I am passionate about tackling climate change and moving to net zero. I am in favour of facilitating onshore wind where there is local consent. I feel sure that faced with a sensible proposal such local consent would be forthcoming in Cheltenham.
I have long said (and long before I entered politics) that climate change is one of the most serious challenges that our country, and indeed our world, faces. That’s why I introduced on Cheltenham’s behalf the Net Zero Bill which commits the UK to net zero emissions by 2050.
I chose that date because it was the view of the IPCC in 2018 that that was the deadline by which the world must be net zero if we are to meet the Paris climate target of 1.5-degree heating. I was grateful to the Climate Coalition for judging me the winner of their ‘MP Climate Action’ award at the Green Heart Hero Awards in 2020, for being the MP who took more action than any other to tackle climate change in that year.
The United Kingdom was the first major economy to legislate for net zero carbon emissions and I am encouraged that, since 2000, the UK has decarbonised faster than any other G7 country.
The recent Energy White Paper stated that there will need to be sustained growth in the capacity of onshore wind over the next decade alongside solar and offshore wind. So I was glad that in March 2020 the Government announced that onshore wind and other established renewable technologies such as solar PV will be able to compete in the latest Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation round. The round is now open and will aim to deliver up to double the renewable capacity of the last successful round.
Furthermore, the Hydrogen Strategy made clear that Scotland has a key role to play in the development of a UK hydrogen economy, with the potential to produce industrial-scale quantities of hydrogen from offshore and onshore wind resources, wave and tidal power, as well as with Carbon Capture Usage and Storage.