Environmental Audit Committee
Oral evidence: Outcomes of COP26, HC 933
Tuesday 7 December 2021
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 7 December 2021.
Members present: Philip Dunne (Chair); Mr Robert Goodwill; Helen Hayes; Caroline Lucas; John McNally.
Ruth Cadbury, Transport Committee; Greg Clark, Chair, Science and Technology Committee; Sir Bernard Jenkin, Chair, Liaison Committee; Darren Jones, Chair, Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee; Chris Law, International Development Committee; and Mel Stride, Chair, Treasury Committee were in attendance.
Questions 1 - 68
Witnesses
I: Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, President, Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; Alison Campbell, Deputy Lead Negotiator, 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), Cabinet Office; Peter Hill, Chief Executive Officer, 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), Cabinet Office; Matt Toombs, Director, Partnerships and Engagement, 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), Cabinet Office; Archie Young, Lead Negotiator, 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), Cabinet Office.
[This evidence was taken by video conference]
Witnesses: Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, Alison Campbell, Peter Hill, Matt Toombs and Archie Young.
Q1 Chair: Welcome to the Select Committee on COP26. We have in front of us today the President of COP26, Alok Sharma, and I would like him to briefly introduce his team before us today.
Alok Sharma: Great, thank you, Mr Dunne. I think on screen you have Peter Hill, who is Chief Executive of COP26, and Archie Young, who is the Lead Negotiator. On my right I have Alison Campbell, who is the Deputy Lead Negotiator, and on my left Matt Toombs, who is responsible for the engagement we have done across finance, across our various campaigns across business and across civil society.
Q2 Chair: Thank you very much. You are all very welcome. I would like to start by saying that this Committee was set up by Parliament to provide a forum for several Select Committees to hold you and your team to account for delivery of COP26. We have guests here today who will be asking you questions from half a dozen Select Committees, so they are all very welcome.
As COP President, you remain in post until the Sharm el-Sheikh COP27 in November. We have just decided pre-meeting, before you joined us, that we think it is appropriate that you should continue to be held to account to Parliament during that period and by your nodding you seem to indicate that you would welcome that. Would you be willing to appear before a similar convened session perhaps a couple of times this year in the run-up to November 2022?
Alok Sharma: Chair, yes I would be very happy to come back. We have our Presidency year and obviously we have a range of commitments that we want to see delivered during this coming year, so I think it is right and proper that you hold us to account.
Q3 Chair: Excellent. That is a very good start to our session. Can you give us an indication of what your key priorities are for driving the agenda forward to Sharm el-Sheikh?
Alok Sharma: Chair, as you know, we obtained a significant number of commitments from countries at COP26. I do believe it was an historic agreement. If I go through some of the key elements of that: first, in terms of emissions reductions, we have a commitment that, if required, all countries will come back by the end of 2022 in terms of their 2030 emission reduction targets to see whether that aligned with the Paris temperature goals. Obviously, there is a big piece of work to be done on that. In terms of finance, we had a delivery plan that set out our expectation that £100 billion would be delivered by 2023 at the latest. There is an expectation to see whether that might come forward to 2022 and there is other work on finance that is ongoing.
In terms of issues on adaptation, we are working on the global goal on adaptation together with our Egyptian colleagues. There will be work progressing on that and, additionally, on issues such as loss and damage there is a dialogue that will be started.
We have a whole range of commitments from parties, and we want to ensure that those commitments are being met.
Q4 Chair: From your experience as President in this past year working with a predecessor President, do you feel that you will continue to have authority to drive through change with everybody knowing that your period of office is running down?
Alok Sharma: I think we must be very sensitive to the fact that there is a new presidency designate. I have had very good working relationships with Ministers in the Egyptian Government during our COP presidency designate and we will work very closely with them. Of course, there is an expectation—not just from developing countries but from developed countries—that the UK then delivers what I would describe as a full-fat presidency year and works on the commitments. Of course, we will do that together with the Egyptians and, as the Prime Minister said at the Liaison Committee on 17 November, COP28 will be held in the UAE, so we will work with those partners also.
Q5 Chair: In the final moments of Glasgow there was some disappointment with some backtracking from China and India in particular. What would you regard as the biggest bits of unfinished business from Glasgow that you would like to try to put right next year?
Alok Sharma: As I said, I think in a way the work has started. Yes, I do think what we got over the line was historic. For the first time countries agreed to come back within a year to look at their emission reduction targets. We have a whole range of other commitments on finance and adaptation, but in those final hours of the COP there was an issue around the language on coal and fossil fuel subsidies. This is the first time at any COP that we have managed to get language on coal into the covered decisions and, if you recall, Chair, we did not get this either at the G20 ministerial meeting in July in Naples that I attended or, indeed, at G20 leaders where there were commitments on international coal financing but not on domestic coal. We are going to hold countries to account on those particular commitments that have been made.
Q6 Chair: With regard to the UK Government coming together to support your efforts, do you think that you will be able to maintain the same degree of co-ordination and resource from the UK Government to continue to drive this agenda forward, internationally and domestically?
Alok Sharma: I very much hope so. I can talk to you very specifically in terms of numbers. The COP unit in steady state was around 220 staff. We had a surge as we got into the final two weeks of COP, and folks from other Departments came in. We also had Departments working on each of the theme days that we had, so whether it was transport, energy or gender. Having looked at all of this, I think our view is that to be able to deliver on the commitments that we have obtained we probably need to be at the strength of around 140 to 150 people in the COP unit going forward.
We also had excellent support from the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office has around 460 climate attachés. They will not be doing just climate full-time, but that was very valuable. Given that in the integrated review tackling climate change and biodiversity loss is a top international priority, of course we will continue to work with the FCDO.
Q7 Chair: Next year Germany takes over presidency of the G7 and Indonesia the G20. Are you engaged with them to make sure that climate remains high on their agendas?
Alok Sharma: Absolutely. We are engaged with them, and in fact I had a conversation with colleagues in the German Government last week. We have a good working relationship with Indonesia, and of course the Italians will be handing over to them. You are absolutely right, what we want to see is climate reflected as it has been during our G7 presidency as well, through the next G7 presidency, through the G20, through CHOGM as another example. I think, if we have that green thread running through the year, there will be an opportunity for us to work on ensuring that the commitments that countries have given are also delivered.
Chair: Thank you. We are going to keep quite a brisk pace of questioning up to get everything in before we go to vote. Helen Hayes.
Q8 Helen Hayes: A key feature of the Glasgow Pact was the agreement that all countries would revisit and strengthen their nationally determined contributions ahead of COP27. How confident are you of achieving that?
Alok Sharma: We are going to have to work very hard in partnership with other countries on this. If I look at the statistics, by COP26 around 153 countries had enhanced NDCs. Many of those had emissions reductions compared to their previous NDCs. There were countries, for instance, with G20 like India and Brazil that set out more ambitious emission reduction targets, but those have not yet, for 2030, been reported to the UNFCCC, so we want to ensure that happens. There are countries that made sectoral commitments that may not yet be reflected in their NDCs. Obviously we will request that countries put those in.
Then there will be other nations that have NDCs that are aligned to the Paris temperature goal, but where further detailed information is needed in terms of either sector work or delivery. There are a whole range of areas where we will be pushing individual Governments, but the way that we delivered COP26 was not just through a solo effort from the UK. We worked with other likeminded partners around the world, and we will continue to do that.
Q9 Helen Hayes: What is the role that you and your team will be playing on that process? What does the process look like? Are there reporting points? Are there opportunities to come together with the leaders of the states where there are issues of concern about progress? What does it look like between now and COP27?
Alok Sharma: Of course, there will be points between now and COP27 where meetings of representative groups of countries will take place to push these issues forward. As I did during this year, I will do further bilateral engagement, including visits to some of the key countries, particularly in the G20, of course recognising that the G20 represents 80% of emissions. There are mechanisms in place. We also agreed at COP that there would be an annual census report on the NDCs. That will be set out in 2027 so we will be able to see how countries are getting on. We agreed a Transparency Framework as well. Once that is in place, countries will have to report on the actions that they are taking, and we will be able to judge them against the commitments that they have made.
Q10 Helen Hayes: How do you seek to scrutinise the action behind the words? How confident can you be that commitments that are made are genuinely being delivered?
Alok Sharma: This is an important element of what we achieved at COP. For six years collectively the world had been trying to close off the Paris agreement. One of the key outstanding elements was a framework on transparency where every Government, every country reports on the same metrics in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, support that developed countries are providing to developing countries and the like. We now have agreement on that. There are common tables—about 80 pages of tables—which countries will have to fill in. This mechanism will be in place from 2024, but already you have Governments that do report on their emissions reductions. What we will be able to see is a standardised metric whereby we can assess whether commitments are being made.
Chair, I may invite Alison if there is any more she wants to say on this particular point.
Alison Campbell: I emphasise the point that it is the first time that all 197 parties do have to report on their emissions. As the COP President said, a huge amount of work went into that. There are 60 tables for reporting on greenhouse gas inventories. There are 13 tables that all countries must fill out to track progress on their NDCs and there are 13 tables to also report on the support that is being provided and received by developing countries. This new reporting framework that has been agreed is significant and will allow the international community to keep track of progress.
Q11 Caroline Lucas: In its recommendations following COP26, the Climate Change Committee suggested that the UK should focus on strengthening delivery of its existing NDC rather than improving the target per se. What do you think that says about the Committee’s confidence in the Government’s current ability to deliver on their pledges?
Alok Sharma: That report has come out in the last few days, and we are having a detailed look at this. Certainly, from my perspective, I think the CCC provides very good independent challenge for Government. The CCC has recognised that the NDC that we have is aligned to the Paris goals, which is good news. In fact, it has also recognised that the Net Zero Strategy that was set out is something that is positive that is an international benchmark. Delivery is an issue for absolutely every single country, and that is the point with the mechanisms that we have agreed, that we can now track delivery. In the same ways that we ask others to push forward on delivery, that is something that the UK continues to need to do as well.
Q12 Caroline Lucas: You mentioned the Net Zero Strategy and alongside that there is a spreadsheet showing how much each different measure in that Net Zero Strategy will cut emissions by, yet the Government are not willing to release that spreadsheet. Could you cast any light on why that should be the case? People who are scrutinising the Government’s ability to fulfil their Net Zero Strategy would like to see the individual emission reduction estimates alongside each of the different measures.
Alok Sharma: I think there are some ranges in there.
Q13 Caroline Lucas: There is a document, a spreadsheet, which has not been published. A Freedom of Information request has been made and it has been denied. It has been in The Times, The Independent and elsewhere.
Alok Sharma: I am happy to come back to you and ask other ministerial colleagues who have direct responsibility for this to come back to you. The only thing I would say is that, in terms of the Net Zero Strategy that has been put forward, I do think the Climate Change Committee has acknowledged it as being ambitious and comprehensive. I think it has talked about it marking a significant step forward for UK climate policy. I think that is something we should all welcome.
Q14 Caroline Lucas: Absolutely, and I do. I just think it would be helpful if we could see how the Government will deliver against the different elements of it. In that respect, it would be helpful if you could chase up colleagues to see if they could facilitate the publication of that spreadsheet.
In what areas do you think action is most urgently needed to secure delivery of the emission reductions that the Government have promised?
Alok Sharma: Perhaps I will explain the architecture that we have in Government for delivery. We have a Climate Action Strategy Committee, which the Prime Minister chairs. That was set up at the end of 2019 when we had a new Prime Minister coming in. We have a Climate Action Implementation Committee, which is the one that I chair. That is the Committee where we have been co-ordinating the work on individual policies across Government and, in fact, the Net Zero Strategy came as a result of the co-ordinated work that was done in that Committee.
In terms of specific delivery, the Government have a separate Government Priorities Delivery Committee, which the Prime Minister chairs. That looks at all of the Government’s top priorities, one of which of course is Net Zero, and—
Q15 Caroline Lucas: Can I stop you, only because I know colleagues are going to try to explore the issue between those two different Committees in a moment? I was hoping to get from your specific areas, whether that is agriculture or whether it is fossil fuel subsidies or whatever it might be, in terms of where you think action is most urgently needed to secure delivery.
Alok Sharma: I think we need to take action across all of the elements of the Ten Point Plan that was set out last December. That was something that I was very closely involved with when I was BEIS Secretary of State. We set that out, and I think you can see the tracking on some of the outcomes from what we said we would do as part of that Ten Point Plan in terms of additional investment coming into the UK, in terms of announcing our Transport Decarbonisation Strategy. We promised a Net Zero Strategy, and that has now come forward as well. You can see what has been delivered against that plan. To the general point, clearly, we need to make progress across all sectors.
