Caroline Lucas, Green MP has accused the UK government of stoking what he described as a culture war on climate issues by calling for more investment in new gas-fired power plants before a general election.
Lucas used an urgent question in the House of Commons to challenge the energy minister, Graham Stuart, on the plans set out on Wednesday, which could see a string of new plants built in the coming years despite the government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuels.
She called on Stuart to admit that “this is the government’s latest attempt to stoke a culture war on climate”. The MP for Brighton Pavilion warned that the plans to encourage more investment in unabated gas power in the 2030s would jeopardise Britain’s climate goals.
Alan Whitehead, who is the shadow climate change minister, echoed the concerns and accused the government of trying to “conjure a culture war” with energy policy. He challenged Stuart to set out how many new gas plants the government was hoping to build, adding: “There is no mention of that in the 1,500 pages of documents that were published yesterday.”
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The government plans to extend the life of many existing power plants, but it estimates that it will need to have about 5 gigawatts of new gas power capacity in reserve to provide a limited amount of backup power when renewable energy is in short supply.
The planned reforms to the UK’s electricity market have angered environmental campaigners but have won favour among Conservative MPs, including the former minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. He suggested during the debate that the UK’s legally binding net zero targets should be “postponed indefinitely” to level Britain’s economic playing field with the US and China, which have cheaper energy costs.
According to reports, the UK has a legally binding target to reduce its emissions to net zero by 2050. The government’s official advisers at the Committee on Climate Change have forecast that gas-fired power generation can make up only 1-2% of the UK’s power generation in the 2030s if it hopes to keep its climate goals on track. The UK used gas to generate almost 40% of its electricity last year.
Rees-Mogg said that the government’s plan to call for more investment in gas power projects was “a good first step against the net zero obsession” but called on the government to go further.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
