Let us not make the 2050 target something that we cannot reach. We must reach it—it is an absolute necessity that we do. I will not give way to people who will not follow the science, and who deny that evidence.
To reduce territorial emissions by 68% from 1990 levels, the UK must now quadruple its rate of emissions reductions outside the power sector. The CCC uses a variety of indicators to measure the UK’s progress in reducing emissions, and we are only on track on nine out of 50. Today’s debate focuses on energy infrastructure; even power, which has been the only success story so far when it comes to net zero, is now falling behind. We will miss the target of decarbonising the power system by 2035, which the Government should be very worried about. The CCC says that renewable electricity capacity is not increasing at the required rate. One of the biggest barriers is grid capacity: our unprepared infrastructure has left ready-to-make renewable projects waiting up to 15 years to connect to the grid. It is high time that the Government put their mind to those huge delays and create a regulatory system fit for the net zero challenge.
At times like this, we need more Government, not less. The prevailing laissez-faire attitude of hoping for the market to settle all our net zero challenges is no longer fit for purpose. The CCC has said that we could have mitigated the energy crisis if the Government had rapidly deployed onshore wind and solar power—here lies the hypocrisy. On the one hand, the Government say that they do not want to interfere with the market; on the other, they actively limit the onshore wind and solar industries. The de facto ban on onshore wind and a framework that does not create enough incentives for the solar industry have meant that people in the UK have paid far higher prices for the energy crisis than would otherwise have been necessary.
Offshore and onshore wind deployment has been slow, and solar is particularly off track. We need to deploy 4.3 GW of solar per year to meet our target of 70 GW by 2035, but last year only 0.7 GW of solar was deployed. On estimates days, we discuss Government spending, and the UK is clearly not spending enough on net zero. As Lord Goldsmith detailed in his resignation letter, the problem is that the Prime Minister is “simply
uninterested”. [Interruption.] The Minister says “rubbish”. He will have the opportunity to respond in his speech, but I am very much talking about the facts.