Sir Keir Starmer will admit the \u201cconsensus is gone\u201d on climate change but insist Britain is \u201call in\u201d on net zero in a speech to the UN Cop30 summit.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister will staunchly defend his Government\u2019s clean energy agenda on economic grounds as he concedes that cross-party unity on \u201cscience that is unequivocal\u201d has splintered both in Britain and globally.<\/p>\n
Addressing the climate change conference in Belem, the city gateway to the Brazilian Amazon basin, Sir Keir is expected to say: \u201cTen years ago, the world came together in Paris\u2026 united in our determination to tackle the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cA consensus based on science that is unequivocal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this unity was not just international \u2013 it was there within most of our countries too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was cross-party consensus in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only question was how fast we could go.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday however, sadly that consensus is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sir Keir will challenge sceptics calling for a slowdown on climate action, telling the summit: \u201cCan energy security wait too?<\/p>\n
\u201cCan billpayers wait? Can we win the race for green jobs and investment by going slow?<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (Ian Vogler\/Daily Mirror\/PA) <\/p>\n
The Prime Minister will describe green policies as a \u201cwin-win\u201d despite pressure from Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticised Britain\u2019s net zero agenda and who, along with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, will not attend the summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a win-win,\u201d he is expected to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greater our collective ambition, the more progress we make in tackling the climate crisis, and the greater the opportunities we create.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust for UK businesses\u2026 providing goods and services for the global net-zero transition could be worth \u00a31 trillion by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n
He will add: \u201cSo look \u2013 my message here is that the UK is all in.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we know, you don\u2019t protect jobs and communities by sticking with the status quo, you don\u2019t meet a challenge like climate change by standing still.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do it by embracing change, embracing the opportunities, and doing so together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour came into Government pledging to remove almost all fossil fuels from the UK\u2019s electricity supply by 2030, as part of efforts to secure energy supplies, curb bills, boost investment and tackle climate change.<\/p>\n
But the agenda has faced significant pushback from the Conservatives and Reform UK, who have pledged to ditch what they say are \u201cexpensive\u201d net zero policies and repeal climate legislation.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US President has vowed to \u201cunleash\u201d oil and gas drilling as he pulled the world\u2019s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter out of the 2015 UN Paris Agreement to limit global warming.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister is travelling to Belem on Thursday along with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the Prince of Wales on Thursday, having attended William\u2019s Earthshot Prize ceremony last night.<\/p>\n
Story continues <\/p>\n
He is expected to have more than one bilateral meeting with counterparts, though it was unclear on Thursday morning who he would come face to face with as teams seek to carve out time during the one-day visit.<\/p>\n
A general view of a road traffic sign welcoming drivers to Belfast Harbour Estate (Liam McBurney\/PA) <\/p>\n
Ahead of his visit, the Prime Minister hailed a series of new clean power investments deals that Downing Street estimates will support around 600 jobs.<\/p>\n
Under agreements announced on Thursday:<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Port of East Anglia will receive \u00a315 million as part of a wider \u00a328 million upgrade to build a new operations centre, with Scottish Power supporting the East Anglia Two wind farm in the North Sea<\/p>\n
\u2013 Carrington in Greater Manchester will host one of the UK\u2019s largest battery sites, with Statera Energy confirming a final investment decision on a 680MW storage system<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jera Nex bp and EnBW have committee \u00a3100 million to Belfast Harbour to support the delivery of two offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea, which the Government estimates could create more than 300 jobs.<\/p>\n
However, a decision not to invest in a Brazilian-led rainforest fund threatened to overshadow Sir Keir\u2019s efforts to show UK leadership on climate action.<\/p>\n
The Government has decided not to commit public money to the Tropical Forest Forever Fund, which Cop30 host nation Brazil wants to launch at the summit.<\/p>\n
The UK played a key role in establishing the scheme, which would offer financial backing to countries for preserving tropical biomes.<\/p>\n
But the Treasury reportedly questioned the potential cost as Chancellor Rachel Reeves grapples with balancing the books ahead of the Budget.<\/p>\n
Downing Street said on Wednesday the Government would continue to support the initiative and explore ways to \u201cbring the full weight of the UK private finances sector\u201d behind the scheme.<\/p>\n
Sir Keir\u2019s planned trip to Brazil meant he avoided a Commons grilling on Wednesday, when it emerged that two prisoners had been mistakenly freed from the same jail in the space of one week.<\/p>\n
But the Prime Minister is likely to face questions about the blunder and its ensuing fallout when he faces broadcasters in Belem later on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch suggested Sir Keir should focus on the UK\u2019s domestic issues over attending Cop.<\/p>\n
During a visit to Staffordshire, the opposition leader said: \u201cKeir Starmer has gone to a conference where the four biggest polluters: the US, India, China, Russia; are not there. That means that nothing serious is going to be happening<\/p>\n
\u201cIf those four countries aren\u2019t doing anything, Keir Starmer should focus on fixing the domestic problems we have in our country first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs Badenoch also suggested Sir Keir was the \u201conly person\u201d from a \u201cserious country at that conference\u201d, where other European leaders including France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron are also expected to attend.<\/p>\n
A Labour source said the Tory leader was adopting outdated arguments to appeal to her dwindling number of supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Prime Minister has travelled to Cop with the Prince of Wales to show UK leadership on the world stage, and delivering jobs and opportunity across Britain,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Leader of the Opposition should look the 400,000 UK workers in clean energy in the eye and tell them she wants to throw it all away.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for what? Old, rusty arguments stuck in the past that she\u2019s forced to adopt because her dwindling number of supporters\u00a0demand\u00a0it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Keir Starmer will admit the \u201cconsensus is gone\u201d on climate change but insist Britain is \u201call in\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[170053,748,2311,177054,393,4884,807,3739,1144,12184,386,712,50069,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-553194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-belem","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-consensus","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-keir-starmer","16":"tag-net-zero","17":"tag-northern-ireland","18":"tag-prime-minister","19":"tag-reform-uk","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-sir-keir","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115503594575417136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}