what exactly he has in mind. There was very little in the speech of the noble Baroness at Rio with which I would disagree. Her reported anger at the paucity of the United Kingdom's aid effort was also music to our ears. Her comments about raising awareness of environmental and development issues in the United Kingdom is a challenge to which I hope she will herself respond by re-establishing the commitment to development education so ruthlessly eliminated by her predecessors.

The noble Baroness's anger at the size of the aid budget was in stark contrast to the failure of the Prime Minister to announce significant new resources in his speech, despite his assertion that, Money is the root of all progress". His call to make resources available for forestry conservation, biodiversity, energy efficiency, population planning and sustainable agriculture was timely. But what he totally failed to announce was any measurable additional resources to meet those goals. Instead, we gather that Peter is once more to be robbed to pay Paul.

The Government's obfuscation of precisely how much they are prepared to provide and when to fund the aspirations of Rio is frankly shameful. Their block on the European Community initiative to commit member states to 0.7 per cent. of GNP is lamentable. The Government blame the recession for their refusal to budge. However, over the past 13 years the rate of economic growth in the United Kingdom has outstripped the rate of increase in the aid budget more than fourfold. It may have gone up, as the Minister likes to remind us, since 1987–89 but it still has a very long way to go to recover the proportion of gross national product at which it stood in 1979, without the years of oil wealth which have followed.

My noble friend Lord Pitt referred to the need for a target date. Of course target dates can never be totally binding. It is impossible to foresee everything that lies ahead with accuracy but targets give something at which to aim and by which to judge performance. The absence of target dates from the Government's position gravely undermines credibility in their commitment. Even now, I hope that they will regard their European presidency as an opportunity to push ahead with agreeing a common European Community position on additional financial resources. By the same token I also hope that they will be firm in resisting temptations to play off the resource needs of Eastern Europe against those of the developing world.

Norwegian Prime Minister Brundtland has described Rio as: an important notch on the learning curve that will bring sustainable development to the top of the electoral agenda". I hope so. The most disappointing aspects of the Earth Summit were the inability of too many governments, of the rich countries in particular, to see beyond the next five years to future generations; to understand and realise that it is in their own countries' best interest, as the Secretary-General of the UN underlined, to implement sustainable development plans and provide substantial new resources for developing countries to do likewise; to recognise that while environmental abuse may cause poverty it is often poverty that causes environmental abuse; that social justice is a key element in sustainable development; that the environment is inescapably international and that the human species is part of that international reality; that we can no longer therefore manage human affairs in national isolation; and that effective arrangements for world governance have become an imperative.

That lack of vision by world leaders is likely to mean that the incidence of poverty will increase and that the degradation of our natural environment will continue apace. Perhaps it is only when the nightmarish results of that become more frighteningly evident that rich countries will be ready to strike a more far-reaching global bargain. Even if that were not to prove to be too late for the world, a terrible sacrifice will by then have been paid in poor people's lives and livelihoods.

The accelerating crisis for the future of humanity is far too grave for party political point scoring. If only the Government can turn their professions of good intent into rapid action—and that means providing the necessary resources for if we will the ends we must will the means—if the Government can do that convincingly, they will without doubt have the positive support of all of us on this side of the House.

6.18 p.m.

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has asked the Question. It was quite right that both here and in another place there should be an opportunity to debate the achievements of the Earth Summit. Your Lordships will know that there will be such a debate in another place on Thursday this week.

I have no argument with the fact that the position of our environment is serious and will become much more so if it is not tackled. However, I hope that to this debate we can bring some realism, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, most certainly did in her comments, and not always look at it in terms of the doomsday scenario which the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, certainly applies to each of the debates on the subject.

I was sad that there was nothing from the noble Lord on the great achievements of British scientists which have brought a number of the issues to a head. I think we forget what a tremendous reservoir of international standard scientists we have in this country—in our universities, botanical gardens and even my own department and the Natural Resources Institute to which the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, made generous reference. A great deal has been achieved by British scientists in the international field. It was their discovery of a hole in the ozone layer which allowed us to push forward for a conference on environment and development. It may have been a long while coming and many of us would like to have seen some of the advances very much earlier. But to make it a successful international conference—which it was—took time because we had to bring a lot of other nations along, too. But let us not forget the wealth that we in this country have of scientific knowledge which enabled us to see what could be done.

First, I should like to emphasise some of the achievements of the Rio Conference. Listening to previous speakers in this debate, one might think that there were no achievements. That is not so. The achievements are rather impressive, although that in no way means that the job is done. In fact what Rio has done is set an agenda for the 21st century and beyond, not for five or 10 years, although a great deal needs to be achieved early if Rio is to be a long term success. But it has to be planned realistically and carried out effectively, otherwise we shall find ourselves making errors on the way and not enthusing developing nations, and some developed nations, with the spirit and intention of Rio as summed up in that conference.

The conference heralded the signature by more than 150 nations of two legally binding conventions: one on climate change and the other on biodiversity. We have heard little directly of those conventions in this debate. But I must thank the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for what she said about emissions. I shall come to that point in a moment.

We agreed at Rio a declaration setting out clear principles for sustainable development. Some of those principles are not accepted by other developed nations, or were not accepted until Rio. They were all accepted by this Government. That was the Rio Declaration. We also agreed a declaration on the management of the world's forests. I shall return to that issue a little later.

In Agenda 21 we agreed a comprehensive action programme to tackle environmental and development problems into the next century. The conference agreed to establish a Sustainable Development Commission under the United Nations to oversee the implementation of Agenda 21. I believe the language on that was better than I dared to hope before going to Rio.

My right honourable friend the Prime Minister launched three British initiatives at Rio. That is the subject of the question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch: what new initiatives? The first of them is the Darwin Initiative. That will place the experience of outstanding British institutions, such as the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and at Edinburgh, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre at Cambridge, the Natural History Museum in London and many other institutions, at the disposal of other countries. They will be able to help developing countries conserve and manage the world's resources of biodiversity and natural habitat. The aim is to carry out further studies of available natural resources—to establish clear goals for research and monitoring, to develop more inventories of the most important species and to promote even better international co-operation and techniques for conservation.

I used the words "further", "more", and "even better" because a year ago my department published the book: Biological Diversity and Developing Countries—Issues and Options. It is perfectly true that the Government did not wait for the Rio conference to become thoroughly involved with developing countries in matters of biodiversity and conservation. We have never held back from that challenge.

The second important initiative announced by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister at Rio was the promotion of the partnership in global technology —about which I was asked earlier today in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Rea. We need to give developing countries better access to environmentally sound technologies to help them promote sustainable development as well. Information and interchange between British companies and the developing world are crucial to achieving that. As a first step the Government will organise a global technology partnership conference next summer to push it on its way.

The third initiative is the convening next year of a global forum of non-governmental organisations to assess and advise on the implementation of the Agenda 21 goals. Representatives of British nongovernmental organisations were advisers to the British delegation both before the conference and at Rio. It is of fundamental importance to us in this Government to share expertise and build on the NGOs' unique role in implementing environment and development projects.

As the Prime Minister said, we are committing new funds to help implement the agreements reached at Rio. He called for a replenishment of the Global Environment Facility of between two and three billion dollars which will be used primarily to assist the developing countries in implementing the conventions, and doing things which they might otherwise well not do. Britain's share will depend on the eventual size of the replenishment and the arrangements yet to be agreed for burden sharing between donors. But Britain's contribution will be about £100 million of new money.

During our presidency of the European Community over the next six months, the United Kingdom will give detailed attention to the follow-up to UNCED. Both environment and development ministers will be concerned with that implementation. We have to advance work on climate. There will be co-ordination of the initiative by the Community and member states to assist specific projects and programmes in key Agenda 21 sectors.

As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in Rio, we plan to make available substantial additional resources to assist forest conservation, biodiversity, energy efficiency, population planning and sustainable agriculture in developing countries over the next few years.

The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, tried to say that the results of the Cancun Conference, which in his opinion and that of many others were not very successful, would be replicated following Rio. I have to tell him that there are major differences between Cancun and Rio. First of all, from Rio we have the two conventions that I mentioned. We have an action plan for Agenda 21. We have the declaration of principles on forests and the Rio Declaration. We have the follow-up mechanisms: the Sustainable Development Commission and reporting on the conventions. We have the finance and the Global Environment Facility spelled out and we have further substantial resources. Moreover, we have political support at the highest level. There have never been more than 120 heads of government or heads of state at a single summit conference. Rio was indeed a summit, a summit of very major proportions, as those present knew. Never before have we had that degree of public awareness of the problems that we face and the challenges that we must live up to. I am delighted that, practically every time I am invited to speak anywhere at the present time, I am asked: "Tell us more about Rio." That is a measure of the very great difference between Cancun and Rio.

