Energy white paper coming ‘in a matter of weeks’
Published 6 February 2020
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The publication of the long-awaited energy white paper is only “weeks” away, a government minister has revealed.
Responding to questions about COP26 yesterday in the House of Lords, junior energy minister Lord Duncan also insisted that the government is sticking to plans to hold the troubled climate change summit in Glasgow later this year.
Ex-energy minister Claire O’Neill recently aired concerns over summit after being sacked as COP president, warning that the preparations are “miles off track” in a letter to prime minister Boris Johnson.
Quizzed by Green peer Baroness Jones about the episode, Lord Duncan said: “We have the vision. This year, significant steps will have to be declared. There will be an energy white paper in a matter of weeks.”
The white paper was originally due to be published last summer but was postponed amidst Greg Clark’s sacking as secretary of state for business and energy in Johnson’s first cabinet reshuffle.
Lord Duncan said following the white paper and in the run up to COP 26 in November, the government will publish a plan for decarbonising transport, a heat policy road map, consultations on aviation and net-zero, together with strategies for buildings and fuel poverty.
He told Lord Forsyth the government’s plans for decarbonisation must be “more ambitious than we have been to date” in order to hit the target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
And the former Conservative MEP for Scotland said the COP 26 venue will “never” be shifted from Glasgow despite O’Neill’s report that the Scottish and UK governments are at loggerheads over the summit’s organisation.
He said, while a new president had yet be appointed, the prime minister will set the “direction and the pace” of the event.
Lord Forsyth, ex-secretary of state for Scotland, also expressed concerns about the government’s announcement on Tuesday that the 2035 vehicle sale ban will include hybrid cars and vans.
“To suddenly discover that hybrids will not be allowed and that the date has been brought forward makes things extremely difficult,” he remarked.
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