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Uma Kumaran's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 8 Parliamentary debates in which Uma Kumaran has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 24 Jun 2026: North Sea Oil and Gas

  I thank the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing a debate on such an important issue. I put it on record that I am the chair of the APPG on climate change.

  The British taxpayer has been subsidising a hugely polluting industry for too long. Oil and gas companies enjoy an effective tax subsidy of £3 billion every year, when we should instead be investing in the industries of the future, such as renewable energy projects that deliver wealth back into our communities, building global leadership and growing global markets for clean energy technologies. I worked globally on such initiatives with nearly 100 countries in the United Nations. Countries are successfully shifting away from fossil fuel production. That is happening—it is a reality.

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  The oil industry and fossil fuel lobbyists want us to believe that we need to take them on the journey with us. The case for renewables is there. At the moment, however, the voices for the renewables industry and more sustainable energy sources are being drowned out by those who want us to preserve the system that we already have.

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  10:16

  The case that I am making is backed by science. We heard earlier that a 1% increase in global warming would be catastrophic. We are already seeing extreme temperatures. The news right now is that France has just hit 44°, we have sweltering temperatures in Britain, and people are pooh-poohing the idea of a 1% rise in global temperatures. They continue to deny the reality of the climate crisis. Yes, this debate is about jobs, energy security and our future, but it is also about protecting the planet from the present and very real threat of climate devastation. The simple reality is that North sea production is not compatible with Britain’s climate commitments.

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  10:17

  The solution is not inaction. It is a plan for a future that backs British workers, believes in British industry and ingenuity, and backs a transition to renewable energy sources. That is everything that we should be focused on delivering.

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• 25 Nov 2025: COP30

  14:29

  I, too, was on the cross-party delegation that attended COP, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes)—I take this opportunity to wish her a happy birthday. I welcome the Prime Minister’s global leadership on climate and his attendance at COP30 in Belém, and indeed the leading role played by the British cross-party contingent of MPs, Ministers, non-governmental organisations and our world-class scientists. My constituents sent me hundreds of messages ahead of my travel to COP30. Among them were asks about our plans for our clean energy transition. Will the Secretary of State outline to the House what Labour’s plans are for clean power by 2030, alongside our world-leading nationally determined contribution, and how we are encouraging other countries to act on the climate crisis?

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• 17 Jul 2025: Global Plastics Treaty

  14:50

  There are interest groups working to undermine our ambition. Having participated in international biodiversity and climate talks, both in my previous role before I entered this House and since, I have seen at first hand what that looks like: voices in the room determined to stall talks and undermine global and national ambition. As we have heard, the shocking truth is that 220 fossil fuel lobbyists were present at the last round of talks on the plastics treaty. Taken together, fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists would have been the single largest delegation present: larger than the EU and all its member states’ delegations; and larger than all those for Latin America. The fossil fuel industries outnumbered delegates from the Pacific small island states two to one. Those nations already see the effects of marine plastic pollution and are already paying the price for our inaction. We cannot allow the voice of the fossil fuel industry to be louder than the cry of our planet, or more influential than the testimony of science. We cannot allow it to be more powerful than the voices of our constituents and those wanting to create a more sustainable future for generations to come.

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• 10 Feb 2025: Rosebank and Jackdaw Oilfields

  16:15

  Conservative Members are speaking up now, but I was present at the United Nations General Assembly when they risked investor confidence in the UK. The then Prime Minister rowed back on net zero commitments, risking investor confidence in the UK and risking our global reputation on climate leadership. This Government are putting us back on the world stage when it comes to climate leadership, and we have a goal: to deliver clean power by 2030. Does the Minister agree that the UK’s key growth sectors of the future include renewable energy, and that there will be jobs for the future in renewable energy and our own Great British Energy?

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• 8 Oct 2024: Great British Energy Bill (First sitting)

  09:47

  Juergen Maier: It certainly gives me a very clear direction, along with the framework document that we will develop together with the Secretary of State and the Minister. The short answer to your question is that it is pretty clear. The purpose is clear, and that is the most important thing: the purpose, at the end of the day, is that we will accelerate the amount of clean renewable energy that we put on the grid, and that we will create as much prosperity and as many jobs through it as possible.

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  10:11

  Q Thank you both. I really welcome hearing the views of trade unions in this session, especially about keeping workers at the heart of this. Do you think that GB Energy can help to drive the demand for skills and apprenticeships and prepare our workforce for a just transition?

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  10:40

  Ravi Gurumurthy: You have to think about this as a whole package. If you have absolute clarity and conviction around the 2030 decarbonisation target and the pathway beyond that, and if you translate that intent into a strategic plan—with clarity about the technologies and their location through the NESO—and if you then have an enabling, activating agency like GB Energy clearing away some of the barriers, then the combination of that overall ambition, that plan and GB Energy does I think hugely accelerate investments into the sector. But you have got to do all three.

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• 8 Oct 2024: Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting)

  14:12

  Tristan Zipfel: If you take the example of France, EDF is indeed state owned, but it is a competitive market. Nowadays, EDF is one actor among others. If you take, for instance, offshore wind in France, EDF competes—sometimes it wins, and sometimes it does not. The benefit for the general public is a sense that that body can execute the strategic vision of the French Government in delivering net zero or a decarbonised future. EDF is very much the arm that executes that vision—independently, at arm’s length, but it does it. I also think there is a creation of long-term value by the ownership of assets. EDF provides dividends to the French state, which I think are valuable.

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  16:41

  Q I declare an interest as a proud member of the GMB. Thanks, Andy. The transition is one that we all care about, and it needs to be a just transition that takes local communities with us. In your opinion, what more can the Government do to ensure that workers and jobs are kept at the heart of the GB Energy Bill?

