The upcoming COP31 climate talks in Antalya, Turkey need to respond to the latest science on global warming, which is “really scary”, says UK climate minister Katie White.
In an interview with Carbon Brief setting out the UK’s priorities for the summit, White also responds to suggestions that the government is walking back its climate policies.
White says the “shocking” impact of extreme heat and wildfires this summer makes it clear that climate change “isn’t something far off; it’s something we’re living through”.
She adds that the UK will be working to “hold up the science”, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that should be the “basis of discussions”.
The COP31 presidency push on electrification is “going to be key”, says White, who points to other priorities for the UK that include tackling methane emissions and reducing deforestation.
White says the recent approval of the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea is “fully in line” with carbon budgets and that the UK continues to support the “transition away from fossil fuels”.
She adds that the Hormuz crisis has helped drive the “biggest uptake…we’ve ever seen” in the UK for solar, electric vehicles and heat pumps.
Finally, White defends the new approach set out in the budget by chancellor John Healey, including a greater focus on affordability, as a “natural evolution” of UK government policy.
Carbon Brief: Katie White, thank you very much for joining Carbon Brief today. Next week we’re going to be heading to COP31 climate talks in Antalya in Turkey.
We’ve seen this year the UN warning that a temporary overshoot of 1.5C degrees is now inevitable. We’ve had 50,000 excess heat deaths across Europe this summer. We’ve had extreme weather events hitting Nepal, deadly floods there. Heading into the talks, what would you say the UK’s priorities are?
Katie White: Thanks, Simon. Look, just to say, it’s great to be here. I’m a big fan of Carbon Brief and the work you’ve been doing. I think it’s incredibly important that there are people who are focused on the facts and have really excellent commentary. So just to say thank you, and it’s good to be here to discuss with you.
Look, this year has been a very significant year in terms of climate, particularly sat here in the UK. I think we have really felt the impacts of climate change for the first time. For you and me, who’ve been working on this for a long time [and] we talk about it. But even so – I don’t know how you felt – but I was even shocked by the implications of what that was for everyday life, for people actually sleeping at night. You know, in terms of parliament, I had colleagues who had to go pick up their children because their schools weren’t available, and you know, tragedies in terms of older people struggling in the heat.
Not to mention the wildfires that we had across the country. I went to visit one in Romford and I think just standing – literally in the ashes – and seeing people’s homes really close by. My colleague in Stourbridge, obviously, they had burnt-out houses – you know, devastating. And you think about it – and I talked with her about – the actual real-life implications of that.
Membership
Support award-winning climate journalism
Join CB+Obviously, people think about it, but then the after-effects, and you know the challenges with insurance and the challenge with all these sky boxes, and all of the things that come – those smaller things, as well as the tragedies around your photos, and all of that being lost.
So I think it’s really opened, sadly, another door for us in terms of the climate-change journey. This isn’t something far off; it’s something we’re living through. I know that’s been the case for many countries for a long time, but it really felt like a shift here in the UK.
You’re right, the science, once again, is really scary. The overshoot report is incredibly concerning. Scientifically, obviously, they look for a longer period. But I think the main message – for me as a politician – is this is really worrying. And every year we have another call to action. How do we translate that call into actual delivery? And that’s the bit we need to make sure of, because you know, I think we have to be listening to the science, and the science is fundamental and key. And we might talk about the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and all the elements of that. But also, for me, how do we translate that?
It’s not, as you all know, it’s not the big global stocktake COP [this year in Antalya]. So it’s not going to be that big event, where we have it every five years. But we still need to be making significant progress. So we really focus a lot on the science, on the “action agenda” and on those political decisions – that “cover decision” that the Australian presidency [of negotiations] has said that they’re going to pursue.
So in terms of the action agenda, which obviously the Turkish [presidency] has led on and [has] been really forthright about leading on this, I think electrification is going to be key. It’s something that shot up the agenda.
I think most of your audience will know what electrification is, but for anyone outside of the climate bubble [it is] around electrifying our homes, electrifying our transportation. And in the UK, we’ve done a good job of decarbonising our electricity system, but we need to be pulling down on that and increasing demand to make sure that we take full advantage of the clean electricity that we have, which would be good for bills, but also around reducing our emissions as well. So something around electrification, we’re expecting a lot of talk of that. [It is] something the Turks have been talking about a lot.
Methane is another area which we’ve been working on, but I expect there will be some progress in terms of methane. Forests, you’ll know that we’ve pledged an investment to the [Tropical Forest Forever] TFFF, so we will be hoping for some momentum around that forests agenda.
