UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Environment

  • Greg Hands – 2021 Statement on Net Zero Strategy

    Greg Hands – 2021 Statement on Net Zero Strategy

    The statement made by Greg Hands, the Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 19 October 2021.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the net zero strategy and the heat and buildings strategy—but first, if I may, I will congratulate my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary and his wife Harriet on the birth of their daughter on Friday. I can report to the House that both mother and baby are healthy and doing well, as is the Secretary of State. I am sure that the whole House will join me in offering our congratulations. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

    The statement is all about future generations as well, because we know that we must act now on climate change. The activities of our economies, communities and societies are changing our environment. If we do not take action now, we will continue to see the worst effects of climate change.

    We have already travelled a significant way down the path to net zero. Between 1990 and 2019, we grew our economy by 78% and cut our emissions by 44%, decarbonising faster than any other G7 country. Since 2010, the UK has quadrupled its renewable electricity generation and reduced carbon emissions in the power generation sector by some 70%. In the past year alone, we have published the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the energy White Paper, the North sea transition deal, the industrial decarbonisation strategy, the transport decarbonisation plan, the hydrogen strategy and more. Earlier this month, we unveiled a landmark commitment to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2035.

    But there is still a substantial length of road to travel. We must continue to take decisive action if we are to meet our net zero goal, so today I am pleased to announce two major Government initiatives: the net zero strategy and the heat and buildings strategy. This is not just an environmental transition; it also represents an important economic change, echoing even the explosion in industry and exports in the first industrial revolution more than 250 years ago.

    We will fully embrace this new, green industrial revolution, helping the UK to level up as we build back better and get to the front of the global race to go green. We need to capitalise on it to ensure that British industries and workers benefit. I can therefore announce that the strategy will support up to 440,000 jobs across sectors and across all parts of the UK in 2030. There will be more specialists in low-carbon fuels in Northern Ireland and low-carbon hydrogen in Sheffield, electric vehicle battery production in the north-east of England, engineers in Wales, green finance in London and offshore wind technicians in Scotland.

    The strategy will harness the power of the private sector, giving businesses and industry the certainty they need to invest and grow in the UK and make the UK home to new, ambitious projects. The policies and spending brought forward in the strategy, along with regulations, will leverage up to £90 billion of private investment by 2030, levelling up our former industrial heartlands.

    The strategy also clearly highlights the steps that the Government are taking to work with industry to bring down the costs of key technologies, from electric vehicles to heat pumps—just as we did with offshore wind, in which we are now the world leader. Those steps will give the UK a competitive edge and get us to the head of the race.

    We have spoken often in this place of late about the importance of protecting consumers, and consumers are indeed at the heart of the strategy. Making green changes such as boosting the energy efficiency of our homes will help to cut the cost of bills for consumers across the UK. Switching to cleaner sources of energy will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and, again, bring down costs down the line.

    This plan is also our best route to overcoming current challenges. The current price spikes in gas show the need to reduce our reliance on volatile imported fossil fuels rapidly. Although there is a role for gas as a transition fuel, moving away from imports quickly is in the best interests of bill payers. With our ambitious set of policies, the strategy sets out how we meet carbon budgets 4 and 5 and our nationally determined contribution. It puts us on the path for carbon budget 6 and ultimately on course for net zero by 2050.

    We are now setting up the industrial decarbonisation and hydrogen revenue support scheme to fund these business models and enable the first commercial-scale deployment of low-carbon hydrogen production and industrial carbon capture. We have also announced the HyNet and East Coast clusters as track 1 economic hubs for green jobs.

    We have previously announced that we will end the sale of all new non zero emission road vehicles from 2040, and the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The strategy explains that we will also introduce a zero emission vehicle mandate that will deliver on our 2030 commitment to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans.

    To increase the size of our carbon sinks, we will treble the rate at which we are planting new trees in England by the end of the current Parliament. We will be a global leader in developing and deploying the green technologies of the future. The strategy announces a £1.5 billion fund to support net zero innovation projects, which provides finance for low-carbon technologies across the areas of the Prime Minister’s “Ten Point Plan”.

    We have also published our heat and buildings strategy, which sets out our plans to significantly cut carbon emissions from the UK’s 30 million homes and workplaces in a simple way that remains affordable and fair for British households. We will gradually move away from fossil fuel heating and improve the energy performance of our buildings through measures such as grants of up to £5,000 towards the costs of heat pumps, a further £800 million for the social housing decarbonisation fund to upgrade social housing, and a further £950 million for a home upgrade grant scheme to improve and decarbonise low-income homes off the gas grid.

