Carbon capture can keep industry thriving

sir – The report by the Committee on Climate Change (report, May 2), which outlines a way to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, also represents a major economic opportunity.

The Humber region is home to the country’s biggest cluster of energyintensive industries. We are also home to a large part of the offshore wind sector. Tackling emissions here will have more impact on our climate goals than projects anywhere else in Britain.

Carbon capture and storage technology is central to this ambition. It would enable emissions from refineries and chemical plants to be captured and channelled into empty gas fields or natural caverns beneath the North Sea. The Government wants one such carbon capture facility up and running by the mid-2020s. However, MPS on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee have called for three carbon capture projects to be developed by that time.

Here in the Humber, carbon capture is already under way. At the Drax power plant in Selby, North Yorkshire, coal has been replaced by sustainable biomass. Now the company is piloting the world’s first bio-energy carbon capture and storage project. If scaled up, it could become the first “carbon negative” plant.

The Committee on Climate Change also calls for expansion of offshore wind. We already see the benefits of this on the Humber, and we have the space and ambition to support its growth. The Humber is the right place for the UK’S first net zero cluster.

Britain could yet lead the world in decarbonising our industries, and in exporting clean technology. Lord Haskins

Chairman, Humber Local Enterprise Partnership London SW1

sir – The suggestion that thermostats should be turned down to 19C (report, May 2) is at odds with medical advice to older citizens to keep living-area temperatures at 21C. It would be interesting to learn what the average ambient temperatures are in the Houses of Parliament. JR Ball

Hale, Cheshire