FROM POLLUTION TO SOLUTION - THE NORTH EAST'S CONTRIBUTION TO NET ZERO

What is COP26 and what does it mean for the North East? A few months ago I could be sent to the back of the class for not knowing the answer to that question, but recently it has been at the heart of a large number of discussions in business. Local MP, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, was able to answer the question when I put it to her on at a virtual business roundtable, as well as being the business and energy Minister she was appointed as a special representative of the Government to COP26. The answer? It is the next big global summit on the issue of climate change, it is happening in November in Glasgow. COP stands for Conference of the Parties and will be attended by countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - a treaty agreed in 1994. The accord is regularly updated, the last time was in Paris, resulting in the spate of carbon reduction measures from developed countries around the world.

If we had a chance, the North East could tell a very good story to the global audience at the COP26 conference; we are in the process of taking our economy from pollution to solution in terms of carbon reduction.

Pre-pandemic, I had the dubious pleasure of a business trip to London during the Extinction Rebellion weeks of protest. The city was jammed up, the traffic chaos caused more polluted streets for those of us who were forced to walk rather than take the taxi or bus, and the missed appointments and delays set back the cause of the demonstrators who only caused inconvenience and anger among the general public they were seeking to influence.

How very different that experience is from my day-to-day encounters with the climate change agenda in the North East. Every day of my business life, after the pandemic the next most frequently discussed issue is climate change. I regularly come across firms who have taken the climate change agenda head on and are implementing systematic change that is contributing towards the UK target of Net Zero carbon by 2050.

The firms are all in different sectors. The people working within them are innovators not ideologues. They are not the sort of people who disrupt society and demonstrate, they are the type of people that stand and deliver.

Here are some real examples of North East excellence in reaching for Net Zero:

·      Carbon capture: The massive Net Zero Teesside project is a Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) project, based in Teesside in the North East of England. It aims to decarbonise a cluster of carbon-intensive businesses by as early as 2030 and deliver the UK’s first zero-carbon industrial cluster. Working in partnership with local industry and with committed, world class partners, the project plans to capture up to 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, the equivalent to the annual energy use of more than 3 million UK homes.

·      Power generation: The North East coast is a relatively short distance from the Dogger Bank in the North Sea. Our fabrication sector has geared up to supply the huge requirement to build hundreds of massive wind turbines and deliver them to the wind farm that will emerge. Better still the Government has now mandated a minimum UK content threshold of 60% for the operators of the windfarms.

·      Social housing: the major social housing providers are all embracing the need to decarbonise their housing stock, new heating systems, solar panels, insulation and energy efficient investments are modernising tens of thousands of homes in the region.

·      Electric vehicles: from the British Volt investment in a battery factory to the commitment of Nissan to building electrical vehicles in the region, to the emergence of a new supply chain of smaller companies, such as Elmtronic, that are fitting charging points at offices and homes around the UK, the North east is making itself ready for the mandated elimination of sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles from 2030.

·      Small renewable projects: Lanchester Wines is a great example of a business that has invested it its own renewables project, it became net zero a few years ago. It has two sites, one in County Durham one in Gateshead. Wind turbines power the electricity needed to operate its wine bottling plant and an innovative heat pump system extracts heat from water in disused mines to heat its large warehousing facility in Gateshead.

The Government is leading on the global climate change agenda. Sometimes I find the changes difficult to accept – not being able to heat my home with a traditional coal fire will be a real pain - but together we have the willingness and pragmatism to see this agenda benefit our country.

COP26 will ensure that the eyes of the world are on the UK in November, let’s make sure that the technological and practical approach of the North East to targeting net zero emissions by 2050 can be replicated elsewhere.