    The year 2021 is a vital year for action on climate change. In just two weeks’ time, the UK Government will host the crucial United Nations COP26 conference in Glasgow. As the Prime Minister has said, it needs to be a “turning point for humanity”, the point at which we pull together—and pull our socks up—to keep 1.5 °C in reach. Hosting COP26 will also give the UK a huge opportunity to showcase our world-leading climate credentials and set an example to other countries to raise their own ambitions. The net zero strategy will take centre stage in our display, setting out our vision for a UK that is cleaner, greener, and more innovative.

    Mr Speaker, we are ready for Glasgow, and I commend this statement to the House.

  • Greg Hands – 2021 Statement on Investment in Green Projects

    Greg Hands – 2021 Statement on Investment in Green Projects

    The statement made by Greg Hands, the Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 18 October 2021.

    A year on from the publication of the ten point plan the Government can confirm more than £5.8 billion of investment in green projects has been secured, along with at least 56,000 jobs in the UK’s clean industries.

    This major green investment boost helps to drive forward the Government’s ambitions to make the UK a global leader in green technology and finance. It includes more than £650 million in advancing offshore wind this year alone, supporting almost 3,600 jobs across the Humber and North-East, and over £900 million in accelerating the shift to zero emissions vehicles. As part of this Envision AESC will invest over £400 million in battery manufacturing, for example, as part of a £1 billion project with Nissan and Sunderland Council to create a flagship electric vehicle hub. ENI Spa has invested more than £400 million in offshore wind.

    This week’s global investment summit in London is expected to attract almost 200 leading industry figures from around the world to invest in the best of UK green business and innovation. Securing private investment for clean technology is a core part of the Government’s strategy to meet our world-leading emissions reductions targets over the next decade and achieve net zero by 2050. Our upcoming net zero strategy, to be published this week, builds on the Ten Point Plan, setting out how we will deliver on our net zero commitments, giving businesses the certainty they need to invest.

    Further progress since the ten point plan includes:

    Securing around £1.5 billion of investment into our offshore wind industry, supported by the Government’s £160 million scheme to upgrade ports and infrastructure. Renewables now represent almost 40% of the UK’s total electricity generation.

    Kicking off the biggest-ever round of our flagship renewable energy scheme for low carbon electricity—contracts for difference—with £200 million for offshore wind projects and £24 million for floating offshore wind.

    Publishing the hydrogen strategy to grow the UK hydrogen economy, consulting on design of the £240 million net zero hydrogen fund, and announcing funding of seven real-world hydrogen transport pilots.

    Committing £20 million to increase on-street charge points for electric vehicles and providing £50 million to support charge point installations.

    Publishing our transport decarbonisation plan and national bus strategy, as well as supporting Coventry to become UK’s first all-electric bus city and consulting on world-leading pledge to end the sale of all new, polluting road vehicles by 2040 and net zero aviation emissions by 2050. This is on top of more than 300 new walking and cycling schemes.

    Providing £1 billion to upgrade schools, hospitals, and council buildings with energy efficiency measures and committing £222 million to upgrade socially rented homes. Local Authorities through the Green Homes Grant scheme have also started installing upgrades to around 50,000 low-income households.

    Announcing £19.5 million of grant funding for UK projects developing novel carbon capture technology and we have kicked off the process to decide the first carbon capture cluster locations in our industrial heartlands.

    Launching the floods investment programme that is on track to better protect 336,000 properties.

    Awarding 90 projects under the second round of the Green Recovery Challenge Fund, totalling £80 million of investment, and launched several schemes under the Nature for Climate Fund to expand our pipeline of tree planting projects in England.

    Launching the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, providing funding for low-carbon technologies and systems across the areas of the ten point plan.

    Launching our landmark North sea transition deal and industrial decarbonisation strategy.

  • Ed Miliband – 2021 Comments on Government’s Net Zero Strategy

    Ed Miliband – 2021 Comments on Government’s Net Zero Strategy

    The comments made by Ed Miliband, the Shadow Business Secretary, on 19 October 2021.

    This is a plan torpedoed by the Treasury. Once again, it has failed to recognise that the prudent, responsible choice is to sufficiently invest in a green transition.

    Homeowners are left to face the costs of insulation on their own, industries like steel and hydrogen are left hobbled in the global race without the support they need, and the government cannot even confirm they will meet their climate target for 2035.

    While Labour has a bold climate investment pledge of £28 billion extra each and every year to 2030, the government offers a tiny fraction of that.

    This does not meet our ambitions for British industries to thrive, prosper and lead the world or show the government leadership required to tackle climate breakdown and bring the benefits of a green transition to Britain.

  • Ed Miliband – 2021 Comments on Fossil Fuel Free Electricity

    Ed Miliband – 2021 Comments on Fossil Fuel Free Electricity

    The comments made by Ed Miliband, the Shadow Business Secretary, on 5 October 2021.

