COP 28

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts
Wednesday 17th May 2023

(1 year, 7 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

The noble Lord makes an important point, citing the chairman of COP. The reality is that there will still be a requirement for fossil fuels in the years to come. There will still be a requirement in the UK, which is why we have an ambitious programme —we are spending £20 billion on carbon capture usage and storage. That still enables emissions to take place but of course they will be captured and stored back underground.

Lord Howell of Guildford Portrait Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

Regardless of the status of whoever represents us at COP 28, will the Minister make sure that the Government understand and explain to the public that while we are getting on very well in decarbonising the electric power sector, that is only one-fifth of our total energy usage? Therefore, we are only still in the foothills of trying to climb the net-zero peak target, which requires massive expansion of both nuclear power—preferably small nuclear power—and wind power on a scale not yet contemplated and not yet being invested for.

Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My noble friend of course knows this subject very well from his time as Energy Minister and makes an important point. We already have invested massively in renewables. We have the biggest wind sector in Europe by far. We have the first, second and third-largest wind farms in Europe, so we are massively expanding our renewables sector. It makes sense because particularly wind power and solar power are cheap compared to fossil fuel generation, but renewables are intermittent, which is why we will also need our nuclear generation. He draws attention to the scale of the problem we face.