Green Finance

Viscount Ridley Excerpts
Wednesday 31st October 2018

(6 years ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bates Portrait Lord Bates
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I do not accept the picture that the noble Lord is painting. In the index that we are talking about, the City of London was ranked number one in the world for the quality of green finance offered—something that we can be proud of. It has gone down to number three in terms of penetration, but look at other financial centres: Paris was fifth, Frankfurt 21st, Tokyo 29th and New York 39th. The City of London is leading the global agenda on leveraging private finance to meet the challenges identified by the IPCC, and we should celebrate that.

Viscount Ridley Portrait Viscount Ridley (Con)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, could my noble friend enlighten us on what is a green technology and what is not? It would be very easy to get green finance for projects that burn wood to make electricity but impossible to get it for projects that burn gas to do so, even though burning wood produces at least twice as much carbon dioxide as burning gas. Why?