Lord Callanan: My Lords, we want progress in five areas: ambitious new commitments and action, including a pathway to keep 1.5 degrees centigrade within reach of the global stock-take; scaling up clean energy through commitment to triple renewables, double energy efficiency and moving beyond fossil fuels; progress on finance reform, delivering on $100 billion for developing economies; building resilience...
Lord Callanan: The noble and right reverend Lord makes an important point. Agriculture is one of the most difficult areas to decarbonise. It is of course linked into a lot of the action that has been taken on nature. It is one of our priority areas and we will be doing what we can to progress agreement.
Lord Callanan: Obviously, the reports that we saw in the last few days were concerning, but of course we are not aware of what was discussed in private meetings. The UAE presidency was not appointed by us, but we support it in what it has said publicly in terms of advocating for an ambitious deal.
Lord Callanan: The noble Baroness makes an important point. As she mentioned, we are reviewing our membership. I do not know when a decision will be taken. I hesitate to use the word “imminently” after the last question, but I am sure that we will want to act as quickly as possible.
Lord Callanan: The noble Lord makes an important point. We helped to secure an agreement on the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, and the agreement on marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. We were pleased to support that during our COP presidency and want to continue doing so.
Lord Callanan: The noble Baroness is right that action on methane is important. It is one of the focuses for discussion that we will take forward. I have answered questions on flaring before in this House. She will remember that we are taking action to eliminate flaring completely by the end of the decade. It has reduced considerably in recent years, but clearly we need to go further.
Lord Callanan: The noble Lord never disappoints in terms of his advocacy for more taxes on—well, everyone, effectively. He might want to talk to his own Front Bench about some of these policies. The UK is very proud of our record on decarbonisation and we are very proud of our record on helping the poorest communities. We have committed £11.6 billion of expenditure on international climate finance by...
Lord Callanan: Well, I just said in my previous answer that we have not reduced our commitment to international climate finance and all the various areas that it covers. The Prime Minister and senior Ministers are attending COP 28 and the noble Lord might want to watch for any announcements that are made at that point.
Lord Callanan: I do not want to repeat the five points that I have made. Obviously, we want to make progress on all of them. That is probably unrealistic; it is a negotiation and there are many countries with different agendas going into it, but we will negotiate in good faith and the overall pledge to take action on 1.5 degrees is probably going to be the most important point, but there are a number of...
Lord Callanan: Flaring and venting is something to be avoided by all member states. The noble Baroness is right that we do import a lot of liquid natural gas. Of course, if she and others were not so keen to halt the UK’s extraction of oil and gas, we would not need to import so much from the UAE. So perhaps she might want to indulge in a little bit of introspection.
Lord Callanan: The noble Baroness asks the question on the day that the first international flight with sustainable aviation fuel was launched by, I think, Virgin Atlantic, across to the US. Obviously, that is only one and there is a lot of progress to be made, but sustainable aviation fuel does offer one of a range of potential solutions. I know that the noble Baroness would just ban everything, but that...
Lord Callanan: When the noble Lord started off with praise, I was waiting for the “but” to come into the question. The noble Lord will be pleased to know that I am not going to COP. My Secretary of State is there, with a number of other Ministers from the Government. I do not know what council leaders are going for, or what their role is going to be; that is something that they will need to answer for...
Lord Callanan: My Lords, the Connections Action Plan is published today. The plan will significantly reduce connection delays from the current average of five years to no more than six months beyond the date requested by the customer. It will release 100 gigawatts of spare capacity, equivalent to around a quarter of electricity needs in 2050. The plan also establishes an Ofgem-chaired monthly connections...
Lord Callanan: I congratulate the noble Baroness on tabling her Question for today, which is a fantastic coincidence and shows her great foresight on this. She is right that the construction of new electricity infra- structure, particularly pylons, is a controversial matter, particularly in the communities that are affected. She will know that the Winser review made a number of recommendations as to how we...
Lord Callanan: I have a certain amount of sympathy with what my noble friend says, but the reality is that we need this new infrastructure and, unfortunately, it is not possible to say that no community will be affected. It is possible to bury power lines, of course, but it is up to 10 times more expensive and that cost will fall on the bill payer. As in many things, it is about getting the balance right.
Lord Callanan: The noble Lord is absolutely right: the FSO role is absolutely key, and we are progressing work on that as quickly as possible. It is really important to get it up and running, and relieve the responsibility from the national grid, which I think has had a number of conflicts of interest in this space.
Lord Callanan: Indeed, we are working with both the Scottish and Welsh Governments. There is tremendous public support for offshore wind; it has been our biggest expansion mechanism. But of course it requires a lot of onshore infrastructure as well, which is unpopular in the communities affected. There is a well-established planning process, looking at all these impacts, and we will continue to work with...
Lord Callanan: Of course, there are still some onshore wind connections being built in both Scotland and Wales, and a few in England as well. We are committed to looking at the barriers that exist and overcoming them.
Lord Callanan: I think the noble Baroness will find that Ofgem’s view is that it was already fulfilling that mandate—and, of course, the vast majority of the new connections are because of new renewable electricity, which is to fulfil our net-zero obligations. Ofgem is fully in line with that.
Lord Callanan: I am not sure I understand the point my noble friend is making. The reason we have a national grid is to distribute electricity around the country so that all communities get the chance to benefit. If you had a much more localised system of grids, it would be much more inefficient. The whole idea or principle of the national grid is that the whole country can benefit from all our renewables...