So, I think, those are some of the really practical areas of action, as well as making sure we’re moving forward, holding up the UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change], holding up the science, so we can keep moving forward and making progress on any of those areas within the cover decision that the Australians will obviously steer us through.
CB: Great, thank you. You mentioned electrification. Obviously, that’s a target announced by the Turkish presidency earlier this year. They said they want to see the adoption of a global target for 35% of final energy to come from electricity by 2035.
At the moment, it’s a voluntary sign-on pledge, but presumably that’s something that could enter into the cover decision, as you mentioned. I guess I’m wondering: is the UK going to sign up to that, if it remains as a voluntary pledge? And would the UK like to see that in the cover decision, brought formally into the [COP31] outcome?
KW: Good questions. Look, so we’ll wait and see how we manage the next couple of weeks in terms of [that]. I think we have definitely, domestically, been looking at electrification and how we take advantage of the clean electricity that we have more effectively. Because of the Middle East crisis, broadly, we’ve seen interest in EVs, in solar panels and heat pumps, just shoot up this year, as people have got increasingly concerned about energy prices. And for those who are in a position, you know, a lot of them have taken advantage.
So we are seeing shifts in the market, and we’re looking at what role we can play to encourage and accelerate that. Whether it’s supporting the rollout of charging points for electric vehicles. You’ll probably know this, Simon, but there are more public charging points in the UK now than petrol pumps, which I think is an incredible fact – and most people don’t know. That’s not including those within driveways, of which nearly 70% of the UK has access to a driveway, so all of those people who might have their own home charging, there is more public.
We are making this infrastructure more easy, more accessible, so that people can make that shift. But we are [already] seeing the shift, you know, we’ve got two million EVs on the road. Super excitingly for the motor geeks, the second-hand [EV] car market is really starting to – excuse the pun – “motor”. Actually, that does mean a big shift in terms of accessibility.
So we’re seeing this happen within the UK. We’ll look at whether that’s a helpful target for us, but in terms of the focus, the ambition on electrification in the UK will remain. And I’m really pleased to see it as part of the negotiations this year or the action agenda.
It was interesting to see the Europeans do their own electrification – I don’t know whether they called it a plan or a roadmap, everybody gets caught up on these words – but they also brought forward [an “action plan”]. So obviously, we’re looking at where we can, you know, be a little bit more aligned with them.
CB: You mentioned roadmaps. Now, obviously, last year at the COP, the big debate, slightly outside of the formal negotiations, was around the idea of a roadmap away from fossil fuels and the UK was one of more than 100 countries that were really pushing for that to again be brought into the formal outcome of the summit in Brazil. Is that something that the UK is going to be pushing again this year?
KW: For sure. So look, we very much support the agenda around the transition away from fossil fuels. You know, in terms of, how do we support countries, how do we work together in terms of moving away from that? You’ll know that Rachel Kyte, our special representative, was in Santa Marta in April of this year to talk through [this topic] and we hosted a follow-up event at Wilton Park around the London Climate Action Week. So you know, very keen to support and work that through.
It’s obviously a hard agenda, but it’s something that I think we should have been discussing for a while in terms of the COP processes. So it was great that we managed to do that. I think it was as a result of lots of different people talking about it, different campaigns, different, you know, how do we work together around this, in terms of managing the resources we have most effectively, and transitioning away. [That’s] for climate reasons, for health reasons and, in large part, economic reasons as well.
CB: Great. You mentioned the IPCC timeline. This is obviously something that’s been rolling on for quite a while. There’s been a group of countries making a concerted effort to delay the publication of the next IPCC assessment report, so that it won’t align with the next global stocktake under the Paris Agreement.
The UK, as far as I understand, is pushing for that timeline to be accelerated, or to at least align with the stocktake. I just want to confirm that that’s the UK’s position and then ask, what is your understanding of the arguments being made for not doing that, for not aligning those timelines?
KW: So look, we obviously would like to have as much of the science ready for the global stocktake. That would be the ideal outcome in terms of what we are looking for, and we have said that we will continue to say that we would also like an outcome.
So, in a sense, we would like to make sure that we have a decision and we are moving this forward, and we don’t get caught up in having longer negotiations, which stall us making any progress at all.
I wasn’t at the [IPCC] meeting this autumn, but in terms of [what] I understand, [IPCC chair Prof] Jim Skea did a good job of trying to navigate that and making sure that this is inclusive. We want to listen to concerns around inclusivity, but we also want to make progress, because of the reasons that we talked about right up front: there is some really scary science going forward. The IPCC is peer-reviewed, it’s the best in the world, and we want to make sure that that is the basis of discussions.