COP this!

Next year, the UK will be hosting the UN’s COP (Conference of the Parties) in Glasgow. COPs happen every year and they are the most important international gatherings of climate leaders. The Paris Agreement is so-called because it was signed at the COP 21 in Paris. This year, COP 25 was meant to be held in Chile, but owing to political unrest it was held in Madrid. The COPs are important meetings for gauging and increasing international appetite for action on the climate emergency, but COP 25 has particular relevance to the UK because we are hosting the next one.

The Environment Agency is a key agency in England for managing the climate emergency. We regulate businesses to reduce harmful emissions and we help protect people and the environment from the impacts of climate change, such as flooding and droughts. The Environment Agency has set itself the goal of becoming a net-zero organisation by 2030. We all need to play our part in responding to the climate emergency and we want to help show other organisations what is possible. 

As well as being the Chair of the Environment Agency I am also the UK Commissioner to the Global Commission on Adaptation. My focus in both is the climate crisis and the resilience of people, systems and infrastructure.

Global economic losses from disasters are already estimated at 520 billion dollars per year. 100 million people are already at risk of being pushed into poverty by climate change by 2030; particularly in sub Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said there are 12 years to bring global heating within 1.5 degrees of pre industrial levels or climate impacts will reach dangerous tipping points. In October, the Governor of the Bank of England said: “We can observe where the market is in terms of pricing the transition. It’s at least 3 degrees or 3.75 degrees, it’s probably north of 4 degrees.”

The main thrust of the COP climate conferences is reducing emissions. But, because much of the developing world is already being hit by significant impacts, they want the international community to act on adaptation too. Fail to engage with that properly and we risk forgoing a truly international discussion.

At the launch event of the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action “Santiago Action Plan”, the first ever meeting of international Finance Ministers at a COP, I said that early indications show that the economic damages from the November floods in England are around £78 million. But, without flood defences, the damages could have been £1.6 billion higher. Flood protections have helped to reduce the potential damages by 95%. 

The Minister of Economy for Fiji said that when Cyclone Winston hit in 2016, it wiped out a third of the value of GDP within 36 hours. The climate change division is now right at the heart of the Ministry of Economy’s work, mainstreaming strategic planning and preparation for climate change.

2020 is a crunch year for action, the conferences (including the Climate Action Summit in the Netherlands and COP 26) present opportunities to galvanise action around the world. I was talking to other countries’ delegations, supported by colleagues from Defra, BEIS, DfID, FCO and the COP 26 team, to help catalyse investment.

I spoke with the Chinese delegation about nature based solutions. Globally, these could provide up to 37% of cost-effective climate change mitigation needed by 2030. Mangroves, for instance, can achieve reductions in flooding erosion at one fifth of the cost of conventional infrastructure. But, these types of solutions attract less than 3% of funding. The Chinese will be looking to improve this in 2020 when they host the international biodiversity conference in Kunming.

The Environment Agency is working with others on a number of projects to show the private sector the value of investing in nature based solutions. In September, the Global Commission on Adaptation released a report that says investing 1.9 trillion dollars in adaptation efforts globally from 2020 to 2030, could guarantee 7 trillion dollars in total net benefits. We use nature based solutions in our own work in England as well, for example by including natural flood management measures to hold water on the land and slow down the flow, alongside traditional hard engineered flood defences.

At a meeting hosted by the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management I spoke about the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment, a public/private sector initiative lead by the insurers Willis Towers Watson, with the support of the Green Finance Institute. The CCRI aims to provide a methodology to quantify the financial benefits of adaptation, and to provide an incentive for markets to embed resilience upfront.

All of these points I was also able to make with heads of state and business leaders in attendance. Such links will be crucial over the next 12 months as we head towards COP 26 in the UK, but far more importantly they are the glue that will hold together action on climate emergency and resilience across international borders in the next 10 vital years.

On the morning of the election results, the Prime Minister spoke about: "Colossal new investments in infrastructure and science, using our incredible technological advantages, to make this country the cleanest, greenest on earth with the most far-reaching environmental programme.”

Our new government has a huge opportunity to turn these aims into actions as we all work towards hosting COP 26. We must seize 2020 as an opportunity to form new global coalitions so that we can finish what was started at COP 25 and do what science tells us is necessary – to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

Watch Emma speak at the UNFCCC’s Dialogue between Governments and Civil Society [at 1:07].

Watch Emma speak at the launch event of the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action “Santiago Action Plan” [at 1:03]