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  17:08

  That is an important question. Security of supply is one of the critical questions that we have to answer. We have this challenge at the moment of how we bring down bills; how we move towards our climate targets for clean power, which is essential; and how we ensure security of supply. The only way—the only long-term solution—is for us to move to cheaper renewable energy at pace. Every single year that we are dependent on volatile fossil fuel markets, we open ourselves to the kind of exposure that people have still been paying the price for in the past few years. That cannot continue.

  We will not be able to flick a switch overnight. We have come in after 14 years of chaos, frankly, in so much of government, and we are doing as much as we can to move at pace, but this is the journey that we need to be on. As I have said, 2030 is ambitious, but it is absolutely achievable. I was heartened when every single one of our witnesses today confirmed that although this is an ambitious programme, they see GB Energy as a critical part—not a silver bullet; of course it is not, and we never said that it is—in moving us toward energy security, cheaper bills and the climate leadership that the public want.

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• 10 Sep 2024: COP29: UK Priorities

  10:08

  I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this timely debate. There seems to be an Ealing bias at the top. I look forward to working with her and others across the House as we tackle one of the biggest challenges of our time. I look forward to supporting the Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower, and ensuring that tackling global climate change is a focus for this Parliament. In my previous role, before I came to this place, I worked internationally with cities around the world to tackle climate change, using science-based action.

  My remarks will be restricted to setting out the need for the Government to prioritise making progress on phasing out fossil fuels at COP29 this October. It was a privilege to be at COP28 last year, alongside other hon. Members in the Chamber, including the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). I welcome the Minister to her place. She was not a Minister at COP28 last year, so it is great to see her in position now. We were there to see at first hand the breakthrough moment for ending the fossil fuel era. Nearly 200 countries made an historic commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. For the first time ever, language on fossil fuels was mentioned in the final United Nations framework convention on climate change negotiating text. However, since COP28, there has been little progress in this area. Negotiations on the topic stalled at Bonn and, instead of generating momentum on delivering this pledge, the COP presidency, Azerbaijan, has made little reference to it beyond reiterating the original commitment. That should not be a major surprise to us, not just because global climate-negotiation spaces are often undermined by the presence of the oil and gas lobby, but because there has been an absence of genuine political leadership by countries, including our own—until recently—on this issue.

  Just weeks after the United Arab Emirates consensus was signed, the previous Government issued new exploration licences to max out North sea fossil fuel reserves, with an attempt to ram legislation through Parliament to grant annual licensing for oil and gas. Just when the UK should have been increasing global ambition on moving away from coal, oil and gas, that Government were undermining confidence in the COP28 agreement and losing trust and credibility among key partners on the world stage.

  More than half of the global population lives in cities, and urbanisation is accelerating rapidly due to climate-induced human migration, economic growth and demographic shifts, but many cities around the world are at the forefront of the triple challenge of tackling the climate crisis, building social licence and acceptance for climate action, and fighting the rising climate denial that is fuelled by vested interests.

  During the last COP28 negotiations, the G77 president noted that new UK fossil-fuel drilling licences would contribute to failure of the COP28 agreement. The world cannot afford for this agreement to fail. We need Governments in each corner of the world to step up before and at Baku for success to be achieved. It is therefore an immense pleasure to see the reset that this new Government are leading. In under 100 days, the Labour Government have lifted the ban on onshore wind, introduced legislation to establish GB energy, acknowledged that the last Government’s approval of the massive Rosebank oil field was probably unlawful for failing to consider the climate impact and, just last week, secured 131 new clean energy projects to power 11 million homes—the most successful auction round ever. This change in domestic policy is helping to restore faith in the UK as a Government and as a climate leader that others can rely on, and it is providing us with new leverage to generate further ambition from others in phasing out fossil fuels at COP29 and beyond.

  There is always more room to be bold. I encourage the Government to consider positive steps that would not just support the delivery of UK climate targets, lower household bills and boost energy independence, but support workers and accelerate a just transition away from global fossil fuel production at a time when climate change presents a code-red emergency for the planet.

  By the same token, the UK must work with climate-vulnerable countries to ensure they have the financial resources, technical expertise and ability to fairly transition. Indeed, some of the cities in the global south are absolutely leading the way in the best and fairest just transitions the world has ever seen. That is why supporting the adoption of a new collective quantified goal for finance is crucial at COP29.

  Thirdly, the Government must include commitments to phase out fossil fuel production in its updated nationally determined contribution. The final thing for the Government to consider at COP29 is working more closely with others to put cities at the heart of the just transition. Cities are leading the way in climate ambition around the world, and they are reducing omissions at a faster rate than their respective national Governments. They are the doers, greening housing, planning, transport and waste, and preparing for the impacts of climate change. According to the Local Government Association, local climate action can achieve net zero for half the cost of a national approach, and deliver three times the growth in jobs, skills and health benefits. London has been a world leader, and has been acknowledged by the United Nations and the Secretary-General not only for its action but for its ambition.

  At COP28, 72 Governments recognised the transformative potential of collaboration between national and local Governments by joining the coalition for high ambition multi-level partnerships, known as CHAMP, committing to integrate cities into their national climate planning and strategies. That is how crucial the next round of climate targets and NDCs will be in 2025. I hope the UK will consider joining CHAMP and following the number of Governments around the world working with their cities—as soon as we bring Britain back as an international climate leader.

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• 5 Sep 2024: Great British Energy Bill

  14:27

  Delivering my maiden speech during the GB Energy debate is apt. Climate change remains one of the greatest challenges of our time, and we must redouble our efforts. Before I came to this place, I worked internationally on climate action with cities around the world, the United Nations and civil society to help stop our world going past the point of no return and ensure that generations who come after us have a world that has not been destroyed because of our failure to act or our fear of being bold.

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate