New developments in innovative technologies to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere will be taken forward by new government-backed projects across the UK – helping create new green jobs and put the UK at the forefront of this new industry, which could be worth billions to the UK economy.

A total of 15 projects right across the UK, from Edinburgh to Exeter, Swindon to Sheffield, will benefit from a share of over £54 million to develop technologies that remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere, the UK government has announced today (Friday 8 July). This government support will encourage further private investment into the UK, the creation of new green jobs in these regions, and help the UK meet its emission reduction targets.

The money will help projects further develop their greenhouse gas removal technologies, which include a machine that can pull carbon dioxide out of the air, a plant to convert household waste into hydrogen for use in the transport industry, and a system to remove carbon dioxide from seawater.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Hands said:

This £54 million government investment announced today will help establish a greenhouse gas removal industry in the UK, which could be worth billions to our economy, bringing in private investment and supporting the creation of new green jobs.

The funding comes under Phase 2 of the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removal technologies competition.

The competition is worth a total of £60 million: in phase one, 23 winners received a share of £5.6 million. Of those, 15 have progressed to phase two and will receive a share of the £54.4 million announced today to bring their technologies to life, taking their projects through to the demonstration phase, and towards the successful commercialisation of their technologies.

Some of the innovative projects receiving funding today include:

• Advanced Biofuel Solutions in Swindon will receive £4.75 million for a plant that can convert gas from household waste into low carbon hydrogen for use in the transport industry
• Mission Zero Technologies in London will receive £2.9 million to build a machine that can pull carbon dioxide out of the air
• SAC Commercial in Edinburgh will receive £2.9 million to develop technology that will capture methane produced from cattle, to reduce emissions from the livestock farming sector
• The University of Exeter will receive nearly £3 million to develop their ‘SeaCURE’ system to remove carbon dioxide from seawater

Greenhouse Gas Removal technology will be essential to meeting the UK’s climate change target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. While the government is working hard to decarbonise the UK and boost energy security by accelerating the move away from fossil fuels, these technologies will be necessary to offset emissions from hard to decarbonise areas, such as parts of the agriculture and aviation sectors.

Today’s funding announcement will help establish a thriving Greenhouse Gas Removal industry in the UK. This week the government has also launched a consultation on Greenhouse Gas Removal business models, seeking views from stakeholders on how the government can help put the UK at the forefront of the sector, by supporting and encouraging investment into this developing industry.

Professor Paul Halloran, SeaCURE, University of Exeter said:

The UK has world leading academic and industrial expertise in marine science and technology. The BEIS GGR programme is allowing us to bring this together to deliver a novel climate change solution which builds on the ocean’s natural capture of anthropogenic carbon.

Michael Evans, CEO, Cambridge Carbon Capture said:

The BEIS GGR programme provides vital support for early stage GGR technology companies, such as Cambridge Carbon Capture Ltd, by providing contracts enabling us to develop a pilot plant and business model necessary to attract further investment needed to scale and commercialise our technology.

Alex Clarke, Co-Founder & CEO, Black Bull Biochar said:

BEIS’s DAC & GGR programme catalyses Black Bull Biochar to build a pathway that rapidly scales greenhouse gas removal. It enables us to bring together industry and agriculture on a pioneering platform that helps the UK overcome barriers to the creation and scale-up of a sustainable, effective biochar network. This will restore our environment, remove carbon, regenerate depleted soils and thereby enrich our industrial and agricultural systems.

Notes to Editors

Funded through the BEIS Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removal technologies competition provides funding to develop technologies that enable the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in the UK.

Phase 2 of the programme was only open to applications from projects that were supported under Phase 1, as Phase 2 builds on Phase 1 to take projects from the design and feasibility stage to the demonstration phase.

Read a full list of the Phase 2 projects.