Many noble Lords mentioned resources. We spoke earlier today of the target of 0.7 per cent. of GNP. As I said at Question Time, Britain's aid programme in the 1991 calendar year was the fifth largest in the world. The Development Assistance Committee of the OECD compiled the volume of aid statistics for every member state. In 1990 we were the sixth largest. So we made some progress in 1991. That is where the fifth largest figure comes from.

I have already made reference to growth in real terms, and we have sought to make sure in recent years that the aid programme increased in line with our economic growth. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said on 15th June in another place, the key point is that the benefits to developing countries in terms of value for money have grown even more. It is not just a question of the international recognition for the effectiveness of British aid. British aid is also highly concessional; and that helps many of those countries very greatly. All the poorest countries receive their aid from Britain on grant terms.

Perhaps I may return briefly to the 0.7 per cent. of GNP target. We reaffirmed our commitment to the target at Rio. We cannot accept a timetable for reaching it in conjunction with a number of other countries, not because we are not prepared to work towards it—that is why the words "as soon as possible" were in the final agreements—but because we must review our spending as part of overall public expenditure. No one would thank us for putting ourselves once again in hock to the IMF by such spending as is boasted about by some Members of the Labour Opposition. We shall continue to take account of the economic circumstances in this country and the many other calls on taxpayers' money. What we spend and how we spend it are the key points, and the points on which so many others reflect with us.

The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, made reference to the great problem of debt. Although I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, was less than generous in his comments about the Prime Minister's proposal for the Trinidad terms, it is Britain, and it has been Britain repeatedly, that has made proposals for the official write-off of debt on an unprecedented scale. I am very pleased that our colleagues in the Paris Club recently began to implement the terms. More importantly, they committed themselves to reducing the debt stock of the poorest most indebted countries after three to four years of economic reform. That is an important step forward.

There is much still to be done. The United Kingdom has been pushing in the Paris Club, at Rio and elsewhere for further improvements in the relief available. Although it may not be felt by some noble Lords to be the right place, I can assure your Lordships that we shall continue to press in the G7 discussions that will take place next week.

In his speech at the Plenary Session of the Rio Conference, the Prime Minister took up both the point of debt and of the GATT round and trade referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. I wish to quote one point that he made. He stated: Even with better trade and reduced debt the poorest countries will need concessional finance. Britain will therefore mobilise its aid programme in support of the goals of Agenda 21". He referred to making available substantial extra resources to assist forestry conservation, biodiversity, energy efficiency, population planning and sustainable agriculture over the next few years. We shall also support a substantial Xth replenishment of the International Development Association during which we must consider a special increment.

Therefore the agenda has indeed been set—and a very tough agenda it is too. However, it is not an agenda for Government alone. I wish to refer to a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, about incentives for private investment. Government have removed the obstacles to British direct foreign investment in the developing countries. Helping developing countries to create the right political and economical environment that can be conducive to foreign investment is a key target. The ECGD runs an investment insurance scheme and we supported the creation of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.We believe that British firms have to make their own commercial judgment about investments and that government subsidy is not the answer. However, I can tell the House that net British private investment in developing countries is very substantial indeed. In 1990 it amounted to £1,500 million. It is substantial in relation to the other OECD countries.

We heard little in the debate about the global environment facility. But it was important that that was considered, and that we had the commitment to help finance those incremental costs for countries which will benefit from the activities in the global environment but which would not benefit necessarily in national terms.