    Another day, another distant target from government not backed by a plan.

    There is a yawning chasm between this government’s promises on climate and their failure to deliver them. Pledges not supported by policy or investment is greenwashing, plain and simple.

    Unlike the Conservatives, Labour is committed to scaling up our zero carbon energy supply and has pledged to invest at scale to tackle the climate crisis. Meanwhile, climate action barely featured in Rishi Sunak’s conference speech and he appears deeply uncommitted to this agenda.

    It is the Government’s failure on zero carbon energy that has left our country so reliant on the international gas market and vulnerable to soaring gas prices. The Conservatives just cannot be trusted on climate or tackling the cost of living crisis.

  • Greg Hands – 2021 Speech on Offshore Wind

    Greg Hands – 2021 Speech on Offshore Wind

    The speech made by Greg Hands, the Clean Growth and Climate Change Minister, on 29 September 2021.

    I am delighted to join you here today at Global Offshore Wind to deliver my first live speech since taking up my exciting new role as Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change Minister.

    Having been recently Trade Minister, it’s appropriate that we’re meeting here on the Royal Victoria Dock – a symbol of our rich trading history, exporting goods across the world. The UK has long been a seafaring nation, creating prosperity through our ability to navigate the high seas.

    Fast forward to the 21st century and we are, once again, using our maritime expertise, to create economic growth, while providing clean power for our homes, and boosting coastal communities.

    We are now only 32 days away from the start of COP26, where we will look to accelerate global action, to tackle the climate crisis.

    It’s no exaggeration to say offshore wind will be a linchpin in our efforts to reach net zero.

    Last year, the Prime Minister set out his ambitious 10-Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. It’s no coincidence that Offshore Wind took prime position in his vision.

    Whilst I may be new to this position, as Minister for Energy and Climate Change, I am not new to offshore wind. I have long been an ardent enthusiast in government and beyond.

    As Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2015, we moved the parameters of pending, and the CfD process, decisively, in favour of offshore wind.

    And as Trade Minister since 2016, I have always pushed the sectors export capability, whether in Taiwan, Korea, or Vietnam, and attracting foreign direct investment.

    And I am personally thrilled to see that our country has the world’s largest installed offshore wind capacity.

    And not content with being world number 1, we are projecting a quadrupling of that capacity within just 10 years.

    I want to highlight a few of these areas where we have been working together to push forward deployment.

    This morning we published the Joint Government and Sector Task Force’s ‘Strategy and Implementation Plan’, outlining the first interim solutions for the mitigation of interference with military radar.

    This will inform projects bidding into this year’s Contracts for Difference round, providing confidence on how deployment can co-exist, with military radar.

    Our next generation radar innovation competition has been a huge success, and is ready to move to phase 2.

    The standard of applications to this phase was so high, that we are increasing the funding available, awarding £3.8 million to 7 projects this month. When this phase completes in early 2023, BEIS will have invested £5.9 million in developing next-generation radar technologies.

    Acceleration of offshore wind deployment needs to be environmentally sustainable, and my department is working with DEFRA, The Crown Estate and the Offshore Wind Industry Council, to gain a greater understanding of the impacts of deployment, and find strategic solutions to manage and mitigate them. And I know my colleague Rebecca Pow will be speaking later, about the work we have been doing together, to ensure that deployment is sustainable and protects the marine environment.

    We are cooperating right across Whitehall to focus on delivery – I am looking forward to working through the new Ministerial Delivery Group, to determine how we can address the tensions between our decarbonisation, economic and environmental protection ambitions, and develop a truly strategic vision, of how to prioritise activities within the sea-space.

    This sits alongside the work being done by government on reform of the National Planning Policy Statements, and Project Accelerate.

    To enable this large increase in offshore wind, we need the right infrastructure ready, and in place. And we need to ensure that local economies and communities benefit from offshore wind, while mitigating any disruption.

    The Offshore Transmission Network Review is looking at how we can reach our wind targets, while reducing the environmental and local costs associated with offshore wind infrastructure.

    In the near term, we are working with a number of developers through our Early Opportunities workstream on potential Pathfinder projects, delivering early coordination. And we are keen to see high ambition and strong cooperation between developers to maximise benefits.

    For the longer term, we are moving towards a more strategic approach and yesterday, we published a consultation on high-level approaches to an Enduring Regime, and will use the responses to develop detailed policy proposals. I’m looking forward to discussing this with many of you.

    Ensuring that we make the most of the broader economic benefits from offshore wind deployment, as part of our Green Industrial Revolution, is a critical part of our strategy.

