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Caroline Nokes's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 21 Parliamentary debates in which Caroline Nokes has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 19 May 2026: Energy Security

  I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected amendment (i) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I call the shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

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• 24 Mar 2026: Oil and Gas

  13:46

  I call the shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero.

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• 16 Mar 2026: Heating Oil Support

  14:30

  I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

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• 10 Feb 2026: Local Power Plan

  I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

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• 4 Feb 2026: Lord Mandelson

  I will now announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026. The Ayes were 392 and the Noes were 116, so the Ayes have it.

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• 3 Dec 2025: Pension Schemes Bill

  12:44

  New clause 19— Fossil fuels and climate change risk —

  (2) In section 41A (Climate change risk), after subsection (6) insert—

  (e) clean, renewable energy projects.

  This new clause would allow the Secretary of State to establish investment funds to encourage investment in areas such as high streets, social housing, care homes, clean renewable energy, and other investments with clear social benefits.

  with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change and clean energy;”

  This amendment would require pension funds and managers to show whether their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement.

  “(d) publish or share with prescribed persons, for the purpose of enabling VFM assessments to be made, prescribed categories of information (referred to as “climate alignment metric data”) regarding the scheme’s exposure to climate-related financial risks and the alignment of its investments with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change and clean energy.”

  This amendment, with Amendment 5 would require pension funds and managers to show whether their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement.

  “(iv) the consistency of the investment portfolio with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change and clean energy, including metrics for assessing climate-related financial risks and opportunities;”

  This amendment would require pension funds and managers to show whether their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement.

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• 24 Feb 2025: Crown Estate Bill [Lords]

  (3D) A ‘climate and nature duty’ means a duty to achieve any targets set out under Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008 or under sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021.”

  (a) the United Kingdom’s Net Zero targets;

  This new sub-section would require the Crown Estate Commissioners, in reviewing the impact of their activities on the achievement of sustainable development, to have specific regard to the United Kingdom’s Net Zero targets, regional economic growth, and resilience in respect of energy security.

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• 4 Feb 2025: Home Insulation Schemes

  12:12

  I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

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• 7 Oct 2024: Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage

  I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

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• 11 Feb 2020: Waste Incineration Facilities

  09:51

  We have declared a climate emergency. We have bold ambitions, through the Environment Bill, to make radical strides forward in creating a cleaner and greener environment for ourselves, our children and generations to come. We cannot do that if we keep pumping pollutants into our atmosphere. I urge the Minister, who I believe genuinely cares about these issues, to ensure that she has as tight a grip as possible on our future waste strategy so we simply do not keep doing that.

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• 28 Jan 2020: Industrial and Commercial Waste Incineration

  16:48

  I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who met me last week to discuss this issue. I appreciate the constructive manner in which she engaged with it. We have an ambitious plan to reach net zero by 2050, and everyone in the Chamber—I hope—is committed to clean energy generation and waste reduction.

  We have to account for the true cost of those facilities, the impact on air quality, the emissions from heavy diesel vehicles driven many hundreds of miles to bring waste from far afield, and the current policy, which allows CO 2 from biogenic sources to be ignored in the context of climate change. At best, only 50% of the energy generated from the facilities can be considered renewable, and we should be extremely concerned about the other half. That 50% of energy comes from burning fossil carbon—plastics—and emits as much pollution and CO 2 as coal-fired energy. Would we really consider building new coal-fired power stations?

  We need to improve regulations to make them tighter, rather than having applicants rely on the emissions set out within existing regulations, which I raised in the Queen’s Speech debate a couple of weeks ago. Although I recognise the specific needs of local authorities, this debate is about commercial and industrial waste, not municipal waste, so we have to consider commercial operations and whether it is fair, as the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth has said, to have a landfill tax and not an incineration tax. Incineration is simply not an environmentally sustainable way to tackle waste management. It may be better than landfill in the waste hierarchy—only just—but to allow incineration to proliferate simply does not address the climate emergency that we all agree exists.

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• 15 Jan 2020: A Green Industrial Revolution

  I want to pick up briefly on some of the comments that the Secretary of State made about the generation of clean energy. I urge her to ensure that, when we are generating green energy, it must be properly green. She also spoke of new technologies. I absolutely agree; there are many new technologies coming forward that will enable us to generate power and deal with waste in much greener ways, but we must scrutinise them incredibly carefully, to ensure we do not make mistakes that will be around for many generations to come.

  I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s comments and the policies included in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech. I particularly welcome the introduction of a landmark environment Bill, the introduction of an Office for Environmental Protection and the personal commitment of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to chair a new Cabinet Committee on Climate Change. The environment Bill will cement our position as a world leader on air quality, biodiversity and plastics reduction; I know I am correct on that because I am quoting directly from the Conservative research department brief—something that I would commend to all new Conservative Members.