The programme provides support for four main types of greenhouse gas removal:

• Direct Air Carbon Capture (DACC) – DACC technology uses chemical reactions to capture carbon dioxide from the air as it passes through the system. The carbon dioxide can then be permanently stored or used in various products or applications.
• Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) – captures and stores carbon from organic materials, converting it into useful energy such as heat, electricity, liquid or gas fuels.
• Biochar – This is a form of charcoal produced when organic matter is burned without oxygen. The biochar is rich in carbon and can be used as a fertiliser.
• Seawater – The oceans naturally absorb carbon dioxide but because of a large increase in carbon dioxide emissions from our activities the oceans absorb more than previously. The result is that the oceans are becoming more acidic. Seawater GGR technology can remove CO2 from seawater directly to help restore this natural balance.

Illegal export of waste from Kent has left P&D Material Recovery Ltd handing over thousands of pounds to an environmental charity.

In March 2019, the company filled 11 containers with plastic contaminated with banned waste at Chatham Dockyard, Gillingham. The 2 shipments described as plastic scrap, totalling approximately 220 tonnes, was to be sent to a facility in Turkey.

However, intervention and enforcement action by the Environment Agency has meant a bird charity in Sandwich has now benefitted from £13,000 to improve local habitats. P&D has also paid the Environment Agency’s costs of nearly £11,000 from the investigation.

This breach in international law on the export of illegal waste was discovered during a routine inspection. The containers were found to include plastic contaminated with soiled nappies and sanitary towels, but also condoms, cotton buds, glass, textiles, including old underwear and tin cans.

The company accepted that the contents inspected were unsuitable for export, and that it had returned the containers to its facility and sent them for incineration.

To prevent further breaches, the company has agreed to employ additional staff and employ a company that specialises in the manufacturing of waste sorting stations to design a secondary clean-up system and an additional picking station.

Stephen Young, lead investigator for the Environment Agency on this case, said:

We want all producers and waste companies to be responsible and make sure they only export material that can be legally and safely sent abroad for recycling.

Illegal waste exports blight the lives and environment of those overseas.

All UK waste exports should meet regulations on waste shipments, and the Environment Agency has a system of inspections in place to verify compliance.

P&D Material Recovery Ltd made the £13,000 payment as a civil sanction, also known as an enforcement undertaking. The Sandwich Bay Observatory Trust, who are committed to the conservation and recording of the natural environment in the Sandwich Bay area, used the money on its ‘Restharrow Scrape Project.’

A scrape is an artificial wetland and acts as a refuge for many ducks and wading birds. The charity redesigned and enlarged a shallow lake to benefit resting, migrating and breeding birds, and to include an accessible hide. Birds found here include black-headed gulls, lapwings, oystercatchers, as well as several pairs of avocets who have nested here in recent years, the first-ever in this corner of east Kent.

P&D Material Recovery Ltd, from St Mary’s Island, Chatham, will pay the Environment Agency’s costs of £10,845.60 as they breached the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007 and the attempted export of illegal waste.

ENDS.

Notes to editors

• Under enforcement undertakings companies and individuals can make good some of the environmental damage they cause, including through a financial contribution to a local project. The Environment Agency must also be satisfied that the offender will make changes to its operations to prevent similar damage in the future.
• While agreeing to enforcement undertakings, the Environment Agency continues to prosecute organisations and individuals where evidence shows high levels of culpability and serious environmental harm.

Media enquiries: 0800 141 2743

Email: communications_se@environment-agency.gov.uk

Thank you Mr President. Like others, we would like to congratulate you on assuming the Presidency this month and congratulate Albania for their excellent stewardship of the Council in June.

We welcome the Special Representative back to the chamber and thank him for his very helpful update. We also welcome the presence of the Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission and thank Ms Magagi for her briefing.

Mr President, as we have heard there have been some positive developments since we last met. The peaceful elections in the Gambia and Senegal are a welcome example of progress in West African democracy.

We remain very concerned by the political situation in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.  Although the recent progress made on election timelines in Mali and Burkina Faso is encouraging. Sustained progress towards the organisation of credible elections and a return to constitutional order is vital.

The UK encourages UNOWAS to continue to focus on democratic election processes across the region, in close coordination with ECOWAS and the AU. We also welcome the focus we heard today on boosting women’s participation in these processes.