    In March we announced £95 million of government investment for two major offshore wind ports, the Able Marine Energy Park on Humberside and the Teesworks Offshore Manufacturing Centre on Teesside.

    We are also investing in manufacturing – building or extending facilities which will create thousands of jobs in the UK. I was delighted to visit Hartlepool, yesterday, no coincidence that my first ministerial visit was to see offshore wind, to announce JDR Cables investment in a new state-of-the-art high-voltage subsea cable facility to be built in Blyth, referred to by Dan. This is the 6th manufacturing facility that we have provided grant funding to, just this year. Alongside the 2 dedicated offshore wind ports we have supported, that represents £1.5 billion of investment securing and creating up to 3,600 jobs with:

    Siemens Gamesa
    GRI Renewable Industries
    Seah Wind
    Smulders Projects UK Ltd at Wallsend
    GE Renewables

    We are absolutely committed to backing the development of the sector across the whole of the UK, and the supply chain, for both fixed bottom, and floating, offshore wind. And they highlight our status as an attractive destination for inward investment, and a leading hub for the offshore wind supply chain.

    Floating wind will become increasingly important to help us meet both Carbon Budget 6 and net zero.

    I am excited to see how many new floating wind projects will be brought forward by Crown Estate Scotland’s ‘ScotWind’ leasing process and The Crown Estate’s planned leasing round, in the Celtic Sea.

    Building a strong UK-based floating infrastructure and supply chain will allow us to deploy here and to capitalise on a growing export market. Our 1GW by 2030 target for floating wind is a steppingstone to a much greater scale deployment in the 2030s.

    That’s why we have proposed a minimum of £24 million in the next Contract for Difference auction for floating wind.

    We are also supporting innovation projects up to a total cost of £20 million over 4 years, delivering cost reduction and innovative floating wind demonstration projects. We will announce winners in the coming weeks.

    I am also pleased to announce that BEIS has joined the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult’s Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence, which I was also able to visit yesterday. BEIS is providing the Centre with £2 million over 4 years to further accelerate innovation in the UK’s floating wind sector.

    I am so impressed with how far the offshore wind sector has come in just a short time.

    As we drive forward to 2030, Carbon Budget 6 and net zero, there are even greater opportunities. We’re working to ensure the UK can continue to lead the way in delivering offshore wind. I am excited about this, and I know you will be too. Thank you.

  • George Eustice – 2021 Comments on Gene Editing

    George Eustice – 2021 Comments on Gene Editing

    The comments made by George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, on 29 September 2021.

    Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic resources that nature has provided. It is a tool that could help us in order to tackle some of the biggest challenges that we face – around food security, climate change and biodiversity loss.

    Outside the EU, we are able to foster innovation to help grow plants that are stronger and more resilient to climate change. We will be working closely with farming and environmental groups to ensure that the right rules are in place.

  • Ed Miliband – 2021 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Ed Miliband – 2021 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    The speech made by Ed Miliband, the Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, in Brighton on 26 September 2021.

    Friends it’s great to be back. Last time I spoke to you I was leader of our party.

    Remember David Cameron’s warning. “Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice – stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband.” Didn’t work out so well for him did it?

    Or more to the point for the country. Instability? Weak government? Chaos? Friends, I didn’t get everything right.

    But I’ll tell you one thing: I’d have done a damn sight better than this miserable shower. I want to thank you, party members, for having kept me going.

    There is a lesson in all this. We don’t give up. And we don’t give in.

    We stay and we fight. Not for our own sake but for the big causes that brought us into politics.

    That’s why I’m still here when my past opponents – Cameron, Clegg, Osborne – are all gone.

    Today I want to talk to you about the biggest cause of all, the cause I came back to fight.

    The climate crisis where the future threat of yesterday is the devastating reality of today.

    We have seen it all too clearly this summer around the world and this is just a foretaste of what is to come if we don’t act.

    As David Attenborough has said, the decisions we make in the next few years will “profoundly affect the next few thousand years.” So, to our generation, is given a unique responsibility that we cannot shirk.

    We are at five minutes to midnight. We cannot deny the crisis we confront. There is still time to act but only just.

    That is why the stakes are so high. That is why we need a Labour government. And I am here to tell you not just that we must confront the climate crisis but that as we do we can and must confront the other great cause of our time.

    The scar of inequality. The glaring gaps in wealth and income between the richest and everyone else.

    An economy based on low pay and insecurity, which simply does not have enough of the good jobs at good wages that the British people have a right to expect.

    This crisis is a deep, moral shame on our country. As we respond to the climate crisis with all the transformation that entails, we have a fateful choice to make:

    We could try and put a green coat of paint on an unfair, unequal, unjust Britain. Or we can make a different choice and see the opportunity in front of us to change our economy and society.