  My asks of the Secretary of State today are wholly in line with her and my aspirations for a reduction in carbon emissions, enabling us to meet our net zero target and supporting her goal of better air quality, and totally in keeping with the aim to reduce waste, including plastics. We simply cannot keep looking to incineration as a solution to landfill. It is not good enough, and it is not green enough.

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• 28 Oct 2019: Restoring Nature and Climate Change

  17:26

  My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) mentioned the Department of Health and Social Care being an important partner with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when it comes to the environment, but we must also look to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, because it has a crucial role in ensuring that our natural environment works hand in hand with the built environment, so we can address the challenge of climate change. I am blessed to represent a heavily treed constituency, but there are many instances of historic oak trees being chopped down, despite having tree preservation orders. There is relentless pressure to build more houses in areas where there is a conflict between nature and the built environment. Valley Park Woodlands are hard up against the 3,000 or so houses built in Valley Park.

  I wish to pick up on comments made about farming. It is important to reflect that agriculture can have an important role for good. Last Friday, I had a visit on my schedule to Broughton Water Buffalo in my constituency. Who would have thought that Indian water buffalo provided so much good to the Hampshire countryside? They are farmed completely sustainably, fed only on grass and moved on to different pasture every day. The hay that they eat in winter is grown on the farm, where more than 15,000 trees have been planted in the past few years. That is an example of how local farmers can play a fantastic role in ensuring that the environment is at the forefront and climate change is uppermost in their thinking when they decide how to get a return from their land and protect it at the same time. Unfortunately, the weather in Hampshire was too miserable for me to be able to go, but it is certainly high on my list of priorities. Who knows? We may all have an opportunity in the next few weeks to disappear back to our constituencies and stomp around in our wellies to our heart’s content.

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• 28 Oct 2015: Climate Change

  Some 660 million Africans currently have no access to power. Will my right hon. Friend explain what she is doing to ensure that global goal 7 is met, while at the same time being careful and cautious about climate change?

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• 20 Mar 2014: Hinkley Point C (Infrastructure Projects)

  Let me start by saying that I fully support the building of the new reactor at Hinkley Point and that I support an energy policy that is both affordable and diverse. The new power station is essential to keep the lights on. Along with developments in renewable energy, it will ensure that the UK’s energy needs are provided for. This is not, therefore, a speech that is anti-nuclear or anti-Hinkley Point. Neither is it a speech about energy policy.

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• 12 Jul 2012: Renewable Energy

  15. What assessment he has made of the effect on security of supply of the Government’s renewable energy policy.

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• 5 Mar 2012: Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy

  It is striking from the Back-Bench contributions that rather than an endless drip of negativity, there is a commitment to the innovative and exciting technologies that are growing in many parts of the UK. Last week in Westminster Hall there was a debate on Government incentives for renewable energy. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) may not have been aware of it, but the focus was on the generation of energy from waste. Had any members of her party been present, they would have heard the commitment of the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) to the eight technologies in the renewable energy road map.

  The commitment to anaerobic digestion was present in the coalition agreement, in the renewable energy road map, and in the strategy published jointly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and DECC last June, and I look forward to the publication of the annual progress report this summer. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said last week, 56 actions have been identified to tackle the key barriers to deployment. I do not pretend that it is easy or that there are not significant challenges. There are, but I welcome the inclusion of anaerobic digestion in the feed-in tariffs scheme.

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• 29 Feb 2012: Renewable Energy

  10:59

  I hope that this debate will feed into the wider discussion about the security of supply and be a useful contribution to the thinking on this issue. Given the three important issues that underpin that thinking—keeping the lights on, the diversity of energy sources and increasing the amount of renewable energy—I am pleased that hon. Members are here to listen to the debate.

  The debate title is a testament to Britain’s growth in green technology and our status as a world leader in climate change awareness. However, as I will explain, for too long we have trailed behind countries such as Germany in the production of green energy, and we must take decisive action to secure support across the whole sector.

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  11:01

  To date, the main focus of attention on energy from waste appears to have been on large-scale industrial production of waste-sourced energy. Advanced gasification is a key part of securing green energy and decreasing landfill: it is a carbon-lean process involving the efficient, high-temperature conversion of waste to base-load electricity. After the August 2010 announcement that energy from waste can be sold to the national grid, there is now real discussion about how local authorities in particular can secure income sources by selling green energy. For example, Air Products, a leading provider of industrial gases and environmental systems, has been granted permission for a 49 MW advanced gasification plant in Teesside, the building of which will begin next year. That development will create 700 jobs, divert up to 350,000 tonnes of waste from landfill and produce enough predictable, clean power for 50,000 homes. Air Products is precisely the sort of provider of clean energy that we should be encouraging to meet our renewables obligations.

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  11:03

  I should like to explore a number of issues facing the development of the renewable energy from waste industry outside the large industrial-scale plants that I have mentioned. I want to show how the current incentives are working and how we could adjust them to accelerate awareness and the development of the industry, particularly harnessing the potential for small-scale production, as well as production on an industrial scale.