Q16 Caroline Lucas: We do, and it is not meant to be a difficult question. It is genuinely asking—in some areas like the power sector we are much further ahead than in some other areas. All I am trying to understand is: if you were to identify some of the key areas where you think more work is needed, so that we could get more ambition delivered, what would you identify?
Alok Sharma: Again, I do not mean to be obtuse, but rather than singling any one sector out, the reality is that we need to make progress against all of this. Whether it is the transport sector, as you know there is a lot of work done on that. The Department for Transport is leading on that. In terms of the power sector, we now have a commitment to quadruple the amount of offshore wind by 2030.
Q17 Caroline Lucas: We do not need to worry quite so much about the power—
Alok Sharma: Sorry, again, I am not trying to be difficult in answering this, just to make the point that I think there are strategies now in place across all of these Departments that are responsible for the Ten Point Plan. It is delivery of that that is being tracked by Government, by the No. 10 Delivery Unit.
Q18 Caroline Lucas: If I could just follow up very briefly, Chair. The assessment from the Climate Change Committee, which was published last week, identifies several areas where it thinks that more action is urgently needed, one of which is agriculture and land use, which is 10% of emissions or more. Another was around behaviour change. Under that heading they had things like diet, or reductions in the growth of aviation. Again, to go back to issues of transparency, there was a report that was published at the same time as the Net Zero Strategy, but was then withdrawn. That was about behaviour change and, for people who managed to see the report before it was taken off the website, it did talk about things like changing diet. Are there any plans to publish that report on behaviour change that the CCC has said is an area that needs more attention?
Alok Sharma: I am not aware of any such plans.
Q19 Caroline Lucas: Not aware of the document?
Alok Sharma: No. I obviously read the same reports as you did in the media on this. That was not an official Government document, as I understand. It was a thought paper or whatever it was but, as far as I am aware, there are no plans to publish that.
Q20 Caroline Lucas: Are there any plans, in particular, on behaviour change more broadly that you are aware of that you can share?
Alok Sharma: Not particularly. What I would say is that I think this issue of diet and so on has come up. I think the view that the Government have taken—and that is a view that I have as well on a personal level—is that ultimately we should not be effectively forcing people to go in a particular direction. I believe much more in a carrot rather than stick approach, so what you need to do is to provide incentives for individuals, as in fact we have done through elements like the grants to allow people to buy ultra-low emission vehicles, for example. I do not think the policy of this Government is to force people down a particular route.
Q21 Caroline Lucas: I am not sure I am suggesting that they should be forced, but it is interesting that in that report it did explicitly say that nudging is not enough.
The very last point is just to say that we have identified several areas where, clearly, you do not necessarily have direct control in terms of delivery. How confident are you, on that wide range of issues or the Ten Point Plan and so forth, that you will have influence in terms of making sure those things get delivered?
Alok Sharma: Obviously, there will be influence through the Climate Action Implementation Committee. Ultimately, the delivery of that, the responsibility for that, is down to individual Departments and the delivery of Net Zero overall sits with the Business Department.
Chair: Thank you, Caroline. Picking up on Caroline’s point where you were headed with structure of Government, John McNally has some questions about your role.
Q22 John McNally: Following on from that, your responsibilities as a member of the Cabinet include chairing the Cabinet Committee on Climate Action Implementation, which considers “net zero and building the United Kingdom’s resilience to climate impacts”. Can you explain a bit more how you, as Chair of this Cabinet Committee, are taking forward your responsibility? There are children who will be watching this, who have been on plenty of climate change question and answer sessions lately, who are deeply concerned about the future, and I know you are deeply concerned. Particularly trying to get the coal and fossil fuel things over the line, how are you going to embrace that in the Cabinet and how are you going to make your position so strong that it cannot be refused?
Alok Sharma: There are two elements to this Committee. One is driving forward the domestic policy agenda, working with other Government Departments. The other is the international work that we have been doing in relation to COP that we will continue to do during the coming year.
For instance, we have set up a grouping called the Zero Emissions Vehicle Transition Council, which has sitting on it Ministers and representatives of around 50% of the global car market. That is something that is co-chaired between the Transport Secretary and me. Discussions on that will take place at CAI on issues around nature. There will be discussions around that and sustainable land use and on energy transition. There are two elements to it: one is driving the policy agenda domestically. The other is the international work that we are also doing as part of our COP responsibilities.
Q23 John McNally: How does the Committee’s work relate to that of the Climate Action Strategy Committee?
Alok Sharma: The Climate Action Strategy Committee is chaired by the Prime Minister. That sets the overall framework of what we are doing and aiming to deliver as part of net zero. As the name implies, the aim of the Implementation Committee is then to push forward to ensure that we have policies that are able to deliver on those top line commitments.
Q24 John McNally: The structure is there for assuring everything that you say and that will ensure implementation across Government, so there will be an all-party—different factions within the Government—agreement on what your Committee decides that will take this forward. It has been suggested many times that you probably need not just cross-Government but also cross-party agreement probably for the next 25 or 30 years, so that there is some sort of agreement that everyone adheres to. How do you feel about that?
Alok Sharma: We have a binding agreement, in the sense that we have Net Zero by 2050 in legislation. We have carbon budgets that are put into legislation. That is what binds this Government and future Governments as well. It is worth pointing out also, Mr McNally, that one of the roles that I have had is to talk to Governments around the world, and people have found it quite interesting the way that we have structured ourselves. I think they do find it something that works. The fact that we have the Prime Minister sitting at the apex of this and directing this makes a big difference. Certainly, I can tell you from conversations I have had with other Governments around the world, they do see this as quite an interesting structure to perhaps adopt themselves.
Q25 Mr Robert Goodwill: Thank you very much indeed, Secretary of State. I am not sure I need to ask this question, given what you have already said, but for the avoidance of doubt: the Climate Change Committee has declared that the Net Zero Strategy “needs to proceed at pace” and warns that “a change in ambition would risk slowing the process of delivering the UK’s Paris commitments down”. Do you agree with that assessment? I think a simple yes or no would probably suffice.
Alok Sharma: I certainly agree that we need to go as fast as we possibly can. In terms of carbon budgets, we have met one and two and we are ahead on three. We need to make further progress on carbon budgets four, five and six in the future.
Q26 Mr Robert Goodwill: In terms of the domestic agenda and this Cabinet Committee that you are chairing, I am trying to understand how you will operate. For example, will you be having a sort of headmaster study-type operation, where you call in Grant Shapps and talk about aviation, or you get George Eustice to account for the amount of methane that agriculture is producing or, indeed, get Michael Gove in and talk about our abysmal performance in terms of insulating our housing stock? Even Insulate Britain protesters have not managed to insulate their own houses, in some cases. Will you be playing the bad cop in terms of getting them to commit their Departments?
Alok Sharma: We have a very egalitarian structure, as you would expect on this Committee. This is why I am trying to make the distinction between what the CAS does and where the delivery responsibility sits. The intention of the CAS is to pull together the policies that need to be delivered, if I can put it in those terms. The delivery of this sits with the Government Priorities Delivery Committee, with the No. 10 Delivery Unit, and ultimately of course with individual Departments.
Q27 Mr Robert Goodwill: We are all used to these RAG charts, the red, amber, green. Will you be operating something like that? For example, Defence is probably quite a difficult Department to deliver, given that electric tanks have not yet been rolled out.
Alok Sharma: In terms of the RAG-rating of policies, that is something I would expect individual Governments would be doing and that would be something for the Delivery Unit. As I said, that is not the purpose of the CAI Committee. That has been very much focused on ensuring that we have deliverable policies. The fact that we have a mechanism where all Government Departments at Secretary of State level are represented does allow us to ensure that there is a consistency in terms of the policies that we are coming up with, which is precisely to avoid this issue where a policy in one Department is made independently of the other and may be in conflict in some way.
Chair: In addition to the Environmental Audit Committee members we have representatives from five other Select Committees who are now going to ask their questions. We are going to start with Sir Bernard Jenkin from the Liaison Committee.
Q28 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Following up the last two lines of questioning, you have had considerable resources at your disposal, Mr President, in the run-up to COP. Are those resources going to remain at your disposal for the duration of your role?
Alok Sharma: Thank you for that, Sir Bernard. As I explained, what we have had in terms of resources is in steady state—about 220 people in the COP unit. What we have been able to do is call on other Government Departments in supporting our work. Around 70 to 80 of those individuals have been directly involved with the physical organisation of the COP itself. Going forward, they will do other meetings but not on the same scale. My view is that in steady state what we need is 140 to 150 people as part of the COP unit sitting in the Cabinet Office. We will continue to lean on the Foreign Office and other Government Departments for support as well.
With your permission, Chair, if I could invite Peter Hill, who has been doing a lot of the detail thinking on this as well as being CEO of COP, to give an overview of what the optimal structure is going forward.
Peter Hill: Thank you, COP President. Yes, when you look at the number of commitments, the number of workstreams and the scale of the task to keep 1.5 alive there is a lot of work to do in 2022. Many of the functions that we have had over the last two years—
Chair: Sorry to interrupt you. Could you get a bit closer to your microphone? You are not coming through very loudly in the room.
Peter Hill: Is that any better?
Chair: Yes, it is. Thank you.
Peter Hill: I will start again, sorry. If you look at the outcomes that we secured in Glasgow, the commitments we have made, with the scale of the task to keep 1.5 alive there is a great deal of work to be done in 2022 so we think we need to keep, broadly speaking, similar capabilities to the ones that we have had. As the COP President has said, we are also very keen to be able to rely on the FCDO network to help us deliver that. A number of Departments—who you have probably heard from over the course of the last couple of years—also have teams who have been supporting this. It is important that they are also able to continue playing those roles.
The negotiating strand that remains very significant, the finance strand, will be a big part of what we need to do in 2022 to mobilise finance in support of what we are seeking to achieve. We are keen to keep the campaigns going on coal, on transport and on nature. I could go through them, but when we look at the constituent elements of what we have done over the last two years, we do not think the job is done and there is a huge amount more to do. Broadly speaking, we need to keep the capabilities that we have in order to do that.
Q29 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Does Archie Young stay on board also?
Alok Sharma: Yes.
Q30 Sir Bernard Jenkin: Okay. Can we separate the international dimension from the domestic dimension? I think most of the people around this table are more concerned about the historic failure of successive Governments to live up to policies announced and targets set. How much of that is of concern in the present situation? We have some very ambitious climate change targets and we know the CCC is a little bit sceptical about the pace of delivery and the ability of the machinery of Government to deliver.
Alok Sharma: Sir Bernard, you are right. What Peter and I have been talking about is the delivery of the international commitments that we have obtained. In terms of the CAI Committee, obviously there is a secretariat that I work with.
Q31 Sir Bernard Jenkin: How big is the secretariat?
Alok Sharma: We have a handful of people who are part of the secretariat sitting in the Cabinet Office, but they are able to draw on policy resource from across individual Government Departments as well.
Q32 Sir Bernard Jenkin: What do we think we have learned from the recent experience where, for Covid purposes, we have had to rapidly develop cross-departmental programmes and implement them very speedily: the Vaccine Taskforce, the test and trace operation? What do you think we have learned from that in terms of whether we need to apply similar, almost emergency, measures across Government to drive things forward and deliver?
Alok Sharma: The Vaccine Taskforce sat in BEIS during last year. What we have learned is that of course process is important, as ever, but it is delivery that really matters. You need to have the whole thing being driven forward, so it is interesting reflecting on what Kate Bingham has said in recent weeks about her experience of leading that taskforce.
You can cut these things in very many ways and different Governments have different approaches to this. Ultimately, this is about delivery, exactly as you say, and increasing the pace of that. That is what I think the architecture that the Government have in place aims to do.
Q33 Sir Bernard Jenkin: What do your officials feel they have learned in the run-up to COP? What positive thing can they say that they think will give confidence to the public, that there are domestic programmes and that the promises that we made at COP are going to be implemented? Let me just say I think this Committee or this group of Committee Chairs would be very keen to give the Government every support to strengthen their delivery. If there is an open mind, we know the Prime Minister has complained about the levers of Government being connected to bits of elastic and things not working terribly well. What discussion is going on in the Cabinet Office about, for example, our civil nuclear programme, and how to drive that forward with more confidence?
Alok Sharma: Sir Bernard, in terms of the officials, the officials you have here have been primarily responsible for the international delivery of the COP. Maybe I can take this. There is a mechanism in place in terms of delivery. You chaired the Liaison Committee and the Prime Minister came and spoke at that and some of these questions were raised on 17 November. The Prime Minister set out his views and, ultimately, he is responsible for the architecture of Government. You are all very experienced parliamentarians here and if you set out a view I am sure the Government will have a look at it.
Q34 Sir Bernard Jenkin: We are going to have more metrics questions in a moment, but how should we measure the success of the machinery and culture of the Government at the centre, that it really is driving this, or is it going to be left to the Departments to fight it out among themselves, which so often leads to paralysis?
Alok Sharma: In terms of the parameters of what we are trying to achieve, the Ten Point Plan does set out what the intention is across each of those 10 areas of Government in terms of delivering Net Zero. That is the metric that the Government will also be using in terms of what we have delivered. For instance, since we talked about the power sector, the aim is that we go from 11 GWh or 12 GWh to 40 GWh of offshore wind by 2030. Clearly, that information is available; people can see what is going on and they can also see what progress the Government are making. As an example, that is something that the Government will want to track.
We have talked about the fact that we want to have £90 billion of inward investment by 2030 in terms of delivering the Net Zero Strategy. Again, it is possible to see what commitments are being made in terms of inward investment. I just picked those two as examples but, as I said, ultimately the responsibility for delivery of this is not something that is sitting with the CAI or indeed with the COP unit. That sits as part of the delivery Committee that the Prime Minister chairs and the No. 10 Delivery Unit.
Q35 Sir Bernard Jenkin: That is a very important piece of information you have given us. As COP President, who must be interested in seeing the United Kingdom deliver its own domestic COP goals, could you undertake to be the ambassador of this group of parliamentarians, that if we bring proposals to you, which would accelerate confidence in the delivery of our domestic COP goals, you will promote them in the Government? I think the Prime Minister has an open mind on this sort of thing.
Alok Sharma: As I said, Sir Bernard, I am very happy to see any recommendations that either this overarching Committee makes, or individual Committees make. Ultimately, as you will appreciate, the decision on the architecture of Government is down to the Prime Minister. On a personal level, I am very happy to look at anything that comes forward.
Q36 Chair: Thank you, Sir Bernard. Picking up on a comment you just made there, President, did the CAI have the responsibility for co-ordinating the Net Zero Strategy work, or was that done by the Cabinet Office Delivery Unit?
Alok Sharma: No. The work on pulling that together, looking at the individual strategies as they came forward, was done through the CAI process.
Chair: Thank you. Now on to Darren Jones, the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.
Q37 Darren Jones: Hello, Alok Sharma. Is it correct that the Climate Adaptation Implementation Committee is predominantly made up of officials?
Alok Sharma: No, that is made up of Ministers, so Cabinet Ministers or if they are not able to attend then other Ministers from their Departments.
Q38 Darren Jones: What about the No. 10 Delivery Unit?
Alok Sharma: The No. 10 Delivery Unit is officials, yes.
Q39 Darren Jones: The reason I ask is that access to officials and information from Cabinet Committees by Select Committees is quite difficult because of the Osmotherly rules and other issues, so we need a responsible Minister who can come to give us the information. In terms of whole of Government co-ordination for decarbonisation, is that responsible Minister you or the Business Secretary?
Alok Sharma: For the delivery of Net Zero that is the BEIS Secretary of State. When I was BEIS Secretary of State that was part of my responsibility and we have a new Secretary of State and that would be his responsibility.
Q40 Darren Jones: Is that satisfactory?
Alok Sharma: That is part of the architecture of Government that we have. I think a lot of the policies that are going to allow us to deliver Net Zero are of course originated in the Business Department and driven out of the Business Department. I think it is logical that that Net Zero architecture sits within the Business Department.
Q41 Darren Jones: I am highlighting what seems to be a bit of a muddle around central co-ordination through the Cabinet Office and reporting on that basis and the Department, which should be a spoke from the hub of the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the whole of Government. Thank you for that answer.
Alok Sharma: If I may, Mr Jones, go back to this point, I think the Prime Minister was asked about this at the Liaison Committee and I think he said ultimately he was responsible for this, in the sense that he is the Prime Minister but also he Chairs the Government Priorities Delivery Committee as well, which looks not just at Net Zero but of course the other priority missions that the Government have in terms of levelling up education, jobs and skills, health and care and crime and justice.
Q42 Darren Jones: Thank you. We have heard about the 14 tables in the UN’s Transparency Framework for reporting purposes. It would be useful to understand the gap between our international reporting requirements and our domestic delivery promises. Can you commit to write to us to lay out what is in those 14 tables and how that might differ to our various policies at a UK level around delivery of our Net Zero targets?
Alison Campbell: To clarify that, as a developed country in the process, the UK has been reporting through its biannual reports for a number of years on these issues. Most of the requirements in those new tables that were agreed at COP26 we have been reporting on to the UNFCCC for several years, and that is part of the standard response that is running through BEIS as well.
Q43 Darren Jones: There is a gap between our suite of policy announcements at UK level in order to reach our Net Zero target and how we report on those compared to what we report to the UN. That is the point I am trying to get to. That is right, isn’t it?
Alok Sharma: We set out every year—again this is a BEIS responsibility—our report on emissions from a domestic perspective. What we are talking about under the UNFCCC framework is something that will be effective from 2024. That is the Enhanced Transparency Framework. The software for allowing individual countries to report in and fill in the tables is currently being put together by the UNFCCC. Once that is available, all countries will be required to have the same consistent information so that we can see very clearly, “You have made commitment A. Have you delivered in terms of that commitment?”
Q44 Darren Jones: That will not go to the depths of, say, for example, looking at the Transport Decarbonisation Strategy from the Department for Transport or the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy from BEIS?
Alok Sharma: No. I think that will be separate, in the sense that what the UNFCCC architecture will be doing will be looking at something very core in terms of, “Are you driving down your emissions?” It will have inventories for a number of gases across different sectors. That is the bit you will be able to track on a consistent basis in terms of whether when a country says they are going to reduce their emissions by X% by a certain point they are doing so.
Q45 Darren Jones: What I am trying to understand is the depth of reporting for our purposes as a Select Committee. Maybe you could share that information with us about what you expect to see, not just what we have been reporting on in the past but what was agreed at COP26 and what will be delivered by 2024. Then we will be able to see if there are gaps that we want to pursue further.
My last question is on international collaboration on parliamentary scrutiny. The UK, alongside other wealthy nations, made promises to other countries around the world at COP26, but they cannot sit around this table and ask you or anybody else about when you will be able to deliver on those promises. One of the things that I and others think we should do is build our international networks of sister Committees and other scrutiny functions around the world, to make sure that we are talking to each other. We think that would be beneficial to holding Governments around the world to their commitments at COP26. Is that something that you would support?
Alok Sharma: Just to separate the two, what you are talking about is ongoing work on an international basis in terms of how parliamentarians work together across the world. What we already have is an existing architecture, which has been enhanced as a result of agreeing the transparency framework, which will allow anyone to be able to see, once all of this data is provided, how individual countries are doing from the end of 2024.
The other thing that we will see is a global stocktake that takes place in 2023, where countries will effectively be reporting against the three pillars of the Paris Agreement, in terms of mitigation, adaptation, and finance. At that point, we will be able to see how countries are doing on the basis of that stocktake. That architecture already exists. I think what you are talking about—and that may be a very powerful tool—is allowing this kind of interaction on a more international basis.
Q46 Darren Jones: Yes, is that something you would support?
Alok Sharma: There is always a value in holding Governments to account. I am not saying that is not happening. My role as COP President goes on until the Sharm el-Sheikh COP27. There will be no more UK COP presidents after that, so you may well think that that proposal is interesting going forward on an international basis. For us, what has been very important is to make sure that the infrastructure is in place for reporting, which is what we now have.
Q47 Greg Clark: COP President, congratulations to you and your team for what you achieved in Glasgow and the commitment that you made to it. Thinking about what was achieved there, one of the goals of the COP going into it was to secure global net zero by mid-century. Was that achieved?
Alok Sharma: What we set out to achieve was to keep within sight the goal of ensuring that we limit global warming by the end of the century to 1.5oC. That is a reflection of the Paris Agreement goal, which is to limit global warming to well below 2oC, aiming for 1.5oC. In that respect, I said at the time—and there are independent parties that have also agreed to this—that we have managed to keep 1.5oC alive. I said in Glasgow that, while we have managed to do that, the pulse is weak and, therefore, we need to ensure that the commitments that countries have made are delivered.
There are various reports that have come out showing where we got to. If all the commitments that have been made are delivered on, I think the trajectory is obviously below 2oC of global warming. As with every COP, this is a staging post, and we have made significant progress at this COP.
Q48 Greg Clark: It was a particular objective to secure global net zero by mid-century. Post the COP, are we still on track for that?
Alok Sharma: In terms of global net zero by mid-century, we have reached a point where 90% of global emissions are covered by net zero. When we started this process off around two years ago, less than 30% of the global economy was covered by a net zero target. We got to 90%, which is an achievement, but obviously what we need to ensure is that countries deliver policies that allow them to meet that target.
Q49 Greg Clark: Just on the policies: of the 90% of countries that have made commitments consistent with net zero by mid-century, what proportion is going to be achieved by the deployment of known technologies now—things like electric vehicles—versus looking to new breakthroughs and unknown technologies. How does that split up?
Alok Sharma: I cannot give you a direct answer on that. Clearly, there are a significant number of technologies that already exist, which we need to ensure are deployed much more rapidly across the world. You made reference to the breakthroughs, and we have the Glasgow Breakthroughs that have set this out in terms of how we ensure that this is made available in a cost-effective way around the world. There will be additional technology that is being developed. We have the various emission innovation tasks that are going on on an international basis.
Q50 Greg Clark: On existing technologies, known technologies, if they were deployed would that get us to where we need to be?
Alok Sharma: Rather than give you some sort of percentage answer, I would be very happy to write on this specific point. The point of the breakthroughs—and I will invite Matt, if he wants to come in and talk about this—is to look at the most polluting sectors to see what we can do to ensure that, by 2030, we are seeing these technologies rapidly deployed.
These are technologies that are already very much in existence and are being deployed across the world, or these are technologies where there is a lot of funding going in, in terms of developing them. For instance, hydrogen is one. The power sector is another, where I have talked about the fact that the cost of renewables has come down significantly over the last 10 years.
Q51 Greg Clark: By mid-century we do not need to place great reliance on technologies that have yet to be discovered? The plan is to do it on existing, known technologies rather than expecting that there will be new technologies that will take the strain in the later years?
Alok Sharma: There are a range of technologies that already exist, there are other nascent technologies that are emerging, and no doubt there will be technologies that we are not yet aware of that will emerge, which help us to get to that goal.
Q52 Greg Clark: Which is whether they take us further than we are expecting. Perhaps you could write to me about that?
In terms of the Glasgow Breakthroughs you mentioned, the communiqué from the UK mentions five of them: power, road transport, steel, hydrogen, and agriculture—climate-resilient, sustainable agriculture. Yet the COP summary of the breakthroughs does not include agriculture. Why is that? Has it been adopted by the whole COP? Is the agriculture breakthrough part of the suite or is this just a UK preference?
Matt Toombs: I am happy to come in on this. There were five breakthroughs that were agreed to at COP by the 40 leaders who came together as part of that agreement. They cover the five areas that you described, including agriculture. For four of them, the process was set out by which over the coming year, and then on an annual basis, there would be a checkpoint process, so a review of how the progress was going against delivery of those objectives.
For the four, excluding agriculture, a process involving the International Energy Agency, IRENA, High Level Champions, and others would do a report each year. Ministers would convene each year and there will be the first of those in September next year in Pittsburgh. The MI Ministerial will be the point for looking at progress.
On the fifth—as you said, agriculture—we said as the presidency that we would set out plans during the course of this year about how we will follow a similar process.
Q53 Greg Clark: Why was it not possible to agree that at Glasgow, just like the other ones?
Matt Toombs: The agriculture discussion involved talking to a broad range of different parties who were involved in sustainable agriculture and agriculture tradition. They essentially involve a different group of organisations.
Q54 Greg Clark: That is business for the remainder of the presidency to sort out the delivery of the agriculture breakthrough?
Matt Toombs: The commitment is to work with parties during the course of next year to then identify the way forward for that.
