Hi everyone and welcome to CB Connect! I thought I’d share my reflections on the interview I did at the start of the week with UK climate minister Katie White, link below in case you missed it.
I was struck by a few things – and I’d love to hear what you thought about her responses too.
- UK policy shift: White defended the UK govt’s change of approach on energy, which has been taking shape over the past couple of weeks, as a “natural evolution”. There seems to be a disconnect between what eg the chancellor John Healey is saying in public (see eg his Times comment article on the weekend, which is pretty complementary with Ed Miliband’s rhetoric) and what is being briefed by govt sources (prompting lots of “death of clean power 2030” media stories).
- COP31 electrification: Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I thought White was pretty equivocal about the COP31 presidency’s pitch for a global electrification target. (“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.”) Turkey/Australia seem keen for this goal to be part of the formal COP31 decision eg cover text. But they’d need strong support from others to get that over the line.
Anyway here’s the full interview – let me know what you think: