United Nations Environment Programme (Hansard, 8 June 2004)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty)
My Lords, the Government's main contribution to UNEP this year has been a £4.2 million donation to its main Environment Fund, making us the single largest donor to the fund this year. In addition, the UK provides funding for specific UNEP activities, such as on great apes and coral reefs. On 143 World Environment Day the Government supported UNEP in its call for urgent international action on cold water coral reefs.

§ Lord Clinton-Davis
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Does he agree that countless marine species and important undersea habitats are at risk and that marine life, human health and livelihoods are threatened, largely by land-based sources of pollution? These are all exacerbated by climate change. Bearing in mind this important day, are any more initiatives likely to be founded?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, my noble friend is clearly right that the oceans are under significant pressure not only from global warming and climate change but also from development, over-fishing and pollution generally. It is important that the UK plays its part in tackling those problems. We set out our full policies in our first marine stewardship report, published two years ago. We are now taking that forward in an update, taking into account our commitments under the WSSD programme. As to today, which, as noble Lords are presumably aware, is World Oceans Day, the UK Government, along with our EU partners, will be calling for urgent action at the UN to protect high-seas biodiversity in particular.

§ Lord Renton of Mount Harry
My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us what he believes the UN Environment Programme can do realistically in regard to, in particular, informing the developing countries of the seriousness of climate change? Frankly, I was unaware that today is World Oceans Day. But we must all be aware of the real threat that now comes from climate change. When developing countries put in new industrial equipment, does the UN Environment Programme not have a real role to play in helping those countries to ensure that that equipment emits less carbon dioxide than do the present, older industrial structures in Europe? Is that a programme that the UN Environment Programme will put in place?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, the UN Environment Programme will be looking at various impacts, including that of climate change on biodiversity, the nature of the oceans and the cleanliness of the oceans. The issue of switching away from carbon-based industrial development goes wider than the responsibilities of UNEP, and it is being pursued to a large extent under the Kyoto process and other commitments in which developed countries are taking the lead. But it is clear that the developing countries must be encouraged by all means possible—partnership, aid, trade and private investment—to engage in less carbon-rich technologies in the course of their development than we adopted in the West in previous decades. That programme is the responsibility of us all and it is being pursued by both UN agencies and the UK Government.

§ Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
My Lords, the fact that many noble Lords, together, I suspect, with 144 the rest of the country, are unaware that we have just had World Environment Day and that today is World Oceans Day says to me that the Government have failed to take advantage of what has been put in place to inform citizens of environmental issues. The Government should take a leaf out of the RSPB's book, in whose Big Garden Birdwatch an enormous section of the population of this country took part. I suspect that our beaches and marine environment would benefit from people being more aware of the issues that surround them.

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, the Government certainly respect the requirement to inform the public and undertake to do so. If individuals and individual enterprises do not recognise the threats that exist to our environment and change their behaviour, then, in many respects, whatever the number of resolutions, designated days or programmes, they will not reverse the degradation of the planet. As I said, in this context the UK Government are the largest donor to the UN Environment Programme Environment Fund, which, in part, is about informing as well as delivering programmes.

§ The Duke of Montrose
My Lords, the Minister referred to the fact that the theme chosen for World Environment Day was "Wanted: Seas and Oceans—Dead or Alive". As the main day was celebrated in Barcelona, were the Spanish Government, as one of the hosts, able to offer any concessions towards the conservation of fish stocks and marine life?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, I say with some difficulty that it is true that the Spanish Government have signed up to the changes in the common fisheries policy, which I know some in this House would wish us to withdraw from just at the point where it is becoming a conservation, rather than an exploitation, policy, and the Spanish Government are part of that.

§ Earl Ferrers
My Lords, can the Minister tell us the purpose of World Oceans Day, which I, like most people, seem not to know?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, it is designed to draw attention to, and bring about some activity in relation to, the problems surrounding oceans. It has clearly failed lamentably in the case of the noble Earl and many other Members of this House. Indeed, it is important that we do not focus on such matters simply on the day designated by particular international organisations. It is important that we have a proper and sustained programme on these issues.

§ Baroness Thomas of Walliswood
My Lords, following my noble friend's question, is not the problem in this country that many people probably know a great deal about the Great Barrier Reef or underwater fishing or swimming in the Red Sea but they are totally unaware of the richness of the marine environment around our own shores?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, I think that, regrettably, that is correct, but the Government have taken a 145 number of steps to create and protect marine sites around this country. We are drawing attention to the problems of development and have restricted development in the most vulnerable sites.

§ Lord Puttnam
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, given that this country has an extraordinary reputation historically in linking science to all forms of changes in the natural world, the answers that he has been able to offer from the Dispatch Box today might, in 30 years' time to anyone reading Hansard, look extraordinarily complacent?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, I do not think that that is fair comment. This country is the lead supporter of the UNEP Environment Fund and we have probably put more than anyone else into the development of the programme to mitigate and tackle the problems of climate change. Indeed, some would say that the Kyoto process would not have been achieved had it not been for the intervention of this Government. In Europe, we are seen fairly widely as the leader on virtually all environmental issues. It is, of course, an uphill struggle. That is, in part, due to the fact that we need to change the behaviour not of governments and institutions but of a large range of individuals and commercial enterprises. We all need to recognise that we have a responsibility to safeguard the future biodiversity of the planet and, indeed, as the noble Duke mentioned, the life of our oceans and our atmosphere.