Q55 Greg Clark: President, do you accept that as being one of the things you want to achieve by the end of your presidency: to have agriculture with a plan to match the others?
Alok Sharma: Yes, that is clearly what we want to do.
Q56 Greg Clark: Finally, in these breakthroughs, there is a commitment that the new technologies should be affordable and accessible for all. Could you say something about how you can assure yourself—and therefore everyone else—that the technologies that are discovered will not be prohibitive on the bills of consumers and others?
Alok Sharma: Sorry, I am going back to the clean power sector as an example. One of the things that we did see at this COP was a number of announcements in terms of supporting developing economies. There was a Clean Energy Transition plan that was announced for South Africa, with $8.5 billion from international partners going in to support them as part of that move from coal to clean power.
We also had the Global Energy Alliance, which was a grouping of countries and philanthropies—people like Bezos and Rockefeller—putting up $10 billion. The aim is to mobilise $100 billion by 2030. The intention is to support developing countries through finance, both public and private sector, in terms of making the transition, in this instance, to clean energy, to renewables. That has to be part of the answer.
If you look at countries—the commitments that they have set out in terms of cutting emissions—some of it does rely on financial support. We have this plan to mobilise $100 billion, which is a significant amount of money, but the reality is that we know for a clean energy transition, for instance, that it is going to require several trillion dollars a year across the world and this is where the private sector has a big role to play.
Chair: Ruth Cadbury from the Transport Committee.
Q57 Ruth Cadbury: Mr President, what progress do you expect to make under your presidency for the rest of the year, towards delivering the COP26 pledge on accelerating the transition to 100% net emissions for surface transport? You have mentioned the transition to zero-emission vehicles, but we cannot transition without considering active travel and public transport because, according to the Climate Change Committee, they deliver emission cuts sooner than zero-emission vehicles will. What are your hopes for the next year?
Alok Sharma: If I may just understand the question, you are talking about what we might do domestically in terms of travel?
Q58 Ruth Cadbury: In terms of your presidency on zero-emissions surface transport. Zero-emission vehicles are obviously a key part of that, and I am aware there was an agreement on that.
Alok Sharma: Yes. That has been the key driver for us. If you look at emissions from transport, a very significant percentage of those are obviously from road transport. That is why we have driven forward commitments from countries, to ensure that they phase out the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles and only have sales of new ultra-low emission vehicles from a certain date. The UK itself has been very clear that from 2030 new cars will be ultra-low emission vehicles. In the same way, at COP26 we had countries representing around a third of the global car market, which made commitments in this respect. Some of the biggest car manufacturers—GM, JLR, Ford and so on—also made commitments on this. That has been one of the key drivers of what we have been doing over the past 18 months through our Zero Emission Vehicles Transition Council.
Q59 Ruth Cadbury: Obviously, being on the Transport Committee we are aware of what the UK has been doing domestically on zero-emission and low-emission public transport, encouraging active travel and so on. Is any of that feeding into your international work?
Alok Sharma: Yes. Matt, you may want to comment from a campaign side. A key feature of our work on the transport sector has been on zero-emission vehicles going forward, and that has gathered pace. Obviously, at COP itself we had countries signing up ensuring that in the future, in terms of new cars, they will only have sales of ultra-low emission vehicles. With all of these types of agreements that are reached, they are living agreements—if I can put it like that—and you build on those. During this year we will see whether we can get other countries committed in the same way.
You have seen this, for instance, when it comes to the phase-out of coal. That is something that has been built on over a number of years. We now have a significant number of countries that have signed up on that particular issue. From a campaign point of view, is there anything more you want to say, Matt?
Matt Toombs: Just to add that we started the presidency with very few countries having made a commitment to phasing out their internal combustion engines. The UK’s position allowed the UK to play a leading role internationally. At COP26, that led to this commitment to phase out internal combustion engines by 2035 in leading markets by 39 countries, which is a huge change.
Q60 Ruth Cadbury: It is just focused on the private car, not on buses, trains or other forms of transport?
Matt Toombs: That campaign specifically focused on private cars, yes.
Q61 Ruth Cadbury: Moving onto aviation, which is obviously one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, and also significant other climate impacts beyond just greenhouse gas emissions. In respect of global negotiations, where do you think the focus is likely to be? Is it going to be on demand management and airport expansion, on airlines being responsible for their own emissions, or is just going to focus on zero carbon fuels and zero carbon technologies?
Alok Sharma: Yes. The first thing to state is that there was obviously an ongoing debate about whether or not the UK should include its international aviation and maritime emissions in our carbon budgets. That is something that we decided to do. I think that has been welcomed by many people who want to see us cutting our emissions.
In respect of that, one of the things that we did at COP itself was we launched a coalition of over 20 countries that have signed up to this, representing around half of the world’s aviation emissions, and we are pushing for an international agreement to ensure that we have emissions coming down on a global basis. You will be aware that the International Civil Aviation Organization is the key body for this. That has its meeting next autumn. One of the things we want to do is to push forward on that and see whether we can get commitments from further countries at that particular meeting. Is there anything you want to add on this particular issue, Matt?
Matt Toombs: Not particularly, no.
Q62 Ruth Cadbury: Can I just clarify? All the UK focus has been on zero carbon fuels and technologies and not on any of the other aspects. I assume that is going to be reflected in your work internationally as well?
Alok Sharma: The issue of ICAO will sit with the Transport Secretary, who will be responsible for that. In terms of what the Government have been doing on a more domestic basis, they have invested in sustainable aviation fuels. If memory serves me correctly, about £180 million has been invested in that.
There is the Jet Zero programme, which is a joint piece of work between the Department for Business and the Transport Department. There are a number of things that are going on domestically in terms of pushing forward, and ultimately it is up to every individual country to decide how it wants to see a cut in emissions. What we are driving for is an international agreement that aviation emissions is something that we should be looking to drive down.
Chair: Thank you, Ruth. Now the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Mel Stride.
Q63 Mel Stride: Welcome, Alok. Can I just ask you about finance? Peter Hill recognised earlier that next year a major focus for you is going to be on how you mobilise vast quantities of private capital to drive forward to net zero. It is not only Governments alone that do this.
I attended an excellent session with Mark Carney at COP26, where he spoke about the GFANZ group which, on the face of it, looks impressive: 450 institutions, 45 countries and $130 trillion of assets. How confident are you that we are going to be able to align those assets with these climate change goals, particularly given that a lot of those institutions are heavily invested, for example, in hydrocarbons?
Alok Sharma: In terms of GFANZ, as you say, it is $130 trillion-worth of assets, nearly a quarter of all financial assets in the world, and to sign up to this—to become a GFANZ member—you are required to set out robust, independently verified science-based targets to decarbonise, in the first instance, by 2025 or 2030. You are required to do that within 12 to 18 months of joining GFANZ. About 90 of the 450 institutions have already done so, and there is a requirement that these targets have to be reviewed every five years and they have to be reported on annually. Obviously, if people are not keeping up with their commitments they no longer get to participate in GFANZ.
Matt has been working very directly with Mark Carney’s team on this and he may want to comment. It is great that we have this commitment of $130 trillion. The issue is: how do you connect this with developing countries who need the finance in the first place? There are a number of strands of work that are going off GFANZ. One of them, Track 7, is looking at precisely this: how do you use this funding to mobilise money to support projects in developing countries?
The CEO of Macquarie Bank is leading on this. Some of the issues that they are looking at are: how do you work on blended finance? How do you work with multilateral developments banks, and is there scope for first loss instruments to be set up by multilateral organisations to ensure that, on the back of that, the private sector will invest as well? For me, that has been the key thing. It is great to get these commitments. I very much welcome them. The question is: how do you connect that?
On your specific point about GFANZ and ensuring that the people are doing what they are committed to, Matt, do you want to comment?
Matt Toombs: Yes, I am very happy to. As the COP president said, any firm that wants to join the GFANZ initiative has to do it through one of the different member coalitions that oversee the different sections of the financial services industry; whether that be insurance, asset owners, asset managers. They need to satisfy the criteria for the UN-backed Race To Zero Campaign. All of these 450 companies need to satisfy those commitments. That means making a mid-century net zero commitment, making a 2030 commitment that is consistent with the IPCC’s 1.5oC report pathway and, as the COP president said, annual reporting against this. There is a set of consistent, clear benchmarks that these organisations will need to sign up to and commit to.
Q64 Mel Stride: It is quite difficult to obtain a lot of clarity around benchmarks in this area. How do you keep their feet to the fire? How do you make sure there is not greenwashing, for instance, which has been one of the great criticisms of what has happened in the UK financial markets in the role of the FCAs—that, in a sense, there is an incentive just to pretend that you are doing the stuff but you are not aligning those incentives?
Matt Toombs: I agree that that is a risk and that is why the annual public reporting is a critical part of it. Any organisation that has signed up to a GFANZ commitment that is not reporting or reports that it is not on target to meet its commitments, its membership should be reviewed by the coalition that controls that.
Q65 Mel Stride: How do you know you have the right targets, the right metrics, the right way of measuring these institutions, and what they are doing? How do you assess that?
Matt Toombs: That is where taking this back to the IPCC 1.5oC trajectory is what is important, and that applies to the wider Race to Zero methodology. It is one where there are expert groups that input to the trajectories that firms need to test their alignment with, so it is drawing on the network of independent experts that can assure that they are publishing consistent plans with those IPCC reports.
Q66 Mel Stride: Is greenwashing a concern? Is it high up on your agenda when you look at this area?
Matt Toombs: It is important that the commitments that companies make are robust, that they are credible and they are high integrity. That is why you need very high standards as set out by the Race to Zero internationally benchmarked campaign. It is important that you have high integrity and that there is public reporting against those commitments.
Alok Sharma: Just to add, obviously there is a general point around greenwashing and there will be various organisations, NGOs, who will—as indeed we all will—want to ensure that when commitments are made they are not greenwashing. You will be aware that the Secretary-General, in his speech to the World Leaders Summit, set out his own plan for having a high level expert group to look at net zero commitments from non-state actors.
When this group is up and running it will look at various questions. What are the existing standards? What are the existing accountability measures? Are they fit for purpose? How can you better translate all of this into international processes? That is a piece of work that the Secretary-General has obviously decided to initiate, and I think the intention is that this group will be up and running from the beginning of the year and will potentially, even by this autumn, put out some sort of early report on some of these issues.
Q67 Mel Stride: Thank you. It is something our Committee will look at quite closely. A final question because I know a vote is very imminent. Getting back to Government funding and this $100 billion per year commitment, which has moved out to 2023 but hopefully we can bring back to 2022. What is it that gives you confidence that you might be able to shift it a little bit nearer to the present?
Alok Sharma: The first thing is that those numbers that went into the delivery plan were obviously obtained by the OECD and verified by them. If you look at the analysis that the OECD did, it took out any kind of double-counting. It had a pretty concerted multiple in terms of private sector mobilisation off the back of public money. We also had a number of announcements—for instance, from Japan—in terms of additional finance. We will have to see whether additional commitments are made by Governments during 2022, in terms of supporting developing economies. It will provide quite a lot more confidence in the system if we are able to say that this 100 billion has been mobilised by the end of 2020.
Q68 Chair: Just before we wrap up, we have had your lead negotiator present on the screen but he has not yet said anything. Archie Young, could you give us, very concisely, your biggest disappointment and your biggest satisfaction from the negotiations that you were leading?
Archie Young: Thank you very much for the opportunity. When I look at what was achieved, the greatest satisfaction was that we set out with a clear plan, which was based on the feedback from other countries, as to what they expected COP26 to deliver based on the two years-worth of mandates that were set for us. Across the board, we achieved what we set out to achieve.
Inevitably in a multilateral negotiation the old adage is true that not everybody gets everything that they want, but everybody came away with something and I think everybody is very clear on the path ahead. We need to focus now on the tasks that await us.
Rather than disappointment, I would point to the sheer scale of the task that we still have to do. Countries still need to come back with more ambitious targets, and we need to continue to accelerate action on finance, on adaptation, on loss and damage, and across the piece. That is certainly the spirit in which I look at it now.
Chair: Thank you very much indeed. You can probably hear the bell, so we are being summoned to vote. I will draw the session to a close. I would just like to do so by thanking Alok Sharma, COP 26 President, and his team: Peter Hill, Chief Executive, Archie Young, the Lead Negotiator, Alison Campbell, Deputy Negotiator, and Matt Toombs, for joining us today.