    For a green Britain where there is an irreversible shift of income, power and wealth to working people. A green Britain where we deliver good secure, unionised jobs for people across our country. A green Britain where there is clean air and green spaces for everyone everywhere in our country. A green Britain where there are warm affordable homes for all, wherever they live and where we end fuel poverty. A green Britain where public and alternative models of ownership play their proper role in making the transition affordable, secure and fair.

    I know what choice we need to make. Britain needs a fairer economy. Britain needs a green industrial revolution. Britain needs a green new deal. This is the cause I came back to fight for.

    Now I get that some people think it can’t be done. Some say that if we put the climate crisis front and centre of our agenda that we will not solve and may deepen the wounds of economic and social injustice.

    Don’t go too fast they say. They worry that families already struggling to pay their heating bills will struggle even more.

    About workers in oil and gas. Let me say to those people, including in this hall, I get your worries. I grew up in the 1980s.

    I am an MP in Doncaster. A former mining constituency.

    We remember what the Tories did. I know our responsibility – this climate transition must leave no worker, no family, no community behind.

    If we fail that test we won’t take you or the British people with us and we won’t deserve to do so. I tell this conference – our party cannot, will not, must not shirk the fight for economic justice.

    Now at the same time as those saying we are going too fast, there are others who worry that no government, no political party is doing enough to tackle this climate threat, including in this hall. They say we are going too slowly.

    They believe we are on course to leave the most awful legacy in human history and they are right.

    If we do not act on climate, it won’t be the richest or the most powerful who suffer it will be the poorest and most vulnerable, here and around the world.

    I say to them: our party cannot, will not, must not shirk the fight for climate justice.

    This then is our historic responsibility. To be the party of green and red together. To be the party of climate and economic justice together.

    Let me tell you, if we don’t do it nobody else will. Can the Tories do it? No way.

    Friends, the Tories are not climate deniers, they are something even more dangerous. They talk green but fail to act. They refuse to rise to the scale of the emergency and they will not make the investments we need.

    They are climate ditherers. They are climate pretenders. They are climate delayers.

    When it comes to COP26 in Glasgow in November, the most important climate conference ever held, Boris Johnson is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. That isn’t just bad for the planet, it costs the British people.

    Gas prices are surging here not because we have done too much to go green but because we haven’t done enough. That’s why we are so vulnerable to the price instability of the international gas market.

    The Tory cuts to home insulation means greater energy use, it costs the planet and it costs the British people. The Tory moratorium on onshore wind, cuts to solar subsidies and failure to move forward on nuclear costs the planet and it costs the British people. The Tory failure to have a green recovery and invest in the industries of the future costs the planet and it costs the British people.

    Let’s be clear friends, this energy price crisis is a disaster made in Downing Street, a disaster caused by a decade of Tory climate inaction. Of course they are making the cost of living crisis far worse by cutting Universal credit.

    If they really cared about the cost of living crisis, if they really cared about the fuel poor, it’s time to cancel the cut in universal credit that takes place in just five days’ time.

    Let’s lay to rest the idea that these Tories can somehow manage a just or fair green transition. A couple of months back Boris Johnson was challenged on Tory credentials on climate change.

    He joked that Mrs Thatcher closed the pits and gave us a head start. This guy laughing about people losing their jobs, communities losing their lifeblood, generations losing hope. How dare he?

    How dare this arrogant, contemptuous, cruel, shameless, duplicitous, out of touch charlatan, laugh about the devastation of coalfield communities.

    It tells you so much about who he really is, who they really are. I say this: our country desperately needs the decency, integrity and values of Keir Starmer over the double-dealing, duplicity and dishonesty of Boris Johnson.

    They fail on climate and they fail on fairness and all the while we lose the most precious gift of all: time. That is why it falls to us to seize the moment and tackle the crisis in this decisive decade

    So let me tell you what we would do. Look at what Joe Biden is doing in the United States with a ten-year plan to invest at scale in the green transition. That’s what we need to do here.

    The most unaffordable, irresponsible, reckless choice is not to invest. It makes sense to invest now because we relieve the burden we place on future generations. It makes sense to invest now because not acting will cost more than acting. It makes sense to invest now because it will enable us to create wealth, jobs and lead the world in the industries of the future.

    Take steel – a massive test of whether we get the green transition right. Steel is a vital strategic industry for our country, crucial for our national security and the foundation of our manufacturing industry. It provides tens of thousands of jobs for our communities.

    But here is the challenge. We need to green steel. It’s more than 10 percent of our manufacturing emissions.

    The Tories are woefully failing to make our steel industry strong for the future. Their delay, their inaction, is a recipe for throwing tens of thousands of workers on the scrapheap.

    Under Labour, we won’t let it happen. If we want a future for steel, we have to invest and we will.

    So today I can announce we are making an unprecedented 10-year commitment for the steel industry to go green, investing up to £3 billion, in collaboration with business, over the coming decade.

    We will make the steel industry not simply a proud industry of our past and present but a proud industry of our future. No other country is yet showing the same ambition.

    That’s what I mean by a green industrial revolution. That’s what I mean by delivering climate justice and economic justice together.

    Same with our car industry. Vital to the climate fight, vital to the strength of our economy, and providing tens of thousands of jobs in communities across our country.

    The Tories are losing the global race for electric car manufacturing. That’s why a Labour government would help fund the investment in the gigafactories we need.

    Not just subsidy but public equity stakes taken by government to ensures a people’s dividend from the green transition. That’s what I mean by delivering climate justice and economic justice together.

    The green industrial revolution is about no worker being left behind. We need the skills, expertise, know-how of the people who work in fossil fuel industries for our zero-carbon future.

    People say under the Tories the low carbon jobs have not been delivered and they are right. We would change that.

    That’s why we would increase the investment in our ports and it’s time our world leading status in offshore wind generation finally led to jobs for workers in the UK.

    So, we will raise the requirements for domestic content so we can buy, make and sell British, not the Tory offshoring of jobs in offshore wind. That’s what we mean by delivering climate justice and economic justice together.

    Just because a job is in a green industry it doesn’t give a free pass on rights and protections at work. Jobs in our renewable industries should be good jobs at decent wages with strong trade unions.

    That is what we mean by delivering climate justice and economic justice together and this is just the start: Climate education in our schools; a net zero and nature test for every policy; climate apprenticeships for our young people.

    Working with our brilliant Labour local authorities to push ahead with local Green New Deals. That’s what we mean by delivering climate justice and economic justice together.

    Just as business is a crucial partner in making the transition happen, so they must be accountable for playing their part. Many of our leading companies are already ahead of the government in setting ambitious climate targets. But we need the rest to step up.

    A Labour government will require every major business to tell us their carbon footprint and how it is consistent with net zero. That’s what we mean by delivering climate justice and economic justice together.

    Under a Labour government, every department will be a climate department. Every department delivering climate justice and economic justice together.

    There is a lesson for us in the climate crisis. Tinkering around the edges will not answer the defining challenges of this century. We must match the crises of our time with the scale of our response.

    So let us resolve today to be the first country in the world to implement a Green New Deal. A Green industrial revolution.

    Good jobs at decent wages. Nurturing and supporting our great businesses. Protecting the planet for future generations. The morally responsible, fiscally responsible choice.

    Delivering climate justice and economic justice together. This is the cause I returned to fight for. This is the cause that summons our party. This is the cause of our day, our decade, our generation. This is the cause that is the destiny of our country.

    For the sake of ourselves and generations to come, let us fight with everything we have because the whole future far beyond our own time depends upon us.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2021 Comments on the Climate Emergency

    Sadiq Khan – 2021 Comments on the Climate Emergency

    The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 23 September 2021.

    In the year of COP26, London is at a crossroads. We either take bold action now or face the consequences – with catastrophic impacts on our environment, the air we breathe and the climate.

    I’m determined for London to be a world leader in tackling the twin dangers of air pollution and the climate emergency so that we can deliver a brighter future for London – one that’s greener, fairer and more prosperous for everyone. That’s why I’ve committed to making London a zero-carbon city by 2030, faster than any comparable city, and it’s why we are delivering a climate action plan that is compatible with the highest ambition of the Paris Agreement. I also want London to be a zero-pollution city so that no child has to grow up in our city breathing toxic air. That’s why I’m expanding the Ultra Low Emission Zone next month.

    But I can’t do it all alone. That’s why today I’m launching my city-wide campaign to inspire all Londoners – individuals, businesses and communities – to take action. I also want to work with the Government to unlock the powers and funding needed to meet our targets, which will help deliver national targets too.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Speech at the UN General Assembly

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Speech at the UN General Assembly

    The speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 22 September 2021.

    Mr President, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

    An inspection of the fossil record over the last 178 million years – since mammals first appeared – reveals that the average mammalian species exists for about a million years before it evolves into something else or vanishes into extinction.

    Of our allotted lifespan of a million, humanity has been around for about 200,000.

    In other words, we are still collectively a youngster.

    If you imagine that million years as the lifespan of an individual human being – about eighty years – then we are now sweet 16.

    We have come to that fateful age when we know roughly how to drive and we know how to unlock the drinks cabinet and to engage in all sorts of activity that is not only potentially embarrassing but also terminal.

    In the words of the Oxford philosopher Toby Ord “we are just old enough to get ourselves into serious trouble”.

    We still cling with part of our minds to the infantile belief that the world was made for our gratification and pleasure and we combine this narcissism with an assumption of our own immortality.

    We believe that someone else will clear up the mess we make, because that is what someone else has always done.

    We trash our habitats again and again with the inductive reasoning that we have got away with it so far, and therefore we will get away with it again.

    My friends the adolescence of humanity is coming to an end.

    We are approaching that critical turning point – in less than two months – when we must show that we are capable of learning, and maturing, and finally taking responsibility for the destruction we are inflicting, not just upon our planet but ourselves.

    It is time for humanity to grow up.

    It is time for us to listen to the warnings of the scientists – and look at Covid, if you want an example of gloomy scientists being proved right – and to understand who we are and what we are doing.

    The world – this precious blue sphere with its eggshell crust and wisp of an atmosphere – is not some indestructible toy, some bouncy plastic romper room against which we can hurl ourselves to our heart’s content.

    Daily, weekly, we are doing such irreversible damage that long before a million years are up, we will have made this beautiful planet effectively uninhabitable – not just for us but for many other species.

    And that is why the Glasgow COP26 summit is the turning point for humanity.

    We must limit the rise in temperatures – whose appalling effects were visible even this summer – to 1.5 degrees.

    We must come together in a collective coming of age.

    We must show we have the maturity and wisdom to act.

    And we can.

    Even in this feckless youth we have harnessed clean energy from wind and wave and sun.

    We have released energy from within the atom itself and from hydrogen, and we have found ways to store that energy in increasingly capacious batteries and even in molten salt.

    We have the tools for a green industrial revolution but time is desperately short.

    Two days ago, in New York we had a session in which we heard from the leaders of the nations most threatened by climate change: the Marshall Islands, the Maldives, Bangladesh and many others.

    And they spoke of the hurricanes and the flooding and the fires caused by the extreme meteorological conditions the world is already seeing.

    And the tragedy is that because of our past inaction, there are further rises in temperature that are already baked in – baked is the word.

    And if we keep on the current track then the temperatures will go up by 2.7 degrees or more by the end of the century.

    And never mind what that will do to the ice floes: we will see desertification, drought, crop failure, and mass movements of humanity on a scale not seen before, not because of some unforeseen natural event or disaster, but because of us, because of what we are doing now.

    And our grandchildren will know that we are the culprits and that we were warned and they will know that it was this generation that came centre stage to speak and act on behalf of posterity and that we missed our cue and they will ask what kind of people we were to be so selfish and so short-sighted.

    In just 40 days time we need the world to come to Glasgow to make the commitments necessary.

    And we are not talking about stopping the rise in temperatures – it is alas too late for that – but to restrain that growth, as I say, to 1.5 degrees.

    And that means we need to pledge collectively to achieve carbon neutrality – net zero – by the middle of the century.

    And that will be an amazing moment if we can do it because it will mean that for the first time in centuries humanity is no longer adding to the budget of carbon in the atmosphere, no longer thickening that invisible quilt that is warming the planet, and it is fantastic that we now have countries representing 70 per cent of the world’s GDP committed to this objective.

    But if we are to stave off these hikes in temperature we must go further and faster – we need all countries to step up and commit to very substantial reductions by 2030 – and I passionately believe that we can do it by making commitments in four areas – coal, cars, cash and trees.

    I am not one of those environmentalists who takes a moral pleasure in excoriating humanity for its excess.

    I don’t see the green movement as a pretext for a wholesale assault on capitalism.

    Far from it.

    The whole experience of the Covid pandemic is that the way to fix the problem is through science and innovation, the breakthroughs and the investment that are made possible by capitalism and by free markets, and it is through our Promethean faith in new green technology that we are cutting emissions in the UK.

    When I was a kid we produced almost 80 per cent of our electricity from coal; that is now down to two per cent or less and will be gone altogether by 2024.

    We have put in great forests of beautiful wind turbines on the drowned prairies of Doggerland beneath the North Sea.

    In fact we produce so much offshore wind that I am thinking of changing my name to Boreas Johnson in honour of the North Wind.

    And I know that we are ambitious in asking the developing world to end the use of coal power by 2040 and for the developed world to do so by 2030, but the experience of the UK shows that it can be done and I thank President Xi for what he has done to end China’s international financing of coal and I hope China will now go further and phase out the domestic use of coal as well, because the experience of the UK shows it can be done.

    And when I was elected mayor of London only 13 years ago, I was desperate to encourage more electric vehicles and we put in charging points around the city.

    And I am afraid that in those days they were not greatly patronised.