  I have called this debate because incentivising small-scale production could develop valuable employment opportunities, help small businesses and local communities generate their own green energy, grow UK exports and, most importantly, assist the Government to achieve secure, diverse and green energy.

  Anaerobic digestion is the process whereby biowaste from plant and animal material is converted by micro-organisms in the absence of air into biogas, which can in turn be used to generate green electricity and heat. Anaerobic digestion can help reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions—two essential goals in our fight against climate change. Almost any biowaste can be processed in that way, including food waste, energy-producing crops and crop residues, slurry and manure. The process can accept waste from our homes, supermarkets, industry and farms, ensuring that significantly less is sent to landfill.

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  11:05

  Another major advantage of anaerobic digestion as a renewable energy source is that the material left over at the end of the process—an odour-free digestate, rich in nutrients—can be used effectively as fertiliser. This could, and really should, become the standard fertiliser on the market. However, many domestic and business users do not understand the benefits derived from buying recycled products. A new petrochemical-derived fertiliser can cost a farmer between £200 and £400 per tonne, but the by-product from a micro-anaerobic digestion site is more likely to be of a consistent chemical and nutritional specification. Currently, the anaerobic digestion industry is struggling to sell recycled fertiliser, produced to resource action programme standards, at £5 to £6 per tonne. I would be grateful to the Minister if he expanded on how we can best explain the benefits of, and incentivise the consumption of, recycled fertiliser in farming and domestic gardening.

  Many sites in the UK are producing biowaste. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the UK produces approximately 7 million tonnes of food waste and about 90 million tonnes of animal slurry and manure per year. With 23.6 million households and 41,000 farms, it is clear that the potential for green energy production is enormous.

  All organisations create waste. SeAB is leading the way, through anaerobic digestion, in reducing our dependence on landfill by converting waste into valuable energy. I should welcome the Minister’s visiting and meeting the people who have developed this world-leading technology, so that he can see green energy in production.

  By comparison, decentralised sites are arguably simpler to operate, quicker to build and easier to install and manage. Road haulage is largely eliminated and the waste producer benefits directly from using its own waste to generate its own green energy. I would be grateful to the Minister if he commented on how we can incentivise the many small waste producers, such as farmers, food growers, food packers, hotels, hospitals, schools or prisons—the list is almost endless—so that they can benefit from green energy throughout the country. In short, anaerobic digestion reduces the need for landfill, with the exciting possibility of creating sustainable communities with a consistent waste fuel power source.

  Other sources of renewable fuel can be found in the waste stream, such as the conversion of used cooking oil into biodiesel, which is entirely sustainable and derived from a waste product. That would involve recycling almost 100 million litres of waste cooking oil each year, while helping the Government to exceed their greenhouse gas emission targets in transport by 8%. However, as highlighted by the recent report on environmental taxes by the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, the removal this March of the 20p per litre duty differential on such fuel will make it prohibitively expensive and high-blend users will have no choice but to return to fossil fuels. That will have a disastrous impact on the UK biodiesel industry, resulting in the loss of green jobs, as well as discouraging further investment in the development of new technologies in the energy-from-waste sector.

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  11:12

  I strongly urge the Minister to continue to speak to his colleagues in the Treasury, because I fear that, without continued support, we will jeopardise the significant steps that have already been taken. The energy-from-waste sector is full of innovative and in many cases ingenious ideas. I am conscious that we need a wide variety of energy generation methods to meet demand. No one form of green energy provides the whole answer, and we need a range of solutions, both large and small.

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• 15 Nov 2011: Fuel Prices

  There are alternatives to petrol and diesel that are more environmentally friendly. One of them is biodiesel, produced from used cooking oil. Over the last year, 99 million litres of used cooking oil was collected from restaurants, food manufacturers and caterers. It is an entirely sustainable fuel derived from a waste product and devoid of some of the negative impacts traditionally associated with biofuels. Therefore, if taxation on fuel is partly about encouraging behavioural change, rather than just being about revenue raising, the Government should encourage the use of this fuel, rather than see it as another target for increasing duty. The removal of the 20p per litre duty differential on this type of fuel, which is an excellent source of green energy, sends entirely the wrong message.

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• 15 Sep 2011: Food Security and Famine Prevention (Africa)

  The UK does not feel the impact of climate change as severely as the horn of Africa. British farmers can plough their fields, partly because they are much bigger, but also because rain is not in short supply, as we have learned this summer. Where drought is a real danger, it is crucial to maintain soil so that it can yield a crop in good seasons and in bad.

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• 3 Dec 2010: Daylight Saving Bill

  10:54

  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on introducing the Bill. She may have drawn accusations that she is a barbecue-obsessed southerner but, considering today’s temperature, that seems irrelevant. I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for his comments about the work of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which has recently considered the issue. I am impressed to see a significant proportion of the members of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit, present. It too appreciates the potential benefits of the measure.

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate