22 March 2022 - UK energy supply and investment - Oral evidence

Lords energy inquiry: has the Government factored energy security sufficiently into its strategic planning? 

On Tuesday 22 March 2022 the Lords Economic Affairs Committee will be taking evidence on investment during the transition to net zero and the geopolitics on energy and international markets. 

At 2.30pm, the Committee will hear from Michael Liebreich, Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates and Ian Simm, Founder and CEO, Impax Asset Management.

Questions the committee are likely to cover in this session:

• What actions should be taken to increase investment in energy sources that help us meet the Government’s 2035 decarbonisation target, while ensuring energy is affordable and reliable?
• Financial regulation - and investor and NGO pressure - has resulted in many financial service businesses creating investment strategies to divest of fossil Is this helping or hindering an orderly transition?
• As governments look to increase the supply of gas and LNG, who will finance these investments?
• Central banks are conducting climate stress tests on financial institutions. Should capital requirements be increased to reflect their lending to businesses involved in fossil fuels?
• Have wind and solar power become so cheap that there is no longer any point in offering Government support?

At 3.30pm, the Committee will hear from Professor Michael Bradshaw, Professor of Global Energy, University of Warwick, Simone Tagliapietra, Senior Fellow, Bruegel and Dr Jack Sharples, Research Fellow, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

Questions the committee is likely to cover in this session include:  

• How much ability and willingness is there among other major fossil fuel producers to increase their supply in the short term, to replace Russian oil and gas? 
• Does the UK have greater energy security than the rest of Europe, in terms of prices and of the physical availability of gas? 
• Is there a case for the Government to encourage more exploration and extraction of domestic oil and gas, from a security point of view?  
• If accelerating renewables is part of the response, how can we ensure that we are not swapping dependency on fossil fuels from Russia, with reliance on rare earth minerals from China? 
• Is there a case, from a security point of view, for the Government to invest more in energy storage facilities?