COP 27: Commitments

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open the winding-up speeches in this very important debate, on a matter about which our Benches, like all other Benches, feel particularly passionate. I know that a number of my colleagues were particularly disappointed that they were prevented by other commitments from being able to speak today. On behalf of all of us, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for giving us this opportunity today and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Leong, on his excellent maiden speech.

As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said early in his speech, there was something to welcome in the outcome of COP 27, specifically—as my noble friend Lady Sheehan also mentioned—the commitment to create a fund to address the loss and damage done to some poorer countries as a result of climate change. I think that we all believe that its success will depend on the specific details. I think we would all like to know, from the Minister, what practical and financial commitment the UK Government will be making to this fund.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, also raised the issue of forest management: those vital carbon sinks. That is why I particularly welcome the commitment of President-elect Lula of Brazil to stop deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The damage done under President Bolsonaro has been disastrous for the future of the planet. Can I therefore ask the Minister whether the UK Government will be offering any practical help, such as surveillance, to President Lula, to assist him with enforcement and to crack down on the criminal loggers who are clearing his forests?

However, at COP 27—as the noble Lord, Lord Leong, said quite sadly—it was disappointing that there was no increase in ambition on mitigation from the partners, including the UK, to reduce damaging emissions any faster than the commitments made at COP 26, despite the fact that the world is moving towards a disastrous 2.4 degrees of warming. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, noticed, Alok Sharma MP was clearly very disappointed by the outcome. Given the further evidence of the urgency of the matter over the past year, with serious adverse weather events such as flooding, drought and wildfires, one would have hoped for better.

Many good points have been made during the debate. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and my noble friend Lady Sheehan mentioned debt relief, so that countries such as the Maldives can use the money to help with their protection from and adaptation to global warming. That is a really important point. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, also mentioned the costs of moving to net zero, particularly the availability of materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, many of which are mined by workers in very poor working conditions and human rights situations. That matter was raised with the Minister yesterday in the debate on the report of the Science and Technology Committee on batteries and fuel cells. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed out that we produce only 1% of carbon emissions: of course, we must all do our bit, but I do agree with him that we have a leadership role in helping others to reduce theirs through our technological developments—more about that later.

In his maiden speech, the noble Lord, Lord Leong, emphasised the role of the next generation, and how poignant that is when we are destroying the planet. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, mentioned many exciting technical solutions in the growing green technology area that other people had not mentioned—things to do with methane and plastics. We heard about more exciting developments from the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, reminded us of the Prime Minister’s words at COP 27 that reaching net zero is a cross-government responsibility in the UK, and also an international responsibility, so we must address it in the spirit of co-operation. My noble friend Lady Sheehan emphasised the importance of world leaders getting together at COPs and also of giving a voice to small countries and drawing the attention of the world to the challenge of climate change.

However, it is our own emissions over which we have most control, and we could start by stopping subsidies for fossil fuels, which my noble friend Lady Sheehan and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, called for, but we also have an opportunity to take a lead and to benefit from economic opportunities if we are more ambitious and innovative. The UK has done quite well on renewables since the lead given by my right honourable friend Ed Davey MP when he was Secretary of State for Energy in the coalition Government. The climate change performance index currently ranks the UK 11th in its 2023 report, but the Egyptian presidency of COP 27 called for “bold and immediate actions” on mitigation to ensure that the rise in global warming remains below 1.5 degrees. The Glasgow climate pact from COP 26 called on parties to accelerate the transition to low-emission energy systems, but COP 27 disappointed on that.

So the matter is urgent, and it is about the balance and resilience of our UK renewable energy policy that I wish to speak. According to the Autumn Statement, Sizewell C will be eye-wateringly expensive and will not produce a single gigabyte of electricity for a decade, so why not invest in a renewable energy that has been largely ignored but can produce energy long before that? When I was a little girl, I went on holiday in north Wales with my bucket and spade, and when the tide went out my dad and I dug for lugworms in the exposed sand and stuck them on hooks to go fishing for dabs. The tide came in and covered the holes we made, and then it went out again—and it did that again every day of our holiday. Then my father explained to me the link between the tides and the gravitational pull of the moon. It occurs to me then to ask, in the week that the Americans revitalised their ambition of putting man on the moon again with the launch of their Artemis rocket: if man can go to the moon, why can we not harness the regular, predictable energy of the tides?

So I would like to ask some questions about the potential of tidal stream energy—TSE—which does not vary like solar and wind and therefore has the potential to fill a valuable place in our energy baseload and keep battery storage topped up. Currently, marine energy is more expensive per kilowatt than other zero-carbon methods, but I am grateful for an excellent briefing from the catapult on offshore renewable energy, outlining research on what support is needed to reduce the levelised cost of energy—LCOE—produced from the tide and showing how it could, with the right support, be cheaper than nuclear by 2035.

It is no accident that both solar and offshore wind have reduced significantly in cost over the past two decades. It is because they have benefited from significant public development funding and energy generation subsidies. When I first installed solar panels in a property 15 years ago, the cost was pretty high, but when I installed solar in my current home, six years ago, the cost was much less because economies of scale had kicked in. That was because of government action. However, political support for the tidal stream sector has been inconsistent. This has slowed down investment and technology development compared with alternative renewables. Consequently, there has not been the chance to unlock cost reductions through deploying commercial-scale arrays, and there are only a handful of projects across the UK to date. But the opportunity for TSE to contribute to the resilience of the UK renewable energy mix and to export both technology and energy around the world and contribute to growth is considerable.

Through a number of demonstration projects, the industry in the UK has achieved a reduction in its levelised cost of energy since 2016 of more than 40% with little or no revenue support, so it is crucial that this technology continues to drive down costs to become competitive with other forms of energy. However, the industry needs the help that other forms of renewable energy have received. Its innovation and development and its effective demonstration projects warrant government support to help us achieve the title of “science and technology superpower” and reach zero carbon emissions.

So, what is needed? The first answer is long-term commitment and certainty. Will the Government set a long-term deployment target for the sector? Secondly, the supply chain needs to see a clear project pipeline to enable investment in workforce and facilities. The Marine Energy Council’s UK target of one gigawatt of ocean energy by 2035 is feasible, and there is no reason why TSE should not make up around 900 megawatts of that. Such a target would encourage the flow of private capital, but an industry target needs to be backed by consistent revenue support. In the UK, the best way to support an industry in this crucial early stage is to maintain a ring-fenced amount in upcoming contracts for difference rounds. That is important, since TSE is an emerging technology and currently unable to compete with the large scale of more established forms of renewable energy.

I hope the Minister will consider these requests in the interests of energy security, diversity, resilience, predictability and the opportunity for serious export opportunities and growth.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I welcome the Minister’s celebration of the contribution of indigenous people and civil society to successive COPs, but I asked whether the UK would work to exclude oil and gas lobbyists from future COPs?

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

May I request that the Minister writes to me about tidal stream energy?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am happy to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on the important objective of tidal stream energy. With regard to fossil fuel lobbyists, it was not a cheery sight, although there are different issues and many fossil fuel companies are also engaged in renewal energy. Many of the biggest players in our own country are fossil fuel companies as they seek to transition through. We will certainly look closely at the issue of lobbyists, but who does and does not attend is not necessarily always our decision.