David Lammy – 2024 Kew Lecture on Climate Change

The speech made by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, at Kew Gardens in London on 17 September 2024.

Thank you Kew Gardens, for hosting my first set piece speech as Foreign Secretary.

Just after hosting the Colombian President of this year’s Nature COP in Cali this morning.

Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have dominated my time in office so far. But I was very clear in Opposition that, in this job, I would focus on the most profound and universal source of global disorder – the climate and nature emergency.

Over my political career, it has become clearer to me how this crisis defines our time. As a young backbencher, I admired Robin Cook making climate a geopolitical issue for the first time – he was a pioneer, ahead of his time.

Four years ago, I spoke about the essential link between climate justice and racial justice. And as Shadow Foreign Secretary, I set out how our response to this crisis both can create unparalleled economic opportunities and is the central geopolitical challenge of our age.

Time and again, it is the most vulnerable who bear the brunt of this crisis. From Ella Kissi-Debrah – a nine-year-old Londoner killed, in part, by unlawful levels of air pollution near her home, to communities in the Caribbean, whose leaders tell me they feel neglected, as they struggle with stronger, more frequent tropical storms caused by a crisis not of their making.

So our goal is progressive – a liveable planet for all, now and in the future.

But we need a hard-headed, realist approach towards using all levers at our disposal, from the diplomatic to the financial.

And I say to you now: these are not contradictions. Because nothing could be more central to the UK’s national interest than delivering global progress on arresting rising temperatures.

My argument to you today, is that demands for action from the world’s most vulnerable and the requirements for delivering security for British citizens, are fundamentally aligned. And this is because this crisis is not some discrete policy area, divorced from geopolitics and insecurity.

The threat may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat. But it is more fundamental. It is systemic. It’s pervasive. And accelerating towards us at pace.

Look around the world. Countries are scrambling to secure critical minerals, just as great powers once raced to control oil – we cannot let this become a source of conflict.

In the Arctic and Antarctic, global warming is driving geopolitical competition over the resources lying beneath the ice. And in the Amazon, there have been the worst droughts ever recorded, partly as a result of deforestation. In the Caribbean, I saw on day one in this job the devastation caused by Hurricane Beryl – the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record. And in places like the Sahel, South Sudan and Syria, rising temperatures are making water and productive land even scarcer.

These are not random events delivered from the heavens. They are failures of politics, of regulation, and of international cooperation. These failures pour fuel onto existing conflicts and regional rivalries, driving extremism, displacing communities and increasing humanitarian need. And it would be a further failure of imagination to hope that they will stay far from our shores. That we can keep them away.

Let’s take migration. We are already seeing that climate change is uprooting communities across the world. And by 2050, the World Bank’s worst-case estimate is that climate change could drive 200 million people to leave their homes.

Or we could take health. The World Health Organisation says climate change is now the biggest threat to human health.

We saw in the pandemic how quickly an infectious disease could spread from animals to humans, and then from a city the other side of the world to here in Britain. This becomes only more likely as the climate and nature crisis grows. And this crisis threatens the things we take most for granted, from the food that we eat to the air that we breathe.

But despite all of this, there remains a tendency for climate and nature policy to end up siloed. Too often, it has felt the preserve of experts and campaigners. Fluent in the sometimes impenetrable dialect of COPs. But distant from others working on foreign policy and on national security. And that has to change.

Don’t get me wrong – we absolutely need campaigners like those in this room, or experts like those working here at Kew. And I am grateful to them all.

But today, I am committing to you that while I am Foreign Secretary, action on the climate and nature crisis will be central to all that the Foreign Office does.

This is critical given the scale of the threat, but also the scale of the opportunity. The chance to achieve clean and secure energy, lower bills and drive growth for the UK, and to preserve the natural world around us, on which all prosperity ultimately depends.

The truth is that in the last few years, something went badly wrong in our national debate on climate change and net zero. I take no pleasure in saying that.

That’s why the Prime Minister is resetting Britain’s approach to climate and nature, putting it at the centre of our cross Government missions, approaching 100 days in office and we can already see the difference which this has made.

We have seen with the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, the Green Deal, in the European Union, and the accelerating transition in China, foreign policy, economic and industrial policy becoming increasingly intertwined.

That is why the Prime Minister is resetting Britain’s approach to climate and nature, putting it at the centre of our cross-Government missions.

Approaching 100 days in office now, you can already see the difference this has made. Lifting the de facto ban on onshore wind in England. Pledging to end new oil and gas licenses while guaranteeing a fair transition in the North Sea. Switching on Great British Energy to crowd investment into clean power projects. Launching a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan, for completion before the end of this year, so that we can clean our rivers, plant millions more trees, improve our air quality and halt the decline in species. And with over 90% of the UK’s biodiversity within our Overseas Territories, looking to expand the Blue Belt programme to increase marine protection.

This domestic programme is not just essential to our economy, but to restoring our international credibility. We are bringing an end to our climate diplomacy of being “Do as I say, not as I do”. But this domestic ambition on its own is not enough.

That’s why this issue has been on the agenda for nearly every meeting that I’ve had with another Minister in my early weeks, from our closest friends in the G7, to the world’s biggest emitter but largest renewables producer in China, to India, and to members of ASEAN, with whom I announced a new joint Green Transition Fund in the first few weeks in office.

With Ed Miliband and Steve Reed leading COP negotiations on climate and nature, we have a pair of experienced, determined negotiators. And with Anneliese Dodds as Minister for Development, we will be a united Government team, all drawing on the FCDO’s diplomatic and development heft to push for the ambition needed to keep 1.5 degrees alive.

To drive forward this cross-Government reset even further, I am announcing today that we will appoint new UK Special Representatives for Climate Change and Nature. These will support me, together with Ed Miliband and Steve Reed respectively, as we reboot internationally, showing that whether you are from the Global North or the Global South, we want to forge genuine partnerships, to tackle this crisis together.

And I want this diplomatic effort focused particularly on three priorities.

First, we will build a Global Clean Power Alliance.

This Government has set a landmark goal – to be the first major economy to deliver clean power by 2030. We will leverage that ambition to build an Alliance committed to accelerating the clean energy transition. And today we are firing the starting gun on forming this new coalition.

The International Energy Agency forecasts consumption not just of oil, but of all fossil fuels, will peak this decade. We are rapidly discovering new, more efficient ways to reduce emissions. Global investment in clean energy is now almost double the investment in fossil fuels.

But while some countries are moving ahead in this transition, many are getting left behind.

Without clean power, it will be impossible to decarbonise vast sectors of the economy, such as transport. We therefore need to accelerate the rollout of renewables across the globe in a way that this Government is doing at home.

Now, of course there are different obstacles for different countries. But despite several other valuable initiatives pushing forward the energy transition, there is no equivalent grouping of countries at the vanguard of the transition, reaching across the Global North and the Global South together, dedicated to overcoming these barriers.

So the Alliance needs to focus on scaling up global investment. Emerging market and developing economies outside China account for just fifteen per cent of global clean energy investment. The cost of capital in the Global South is often triple that in the Global North. And almost 700 million people have no access to electricity at all.

We must unlock global finance on a far, far, larger scale, so we can back ambitious plans from those moving away from fossil fuels – as Anneliese Dodds has just been doing in Jakarta, discussing Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership, and close the clean power gap by helping more countries to leapfrog fossil fuels to renewable power systems.

The Alliance should also focus on diversifying the production and supply of critical minerals. Copper and cobalt. Lithium and nickel. The lifeblood of the new economy. We need to bring these commodities to market faster. While avoiding the mistakes of the past, by helping developing countries to secure the economic benefits while promoting the highest environmental standards for mineral extraction.

The Alliance could inject impetus into expanding grids and storage as well. The IEA assesses that the world needs to add or refurbish the equivalent of the entire existing grid by 2040.

And we are working on a global energy storage pledge at COP29. We have to plug the gaps in meeting these targets.

Finally, the Alliance can increase deployment of innovative clean energy. There is huge demand for affordable clean technologies from green hydrogen to sustainable cooking and cooling. And we have got to progress commercialisation of the tech with the greatest potential.

And we will take a phased and inclusive approach to building the Alliance, listening to those leading the way on clean power and those who share our ambitions.

But the shared goal is clear – making Net Zero Power a reality, everywhere.

Second, we must unlock much, much more climate and nature finance. This is critical to my progressive realist approach to the crisis.

Tackling this crisis requires global consensus – that is the principle at the heart of the COP process. And we can only reach a consensus by heeding others’ concerns as well as our own. As I know all too well, countries of the Global South suffered great injustices in the past.

But I have heard repeatedly our partners’ frustrations at the unfairness of the global system today – particularly how difficult it is for them to get international climate finance.

As my good friend Mia Mottley argues so powerfully, the problem is systemic.

For example, Africa is on the climate frontline. Natural disasters alone have affected 400 million Africans this century. Yet Africa receives just over three per cent of climate finance flows. And debt servicing alone averages ten per cent of Africa’s GDP.

Change is critical. There is no pathway to countries’ development aspirations without climate resilience, action on the nature crisis and access to clean energy, and no pathway to a sustainable future without development that leaves no one behind.

