Results 1-20 of 214 for climate change speaker:Hilary Benn

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Flood and Water Management Bill (19 Nov 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...floods in 2007 claimed 13 lives and cost our economy £3 billion. Sir Michael Pitt undertook a comprehensive review of the lessons to be learned from the floods. He called for urgent and fundamental changes in the way the country is adapting to the increased risk of flooding. To ensure that the 5 million people living in flood risk areas around the country are better protected we are...

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Greenhouse Gas Emissions (12 Oct 2009)

Hilary Benn: On 1 October 2009 DEFRA published guidance, in partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, explaining how organisations should measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions as required under section 83 of the Climate Change Act 2008. This followed a public consultation exercise on the draft guidance which closed on 7 August 2009. The guidance is available on the...

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Environment Council (25 June) (13 Jul 2009)

Hilary Benn: The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) and I, represented the UK at the Environment Council in Luxembourg on 25 June. Member states agreed the Council conclusions on biodiversity and invasive alien species. The conclusions highlighted the urgent need to make further progress on protecting biodiversity...

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Agriculture Council (9 Jul 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...beyond those already in hand. There were nine agriculture AOB items. The Dutch Minister encouraged Ministers to reflect on the specific recommendations from CSD-17 in respect of agriculture and climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate change negotiations. The incoming presidency (Sweden) also plans to discuss this, notably at its informal Council in September. The UK...

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Pitt Review (Progress Report) (25 Jun 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...water flood risk. Progress on implementing the first tranche as well as next steps on the remaining funds will be announced later this summer. Announced £1 million funding for three projects to demonstrate how land management change and working with natural processes can help protect against flooding. Published a long-term investment strategy, the Environment Agency's assessment of...

Bill Presented: Marine and Coastal Access Bill [ Lords] (23 Jun 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...of great pride. Our seas and our coasts and their waters are a source of so much: they give us food; they support jobs; they enable us to travel and to create energy; they help us to regulate our changing climate; they give us the chance to sail or to swim or to dive and catch a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface. Our seas inspire us, from the mirror-glass stillness of a calm day to...

Bill Presented: Marine and Coastal Access Bill [ Lords] (23 Jun 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...just add that the documentary "The End of the Line" which has been seen in recent weeks makes the point about how much we are currently taking from the sea, and the publication last week of the new climate projections makes us think about the impact of a changing climate on our seas. My point is that the Bill is not just right, it is also very timely and I should like now to turn to its...

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: Climate Change Adaptation Sub-Committee (23 Jun 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...oral statement to the House on 18 June I warned that the threat to the UK posed by floods, heat waves and coastal erosion presents a great challenge which we need to plan for. According to the UK climate change projections, the UK faces warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, with more drought, heat-waves, flooding and sea-level rise. The results illustrate how important it is...

Written Ministerial Statements — Environment Food and Rural Affairs: "Appraisal of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management" (22 Jun 2009)

Hilary Benn: ...framework for decision making to ensure that public investment represents good value for money. A greater emphasis on flexibility in future, such as being able to adapt solutions over time as the climate changes. This supports Defra's coastal change policy which is currently being consulted on. The statement follows on from the public consultation held in summer 2008. The draft statement...

Bill Presented: Food, Farming and the Environment (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: A document once published is a fact, and it cannot be un-published. It is important that we do produce as much food as possible, and one great challenge that we will face in seeking to do so is climate change. As we discussed during my earlier oral statement, increased temperatures and changing rainfall patterns will affect yield and increase the risk of pests and diseases, so farmers will be...

Bill Presented: Food, Farming and the Environment (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: ...steps to look at how "best before" labels are used, because a large proportion of farmers' hard work ends up in the bin and then in landfill, where it produces methane, which adds to the problem of climate change, which affects the farmers. That is a small example of why we all have an interest in working together to deal with the problem. We have to be clear about what is safe and what is...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the publication of new projections for the UK's future climate. A summary will be placed in the Vote Office and full details can be found on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website. The House knows that climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face. The world's climate is already...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Gentleman said about the message that the projections give us. If there are those in society who somehow think that climate change is not happening and we do not need to worry, and that we can pull up the bed covers and hope it will all go away, they are profoundly mistaken. That is why I believe the publication of the projections today will have an...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: .... The Government, with some foresight, said a little while ago that nuclear needed to be part of the mix, as well as cleaner coal, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced recently, and renewables. We must also not forget that we can do much to reduce our consumption of energy. That is why the home insulation programme, on which we are...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: ...grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about the Met Office scientists, who have worked so hard to give us the benefit of the projections. He is right to talk about the fundamental changes that we could face. We cannot absolutely predict the future, but we can try to plan for it. That is the message that we must take from the report. The changes outlined in the report will...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: ...delivered. The target for renewable energy is challenging—there is no running away from that—but we are putting in place the policies that we need to get there. We have seen significant change in recent years, through the renewables obligation and the further measures that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is setting out and will be...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The truth is that pressure from below helps Governments to move. We need politics that is a combination of leadership and those pressures. Indeed, the Climate Change Act was the result of two forces at work. One was the Big Ask campaign, which was a movement from below that said, "We should have a climate change Act in the UK," and the other was political...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: ...rich world could stop emitting CO2 tomorrow morning—for the sake of argument—the developing economies would still have to make a contribution; otherwise, we would still face dangerous climate change. Financing for adaptation, mitigation and, crucially, technology will be a really important part of getting a deal. The announcement on coal by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: ...other production, although we are more self-sufficient now than we were in the 1930s and the 1950s. We also need to try to get production up, and to work with farmers to help them to adapt to the changing climate. We have been doing that with the industry; that is what part of the research programme is seeking to address. We have been giving guidance and encouraging people to think about...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman will not have to wait too long. We are taking things in stages, and the first thing was to get the Climate Change Committee, which was established under the Climate Change Act 2008, to give us advice on what it thought the carbon budget should be. The second was for the Government to adopt those budgets, which happened alongside the money Budget, with which everyone is...