Speeches by Miliband.

“There is a paradox about these negotiations. Countries fight like anything for their own individual priorities. I was struck when, as always with these things, we were up all night on the Friday night, and the different groupings of countries were gathered together in a room by the presidency. In fact, Kate was showing…”

“I am very wary of going toe to toe with you on these quite complicated questions, Chair, given your background. I will try to extract what you are saying as much as possible. Forgive me if this is simplistic, but the way I think about this is that the TFFF is essentially a mechanism whereby concessional finance from th…”

“Let me say something quickly about the mechanism. The mechanism has now been agreed, we think it will be a good way to share best practice from different countries, and the just transition is incredibly important. We have just unveiled our North sea future plan, and it has a big emphasis on the importance of the just t…”

“Sure, and we are looking at the implications of their legislation and any action that we take, but we are really determined to take action on these issues. We recognise their importance; we just need to do so in a way that works.”

“I do not really see it that way. I will just give you an example to bring this issue to life. I was proud to go and announce that the Rolls-Royce SMR would be at Wylfa in north Wales, and I was with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. There are 3,000 construction jobs as a result of that, but there are many thousand…”

“I am glad that you are asking this question, because this is really important and we recognise the urgency of taking action on these issues. I think it is right to explain some of the background to the Committee. I was grateful to you for saying that you wanted to raise this issue. There is an interaction here—it conce…”

“We need to align our actions so that—”

“I spent part of my Sunday reading the ESNZ Committee report, which I think came out on Friday. It was an important read. I will give you just one example. As part of our North sea plan, we have announced plans for a job-brokering and job-matching service to help North sea workers to transition into these new industries…”

“I think it is better that two countries want to host it than nobody wanting to host it. It is a costly business, and the fact that both Australia and Türkiye both wanted to host it is significant. I think Ethiopia is going to host 32, and that is already decided; we do not quite know about 33 yet. I am good friends wit…”

“That is a really important question, and it is worth explaining the background. I said that the TFFF is a different approach because it is an investment approach where you get a return. We think probably only a modest percentage of any investment would be ODA-eligible. This is not a grant; it is like an investment. We …”

“For 20 years.”

“First of all, let me say we are proud of the work that we did on the TFFF with the Brazilian presidency. It is a very innovative idea for funding. It is about an investment approach to how we protect our forests. We did a lot of work in the background over a couple of years with the Brazilian presidency. That is the fi…”

“I cannot resist just briefly addressing your first point, but I will come on to your second point.”

“You are going to see reductions in bills for the most energy-intensive businesses. But let me go to your wider question, because it is important. The second point I would make is that the best thing we can do to help businesses with their energy costs is to drive towards clean power, because that is the way in which we…”

“Let me just finish—”

“I do not see it that way, because of what happened. It is important to understand the context of this, which is that Russia invaded Ukraine. Fossil fuel prices went through the roof, and that is what businesses are paying for. And the last Government left us exposed. We came in 17 months ago and we could have said, “Le…”

“Yes, briefly. On your first point, Sammy, with the greatest respect, I think it would be a total dereliction of duty if we walked away from this engagement, because we would be betraying future generations. If we say, “We’ll just let climate change take its course,” that will be an absolute disaster. It is true that th…”

“As you will have heard me say to your Committee on previous occasions, I totally recognise that the way the levies and so on have been set up offsets quite a lot of the greater efficiency of electricity. I have always said that if we can find distributionally fair ways to do this, we want to do more to close that gap. …”

“What you see from the carbon budget and growth delivery plan, which Ryan oversaw, is a cross-Government process where, whether it is DFT, DEFRA or others, they are absolutely engaged in this. Whether it was Steve Reed or, now, Emma Reynolds at DEFRA, or Heidi Alexander at Transport, there is absolute engagement and rec…”

“Not at all, and I am not sure what the evidence is for that being people’s understanding. Let me say one other thing and then come to your question. On the public understanding point, the reason that I made the statement in the summer, which will be an annual statement, about the state of climate and nature was precise…”