How clean energy can strengthen UK health and security
In the final session of its inquiry into Building support for the energy transition, the Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee will examine how the wider impacts of the transition affect national security, public health and food production.
The first panel will explore how expanding domestic renewable energy across a wider range of sites can strengthen the UK’s energy security and resilience. Witnesses will consider how a more distributed energy system could reduce exposure to supply shocks, protect critical infrastructure, and limit vulnerability amid increasing geopolitical instability and the weaponisation of trade and energy by major global powers.
The session will also examine the health impacts of climate change already being felt in the UK, alongside the potential health co-benefits of cleaner energy - including reduced air pollution and lower pressure on the NHS. Members will ask how far these impacts are reflected in current policy thinking.
Meeting details
A further focus will be the relationship between the energy transition and food production, including the perspectives of the farming and land-owning community on land use, rural economies and long-term food security.
In the second panel, Ministers and officials from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will give evidence on the Government’s strategic approach to net zero and the energy transition. The Committee will question how wider economic, health and security effects are being considered in policy development, and whether existing frameworks fully capture these outcomes.