Labour: Tories seeking to use loopholes in Cop deal to extract more fossil fuels
Energy minister Graham Stuart said the UN climate summit’s agreement ‘is not perfect’ but ‘is a turning point’.
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Your support makes all the difference.Labour has suggested the Government is seeking to use “loopholes” in the Cop28 agreement to avoid the “reality” of needing to leave the majority of fossil fuels in the ground.
Shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said the Government is continuing with plans to extract more fossil fuels and questioned how the Government could persuade other nations not to take similar action.
Energy minister Graham Stuart said “our record is without parallel”, and claimed it would be “environmental nonsense” not to replace higher-emission imported gas with lower-emission domestic supplies when it would “make no difference to our consumption”.
Mr Stuart also said the UN climate summit’s agreement “is not perfect” but “is a turning point”.
The exchange took place in the Commons after Mr Stuart made a statement to the House on progress made at Cop28.
Mr Miliband said: “We need a Government in the UK that will stop congratulating itself and using the UK’s record as an excuse for future inaction and will lead at home in a way that is consistent with what we are demanding of others.”
“The minister complained about a lack of action on coal at Cop, but this Government is opening a new coal mine, they are watering down emissions targets, seeking to drill every last drop in the North Sea, starting a culture war on net zero – this has sent a terrible message to business, investors and other governments,” he said.
The Labour frontbencher said the Cop decision says the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels in line with the science, and he said that the science is “unequivocal” that to limit warming to 1.5C “we must leave the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground”.
Mr Miliband said: “(The minister) is right, the fear of many countries is that there will be those who seek to use loopholes in the Cop agreement to avoid this reality.
“Our Government is doing precisely this. Because it says it wants to drill every last drop in the North Sea.”
He added: “Can he explain how he expects to persuade other countries in the next two years that they must leave their fossil fuels in the ground when he wants to extract all of ours?”
Addressing the Cop28 agreement, Mr Miliband said: “For all of the advances that were made, the truth is that the world is still hurtling for disaster, way off track for keeping 1.5C alive.”
Conservative former Cop26 president Sir Alok Sharma asked the Government to review plans for oil and gas licences and “consider whether that is consistent with international commitments that we’ve made”, and to “review urgently the tax regime which gives significant subsidies to new oil and gas projects”.
Mr Stuart told the Commons: “The agreement made at Cop28 this week is not perfect. We wanted to see more action on coal and ending the construction of new coal power plants, in particular.
“And like some of the small island states, we too wanted greater clarity and fewer loopholes in the agreement.
“But nonetheless this is a turning point unifying the world around a common commitment, listening to the islands in the Pacific and elsewhere whose voices must be heard, and showing we are responding to the science to move away from fossil fuels and raising a torch to inspire action.”
He also told MPs: “Despite this landmark agreement, and however successful the UK’s record to date, we still have such a long way to go to finance the transition and achieve our global ambitions.”
Responding to Labour, he said: “Every single carbon budget has been met by this Government to date.”
He claimed the “only major” climate targets the UK has missed were under the previous Labour government, adding: “Our record is without parallel.”
Mr Stuart said oil and gas will need to be a part of the energy transition and that it is “environmental nonsense” not to replace higher-emission imported gas with domestic supplies.
He earlier told the Commons: “The UK will continue to encourage others to join the UK on a net-zero pathway in this critical decade and help deliver a just, prosperous and secure future for all the peoples of this planet.”