UK unveils 'clean power alliance' plan in bid to lead global green action
Alliance aimed at speeding global energy transition, including in developing countries that are falling behind, as foreign secretary says Labour has worked to restore UK's 'international credibility' on renewables
The UK's new Labour government has launched a 'Global Clean Power Alliance' to boost the renewables rollout globally, including in developing countries struggling in their net zero journey.
Foreign secretary David Lammy announced the alliance today in his first major speech since Labour was elected in July.
Increasing extreme weather events including droughts and hurricanes are not “random events delivered from the heavens,” he said, but rather “failures of politics, of regulation and of international cooperation.”
The new Labour government's action on renewables was also essential to “restoring our international credibility,” said Lammy, ending the climate diplomacy of “do as I say, not as I do.”
The Labour government has set a “landmark goal” of making the UK the first major economy to have a net zero grid by 2030, he said. “We will leverage that ambition to build an Alliance committed to accelerating the clean energy transition.”
“Today we are firing the starting gun on forming this new coalition.”
Many countries are “getting left behind” in the energy transition, he said, making it vital to help accelerate the rollout of renewables around the world. This includes the Global South, where he said the cost of capital is often triple that in the Global North.
“We must unlock global finance on a far, far larger scale,” said Lammy. The alliance must also focus on diversifying the production and supply of critical minerals, currently dominated by China, and “inject impetus into expanding grids and storage as well.”
Elsewhere in London, UK energy secretary Ed Miliband was delivering a speech at the annual conference for trade association Energy UK, where he said that the government had spent an “eye watering” £94bn ($124bn) to support households with the cost of living in the wake of the energy crisis spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The central lesson of the crisis for Britain is that we paid a heavy price because of our exposure to fossil fuels,” he said, adding that the invasion had shown “we live in an age of heightened geopolitical risk.”
“Every wind turbine we put up, every solar panel we install, every piece of grid we construct helps protect families from future energy shocks.”
Miliband said his “message today is we will take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists, because the clean energy sprint is the economic justice, energy security and national security fight of our time.”
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