COP Climate Negotiations: Cities

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I think that is one-all now.

The noble Lord will be well aware that we have founded, among other things, Great British Energy, which has a substantial brief within it to promote low-carbon and community-based energy groups— 100 local projects up and down the country, which will very much relate low-carbon and climate change futures with local populations and, of course, make sure that the contributions that come forth from those projects are UK-based.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, C40 was set up in 2005 by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone; at that point it was C20, with only 20 cities. Now there are 96 cities, with a quarter of the global economy and a twelfth of the world’s population. They are driving the fight against climate change and deserve a seat at the negotiations. I ask the Government to rethink their decision not to invite them.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Baroness puts forward an accurate picture of how the C40 group was originally founded. I was not going to mention in this Chamber that it was founded by Ken Livingstone because I was worried that some of the responses might not be as positive as the noble Baroness’s. She is right that the original group of 18 has expanded to a huge international co-ordination group of 90-plus cities. That is why, among other things, the UK Government are one of the relatively few sovereign contributors to the C40’s work and its projects, running to multi-million pounds. The UK is very keen to make sure that those groups go forward, but it is a question of how the multilevel representation comes forward within the COP process overall.