    But the market in EVs in the UK is now growing at an extraordinary pace – maybe two thirds every year – and Nissan is sufficiently confident to invest £1 billion in a new EV factory and a gigafactory for the batteries.

    And that is because we have set a hard deadline for the sale of new hydrocarbon ICEs of 2030 and again we call on the world to come together to drive this market so that by 2040 there are only zero emission vehicles on sale anywhere in the world.

    And you can make these cuts in pollution while driving jobs and growth: we have cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 44 per cent in the last 30 years while expanding our GDP by 78 per cent.

    And we will now go further by implementing one of the biggest nationally determined contributions – the NDC is the pledge we ask every country to make in cutting carbon – going down by 68 per cent by 2030, compared to where we were in 1990.

    We are making a huge bet on hydrogen, we are expanding nuclear, we are helping people to reduce their own household CO2.

    We are working towards Jet Zero – the first large carbon-free passenger plane.

    And we also recognise that this is not just about using technical fixes for CO2: we need to restore the natural balance, we need to halt and reverse the loss of trees and biodiversity by 2030, and that is why we in the UK are committed to beautifying the landscape, strengthening our protection against flooding, by planting millions more trees.

    We must also work towards the crucial Kunming summit in China and I call on all nations to follow the example of Imran Khan who has pledged to plant 10 billion trees in Pakistan alone.

    And we in the developed world must recognise our obligation to help.

    We started this industrial revolution in Britain: we were the first to send the great puffs of acrid smoke to the heavens on a scale to derange the natural order.

    And though we were setting in train a new era of technology that was itself to lead to a massive global reduction in poverty, emancipating billions around the world, we were also unwittingly beginning to quilt the great tea cosy of CO2 and so we understand when the developing world looks to us to help them and we take our responsibilities.

    And that’s why two years ago I committed that the UK would provide £11.6 billion to help the rest of the world to tackle climate change and in spite of all the pressures on finances caused by Covid, we have kept that promise to the letter.

    And I am so pleased and encouraged by some of the pledges we have heard here at UNGA, including from Denmark, and now a very substantial commitment from the US that brings us within touching distance of the $100 billion pledge.

    But we must go further, and we must be clear that government alone will not be able to do enough.

    We must work together so that the international financial institutions – the IMF, the World Bank – are working with governments around the world to leverage in the private sector, because it is the trillions of dollars of private sector cash that will enable developing nations – and the whole world – to make the changes necessary.

    It was the UK government that set the strike price for the private sector to come in and transform our country into the Saudi Arabia of wind, and only yesterday the UK’s first sovereign green bond raised £10 billion on the markets, from hard-headed investors who want to make money.

    And these investments will not only help the countries of the world to tackle climate change: they will produce millions and millions of high wage, high skill jobs, and today’s workforce and the next generation will have the extra satisfaction of knowing that they are not only doing something useful – such as providing clean energy – but helping to save the planet at the same time.

    And every day green start-ups are producing new ideas, from feeding seaweed to cows to restrain their traditional signs of digestive approval, to using AI and robotics to enhance food production.

    And it is these technological breakthroughs that will cut the cost for consumers, so that we have nothing to fear and everything to gain from this green industrial revolution.

    And when Kermit the frog sang It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green, I want you to know he was wrong – and he was also unnecessarily rude to Miss Piggy.

    We have the technology: we have the choice before us.

    Sophocles is often quoted as saying that there are many terrifying things in the world, but none is more terrifying than man, and it is certainly true that we are uniquely capable of our own destruction, and the destruction of everything around us.

    But what Sophocles actually said was that man is deinos and that means not just scary but awesome – and he was right.

    We are awesome in our power to change things and awesome in our power to save ourselves, and in the next 40 days we must choose what kind of awesome we are going to be.

    I hope that COP26 will be a 16th birthday for humanity in which we choose to grow up, to recognise the scale of the challenge we face, to do what posterity demands we must, and I invite you in November to celebrate what I hope will be a coming of age and to blow out the candles of a world on fire.

    See you in Glasgow.

  • Daniel Zeichner – 2021 Comments on WHO Clean Air Announcement

    Daniel Zeichner – 2021 Comments on WHO Clean Air Announcement

    The comments made by Daniel Zeichner, the Shadow Environment Secretary, on 22 September 2021.

    Inaction and delay from the Conservatives has allowed catastrophic levels of air pollution to build up across the country, with toxic air estimated to cause around 40,000 premature deaths a year.

    In Government, Labour would introduce a new Clean Air Act to protect our environment, help decarbonise the economy and ensure we all have safe air to breathe.

    This is a health emergency for children across the country. Ministers must accept their defeat in the House of Lords vote on the Environment Bill or we will see this country fall even further behind the World Health Organisation clean air standards.