Surplus Carbon Emissions

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am not sure that I would share the noble Baroness’s characterisation of getting rid of coal as low-hanging fruit. We have been extremely successful and will get rid of coal completely from the UK’s power system this year. We can contrast that with Germany, which is generating 27% of its power from coal this year. It is a great success, and it was very hard won. Of course, there are difficult challenges to face, one of which is steel. There are many other industrial sectors that are also difficult to decarbonise. We are working with all those industries to find appropriate solutions.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, future carbon budgets that the Government are proposing depend quite a lot on carbon capture and storage. At the moment, this is not a working technology; it is not actually running anywhere in the world, although many Governments are putting it in their future plans as something that will deliver. Can the Minister give the House an update on where the technology stands, and when he expects it to get off the ground and start reducing carbon emissions?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am afraid that the noble Baroness is incorrect; she needs to check her facts. There are a number of examples of working CCUS plants around the world. There is one in Canada, for instance; there are others as well. She is right that we are rolling it out in this country; there are two clusters we have identified, in the north-west and north-east of England—HyNet and the East Coast Cluster. We are in extensive negotiations with those clusters and want to make final investment decisions by quarter 3 this year, which will put the UK at the forefront of carbon capture in Europe.