The agreement on loss and damage at the last COP was an inspiring example of what the world can achieve by working together. That was the same spirit in which developed countries committed in 2009 to 100 billion dollars a year in international climate finance.

Ahead of the Spending Review, we are carefully reviewing our plans to do so. And at the same time, we are pushing for an ambitious new climate finance goal focused on developing countries at COP29 in November.

Because that is the right thing to do. But, especially in times of fiscal constraint, we need to become more creative in unlocking private sector flows for the green transition, and especially adaptation, across the Global South.

London is the leading green global financial centre. And I have been delighted to learn how UK experts have been developing more effective financing models. For example, Britain helped establish the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility back in 2007, the first such fund that pays out after a specific trigger such as earthquakes or tropical cyclones.

And after Hurricane Beryl, it once again proved its worth, paying out over 76 million dollars as the region began to rebuild.

I am determined to restore Britain’s reputation for commitment and innovation in the world of development finance. This starts with the multilateral development banks.

And that’s why, subject to reforms, we support a capital increase for the IBRD, the world’s largest development bank and a key source of climate finance.

And that’s why next month I will lay before Parliament a UK guarantee for the Asian Development Bank, which will unlock over 1.2 billion dollars in climate finance from the Bank for developing countries in the region.

But impact is not simply a question of more creativity. To tackle systemic problems, we also need to reform the system itself.

So, for example, we are co-chairing with the Dominican Republic the Green Climate Fund this year and driving forward reforms to speed up developing countries’ access to it.

But I have also heard our partners calling for international tax rules to work better for developing countries, for unsustainable debt to be tackled more rapidly, and for obstacles that inhibit the flow of private capital to be addressed.

My ambition here is clear: for the UK to lead the G7 debate on international institutional reform.

Third, we must not just halt, but reverse the decline in global biodiversity.

Sometimes we become numb to the scale of the nature crisis. One million species facing extinction, including one third of both marine mammals and coral reefs. And wildlife populations fallen by 69 per cent since 1970, mostly due to a staggering 83 per cent collapse in freshwater species.

Biodiversity loss is as much of a threat as changes to our climate. And with nature loss undermining progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, action on nature is also pivotal to genuine partnerships with the Global South.

We need to bolster the global effort to protect at least thirty per cent of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030. So we are completely committed to ratifying the High Seas Treaty, and to securing agreement on a Plastics Treaty. And here I pay tribute to a predecessor Zac Goldsmith.

And I have been looking hard at the successes of our development programmes on nature. One programme has mobilised well over a billion pounds to protect and restore forests across nearly 9 million hectares of land. And in the future we plan to expand this programme in the Congo Basin rainforest, the second largest on the planet.

Some of our funding has also been used for incredible research. Few would believe that, thanks to the FCDO, a South African business is trialling new biodegradable nets that, if lost, leave no toxins or micro-plastics behind. I want many many more examples like this.

The FCDO spends around five per cent of its development budget on research. And I am announcing today that we are starting to develop a new programme of research into nature and water specifically with over one hundred researchers and officials having just met in Kenya to begin this agenda.

I am also looking at how we deliver our development programmes on the ground.

Indigenous communities particularly are important in this regard – like the incredible female sustainable business owners I met in the Amazon last year – are nature’s best custodians.

Nature has been declining 30 per cent less, and 30 per cent more slowly, in indigenous lands than in the world as a whole. Evidence shows that putting local communities at the centre of decision-making leads to better outcomes for the natural world.

This is the model of development that I believe in. The modernised approach to development this Government will be implementing. The spirit of partnership, not paternalism, in action.

For me this is deeply personal. Far from here, in Guyana’s rainforests, lies Sophia PointI established this small conservation centre five years ago, with my wife, in one of the last unspoilt biodiversity hotspots in the world.

And it was fascinating last week to discuss it with Sir David Attenborough last week and hear his reminiscences of visiting those same rainforests as a young man.

I told Sir David that his first book, Zoo Quest to Guiana, came out 1956, the year my father emigrated to Britain.

In fact my Father used to bring me to Kew Gardens. I mean, I look back, he’s now not alive so I can’t ask him, but I now realise he brought me here to somehow be in touch with Guyana and those rainforests.

And we discussed how Sir David’s work and that of Sophia Point is rooted in a concept common to the indigenous people of that part of South America and many farmers and others in Britain and around the globe.

Stewardship of the natural world.

That we have both an interest and a responsibility to maintain a liveable planet for ourselves and future generations.

That is our goal. Ultimately, there will be no global stability, without climate stability.

And there will be no climate stability, without a more equal partnership between the Global North and the Global South.

For Britain to play its part, we must reset here at home, and reconnect abroad. That is what this Government will deliver. So that, together, we can build a better future for all.