Starmer announces 'green partnership' with Norway in latest Labour Net Zero push

The Prime Minister has nipped over the North Sea, and is announcing a new Green Industrial Partnership with Norway.

He says it "will allow us to seize the opportunities from a new era of clean energy, driving investment into the UK and boosting jobs both now and in the future."

Much of it centres around carbon capture and storage. Along with the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Sir Keir Starmer will tour a cross-border carbon transport and storage facility north of Bergen.

It comes days after the Government signed the first carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) contracts in the UK. BP, and Norwegian company Equinor are playing a major role in the first projects, called the Northern Endurance Partnership and the Net Zero Teesside.

The Government believes this will bring thousands of skilled jobs to the region, and that Net Zero Teesside will provide up to 1 million homes with clean power from 2028.

Back in October, Energy & Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband announced £21 billion of funding for carbon capture projects over the coming years as part of the government’s drive to make Britain’s electricity net zero by 2030.

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It’s a target seen by many as impossible, and perhaps the government’s now saying 95% clean by 2030 is admission that it’s going to be a stretch, to put it mildly. There is also the fact that carbon capture projects at scale are technically incredibly difficult and costly.

But Norway is the world leader in this technology and the Prime Minister sees green technology as a key driver of the growth and jobs the country so badly needs.

Labour believes the transition of net zero is a huge opportunity, as well as undoubtedly a challenge. Despite making their central mission “growth”, the economy contracted by 0.1% in October, and the forecasts following the budget predict growth will be lacklustre at best.

Last week we had Ed Miliband extolling the virtues of wind farms; today the PM will sound similarly optimistic.
But we’re no longer hearing about the £300 off our energy bills which was previously held up as an advantage of the move to clean power.

We already have the some of highest electricity prices in Europe, and change will be expensive.

The PM stresses it’s also about energy security, so that "we are never again exposed to international energy price spikes and the whims of dictators like Putin."

Putin and defence will be top of the agenda as the PM flies to Estonia later in the day with the Norwegian Prime Minister for the Joint Expeditionery Force Summit.

More on that later...