Perhaps I may give your Lordships one example. Fifty per cent. of China's natural gas is produced in the Sichuan Province. The project to which we are contributing, which will reduce global warming, is to carry out a diagnostic study of the methane emissions produced and then to rehabilitate existing equipment so that the emissions of that potent greenhouse gas are reduced. That is practical research and practical implementation. The cost to the GEF of that project is about 10 million dollars. But it is a significant demonstration to all other developing countries because it will show how investment can be made in antiquated gas distribution systems in order to bring them up to the standard of industrialised countries without losing the power from that natural resource which they have in their own country. I could quote many other examples. However, I pass on to forests to which reference has also been made. The Rio declaration, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, is a first step. It is the first international consensus on the value of conservation of the world's forests. I pay particular tribute to my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and the German Minister for the Environment, Herr Töpfer, who between them made sure that we had principles on forestry. At one stage in the Rio Conference that looked a little doubtful, I must tell the House. However it is critical that we attain those principles because they recognise not only the need for the sustainable management of forests but also, and most importantly, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, stated in his speech, the rights of the people who live in and around the forests. There is recognition of the need for trade in forest products but for it to be carried out in a sustainable way. There is a focus on policies to tackle the underlying causes of forest loss, and to improve the management of forest resources. There is a reference to the use of environmental impact assessment in assessing investment and other activities affecting forests.

The Overseas Development Administration has just revised and updated its manual of environmental appraisal. It has been copied by the German Government and lessons have been learned from the manual by many other nations. Britain has not been slow to put environmental appraisal to the very top of the agenda. Nor shall we he slow to take other initiatives when they are warranted, or to push them with other countries. We have led the way too in our forestry projects in the developing world with about 202 forest projects overseas, at a cost of £160 million to the British overseas aid programme. We shall support the international efforts in forestry. We shall continue to work for a successful reform of the tropical forest action programme.

The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, paid a kind tribute to the Natural Resources Institute in Chatham. He also asked me about the Guyana rainforests. It is a Commonwealth initiative. Indeed, my department is involved through the NRI. We are carrying out field surveys at a cost of about £165,000, Those are topographical surveys working with UNDP and the Commonwealth Secretariat. We hope and expect that that important project will provide many examples of sustainable management of forests for many years. We shall therefore learn lessons in Guyana that we can put to other countries which experience similar problems. The ODA and UNDP funding of that project, which is about 3 million dollars, will lead to the project being prepared for support from the GEF. We are leading up to undertaking further aspects on a global basis through the global environment fund. In addition, support is also being given to Brazil's pilot forestry project. A sum of about 250 million dollars is pledged to support that project, of which 25 million dollars is from the United Kingdom.

The forest principles were, therefore, an important step forward. But people have learnt from the forest people that the grinding poverty exists in the forests as well as in the urban areas. I fully agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that people struggling for survival from day to day will not understand the anxieties about the global environment. For that reason we have accepted the importance of the GEF. However, we must work at both levels: the global environment and the local environment.

I also agree with the noble Baroness that the problems of poverty as a result of population growth must be tackled. For that reason I have for the past three years made a particular effort to place the whole question of family planning high on the agenda. By combining that with the education that men and women need, taking forward the issues of women in development, as we have described them in our pamphlet, in every forum that we can reach, we are beginning to make people understand that we mean business when we say, Children by Choice not Chance. I sincerely hope that some of the discussions that I have had with those in the Vatican will also be increasingly helpful. Of course, we must respect their beliefs but they too can have their own family planning programmes. I shall encourage them to do so, whether it be increased breast-feeding, a greater use of natural methods or better education. All those issues count and can contribute towards avoiding the horrendous problems that we shall face if population growth continues at the threatened rate which we see at the present time, particularly in the third world.

It would be easy to make this a long reply speech. I shall not do so. I shall not try your Lordships' patience by detailing how much we intend to do on Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration and with the non-governmental organisations to which I pay a most generous tribute. But when one returns from a conference involving 170 countries, 150 of which signed up to both the biodiversity convention and the climate-change convention, and when one is planning for the steps forward to be taken in the Sustainable Development Commission during our presidency of the European Community, one knows not only that a great deal is happening and that much is to happen but that there is a total commitment to seeing it through.

The priority now is to ensure that the agreements that were reached are swiftly put into action and are seen to be in action. That is why the Prime Minister has already written to the heads of the G7 countries and the EC countries proposing that they adopt an action plan for those purposes. Our own follow-up plans are being developed quickly but thoroughly. In my own department we have for many years been paying increasing attention to all the environmental aspects of our projects, not only at the present time. The progress to date is summarised in our latest publication Action for the Environment, which can be found in the Printed Paper Office of your Lordships' House. A great deal is being done and there is a great deal still to do. I can assure your Lordships' House that this Government will make sure that it is done.

House adjourned at sixteen minutes before seven o'clock.