The UK prime minister will meet his Norwegian counterpart and has promised to reignite Britain’s industrial heartlands with a carbon capture industry.
Britons will be better protected from energy price rises at the whim of President Putin by a clean-energy deal with Norway, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed.
The prime minister will lay the ground for an agreement to increase cooperation on carbon capture and storage, as he heads on a two-day trip to northern Europe.
Starmer and Jonas Gahr Store, the Norwegian prime minister, will begin formal work on the scheme in Norway on Monday and hope to complete negotiations in spring.
It could mean the UK shares technological progress with Norway on green energy, or joins forces to pitch for global carbon capture and storage opportunities.
Starmer and his Norwegian counterpart will hold talks when they fly on to Tallinn, Estonia, later on Monday for a gathering of the Joint Expeditionary Force — a military coalition of several European countries.
He said the energy partnership with Norway, which has a northern border with Russia, would help to boost growth and protect against international energy price rises, such as those which followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Starmer said: “It will harness the UK’s unique potential to become a world leader in carbon capture — from the North Sea to the coastal south — reigniting industrial heartlands and delivering on our plan for change.
“Our partnership with Norway will make the UK more energy secure, ensuring we are never again exposed to international energy price spikes and the whims of dictators like Putin.”
Starmer faced criticism earlier this month, after his pledge to deliver “zero carbon” electricity by 2030 was instead revealed to be a plan to decarbonise by 95 per cent by the end of the decade — with some fossil fuels left in reserve.
While Starmer is away, the UK foreign and defence secretaries will host their Australian counterparts for talks on the conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the AUKUS partnership to provide nuclear-powered submarines in the Indo-Pacific.
A UK carrier strike group will be deployed to Australia in 2025. The HMS Prince of Wales will take part in Exercise Talisman Sabre, which is a multinational exercise hosted by Australia involving 19 nations.
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The UK shares a commercial partner, Equinor, with Norway’s Northern Lights carbon capture and storage project at Blomoyna in Norway, which pumps carbon dioxide deep below the seabed.
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