Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Fletcher Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. Buildings are responsible for 20% of emissions in the UK; in our heat and buildings strategy, we set out our aim to ensure we insulate homes. He is right that that is how to reduce not only emissions, but costs for individuals and businesses.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

5. What assessment he has made of the outcome of COP26.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the outcome of COP26.

--- Later in debate ---

[The COP26 President (Alok Sharma)]

At COP26, almost 200 countries agreed to the historic Glasgow climate pact, which keeps alive the aim of limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5°. At the Munich security conference last month, John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate, referred to COP26 as perhaps the best or one of the best of the COPs, saying that it did more than Paris; it really gave life to Paris. We now need to ensure that the commitments are acted on.

[Mark Fletcher]

Given the horrible events that we are witnessing in Ukraine at the moment, does my right hon. Friend agree that the move from COP towards more renewables is more important than ever, particularly for our European neighbours? They need to wean themselves off Russian gas and oil for the good of our world.

[Alok Sharma]

There is a lot of consensus in the House that the UK’s significant expansion of renewables in the past decade, particularly in the offshore wind sector, has reduced our dependence on gas. My hon. Friend is right that we need to continue to push out on this to ensure our domestic energy security. As I say, we want more on renewables, more on nuclear and more on hydrogen.