Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reasons the UK was not a signatory to the Joint Statement issued by the High Ambition Coalition ministers on 11 November 2016 during the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The UK didn’t sign the Joint Statement issued by a Group of High Ambition Coalition members on 11 November 2016 because we considered that the best way for the UK to communicate with the new US administration was through normal channels given the long history that the UK and the United States have of working together on climate change and many other issues.