Climate: Franco-British collaboration for a low carbon future

I had the opportunity to open a conference of the nuclear energy industry between Britain and France, looking at a low carbon future. It made me think about the way these two hugely important issues come together. How do we ensure a low carbon future for the planet and keep global warming under control and how do we ensure energy for all at affordable prices.

Written version (continued)

The first of those issues is obviously going to be at the center of the big climate conference COP21 here in Paris at the end of the year. Laurent Fabius, the French Foreign Minister, has said that this may be the last opportunity for the world to come together and agree steps to keep the increase in temperature down to 2 degrees.

Britain has been taking the lead on this, since 2008 we have a law which limits the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions can be produced, we’ve reduced that by a quarter already, and we have a hugely ambitious target to reduce it by 80% by 2050.

With France we’ve been working in the EU as well, and there is now a good EU program to keep our greenhouse gas emissions under control. One of the key ways of doing that for many countries, including the UK, is nuclear power.

For us we are the beginning of a cycle of renewing our nuclear power stations, we’re working very closely with France, EDF and Areva on that. Nuclear power as part of an energy mix enables us to reduce our overall greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is safe and sustainable.

It’s also an important way for British industry to rediscover the skills needed to build to nuclear energy standards and the British supply chain will be working very closely with the major French companies in this huge investment that starts at Hinckley Point power station in Somerset. We’ve got a partnership with France that will look to improve the skills and the capacity of our industry on both sides of the Channel.

So in important ways, these two priorities of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to protect the planet from global warming and safe, affordable nuclear energy for all come together.