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Britain will go “all out” for a low-carbon future and accelerate the push to net zero instead of slowing down as some have demanded, the prime minister said on Thursday.
In his strongest declaration yet of support for the net zero agenda, Sir Keir Starmer told a conference in London of more than 60 countries that tackling the climate crisis and bolstering energy security were “in the DNA of my government”.
He said: “This government is acting now, with a muscular industrial policy, to seize the opportunities [in low-carbon technology] to boost investment, build new industries, drive UK competitiveness, and unlock export opportunities. That is the change we need. We won’t wait – we will accelerate.”
Starmer’s speech – made in front of the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the US senior energy official, Tommy Joyce – made clear that the prime minister sees renewable energy as core to the UK’s future prosperity and national security.
“We’re paying the price for our over-exposure, over many years, to the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets, leaving the economy and therefore people’s household budgets, vulnerable to the whims of dictators like Putin,” he said. “It’s our determination that working people should not be exposed like this any more.”
Boosting renewable power generation would, he said, “make energy a source not of vulnerability, but of strength. We will protect our critical infrastructure, energy networks and supply chains, and do whatever it takes to protect the security of our people. Energy security is national security.”
For several months, Labour’s commitment to net zero has come under question. The chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, is re-examining spending commitments on low-carbon infrastructure, and Ed Miliband, the energy security secretary who has championed climate action and low-carbon power, has been the target of unfriendly briefings from within his own party.
Miliband and net zero have been subject to growing criticism in the past few weeks, as the crisis in the steel industry was blamed by Nigel Farage and others on net zero, despite the fact the UK’s high energy prices are overwhelmingly driven by reliance on gas.
But Starmer’s words were a clear vote of confidence. He said: “Some in the UK don’t agree with [net zero]. They think energy security can wait. They think tackling climate change can wait. But do they also think that billpayers can wait? Do they think economic growth can wait? Do they think we can win the race for green jobs and investment by going slow?”
Von der Leyen echoed Starmer’s words. “Reliable and affordable energy is the lifeblood of our economies, it underpins our national security, and it sustains our industrial and economic competitiveness,” she said. “Clean homegrown renewables not only strengthen our resilience, they of course also spur new jobs and more innovation within our own economies. As our energy dependency on fossil fuels goes down, our energy security goes up. That is the lesson we have learnt in Europe.”
Not all countries were convinced. Joyce, acting assistant secretary in the office for international affairs, in the US Department of Energy, attacked the goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as “harmful and dangerous” and in “the interest of our adversaries”.
He claimed: “When and where energy is scarce or restricted, humans suffer. Unfortunately, the focus during the last administration was on climate politics and policies, leading to that scarcity. These policies have been embraced by many, not just the US, and harm human lives.”
Joyce’s words were received in near silence in contrast to the applause for fellow speakers who warned that dependence on fossil fuels was playing into the hands of Russia and Vladimir Putin, described by several speakers as having “weaponised” gas supply in his invasion of Ukraine.
Joyce struck more of a chord, however, when he warned that China controlled the supply of critical minerals essential to renewable energy technology. Delegates had a separate session on this. China’s government was not represented at the conference, but the country’s president, Xi Jinping, gave a pointed private address to several other world leaders at the UN earlier this week in which he vowed to press ahead with climate policies, in contrast to the US.
More than 60 countries, and about 50 private sector companies, were represented at the talks at Lancaster House in London, which will continue on Friday. King Charles was not present, but sent a message of support.
Starmer also gave the green light to a £2bn carbon capture and storage (CCS) project located 20 miles off the coast of Liverpool, the first phase of which is designed to store 109m tonnes of CO2 from industrial plants near Liverpool and Manchester in the East Irish Sea.