Mr President, it is also clear from today’s briefing that the security situation in the region remains fragile. Progress in the Gulf of Guinea is welcome but the UK remains concerned by the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria, the central Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, and by ongoing conflict, including involving extremist groups. The presence in the region of mercenary groups including Wagner is a dangerous, destabilising factor.

We encourage UNOWAS to focus on the practical steps the UN can take, in a coordinated fashion, to address the root causes of conflict, including through the implementation of the UN integrated strategy for the Sahel, as the Special Representative said.

The UK, for our part, is committed to working with Nigeria to respond through our Security and Defence partnership, and to supporting long-term stability in Mali and the wider Sahel including through our contribution to MINUSMA. Like others, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer our deep condolences for the deadly attack on Egyptian peacekeepers last week.

Mr President I also want to focus today on the humanitarian situation, given the worrying developments we’ve heard.

We are particularly concerned about the food security situation, especially where humanitarian access is restricted, and where the effects of the global food crisis and climate change compound the situation.

The UK is committed to improving the humanitarian situation including through providing over $200 million of development assistance across the Sahel between 2019 and 2021.

The UK calls on all actors to continue cooperation with UNOWAS at the national and regional levels to facilitate humanitarian access. We hope the SRSG can use his good offices role to work with all parties to conflict, and the wider UN system, to ensure safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian actors.

Finally, Mr President, we are concerned by the challenging human rights situation outlined in the latest report from the Secretary-General. We urge UNOWAS to continue to work with states to ensure accountability and improved compliance with international human rights standards.

Thank you.

• Further boost to journalism protections in world-leading internet safety laws
• Requirement to keep news articles up even if under review by moderators
• Platforms must notify news publishers and offer a right of appeal before taking any action

People’s access to trusted, high-quality journalism online is to get a further boost as the government adds stronger press protections to its pioneering Online Safety Bill.

An amendment to the Bill tabled by ministers last night is designed to guard against the arbitrary removal of articles from journalists at recognised news outlets when shared on social media platforms.
According to Ofcom, half of UK adults use social media for news, with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram the most popular platforms for this purpose. The internet is the most-used platform for news consumption among 16-24 year-olds and people from minority ethnic groups. ​

But news content has been removed or made less visible by social media moderators or algorithms for unclear reasons, often at the height of news cycles. For example, last year Youtube suddenly removed TalkRadio’s channel then reinstated it 12 hours later, admitting the move had been a mistake.

The measures will help address this situation and are an extra layer of protection to the safeguards already written into the Bill for online journalism.

The Bill currently would not stop platforms from removing news publishers’ content or making it less visible if they decided to review it for potential breaches of their terms and conditions, even if they eventually found no fault with it.

Under the new amendment, Category 1 companies – including the largest and most popular social media platforms – will now be required to ensure recognised news publishers’ articles remain viewable and accessible on their sites even if they are under review by moderators.

They will be required to notify news publishers and offer them a right of appeal before removing or moderating their content or taking any action against their accounts.

This will reduce the risk of platforms taking arbitrary or accidental moderation decisions against news publisher content which plays an invaluable role in UK society and democracy. News publishers will benefit from greater awareness and advance warning about possible action being taken against their content, and more transparency about the decision-making behind it.

Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said:

“ Our democracy depends on people’s access to high quality journalism and our world-leading internet safety law brings in tough new safeguards for freedom of speech and the press online.

“ Yet we’ve seen tech firms arbitrarily remove legitimate journalism with a complete lack of transparency and this could seriously impact public discourse. These extra protections will stop that from happening.”

The amendment follows concerns raised by the news industry and the Joint Committee that the Bill could indirectly incentivise platforms to be overzealous in removing or moderating news publishers’ content due to fear of sanctions by the regulator Ofcom. This could damage the commercial sustainability of news publishers, many of which rely on the advertising revenue they receive through people accessing their content on social media channels.

The government has listened to these concerns and strengthened the protections to prevent this happening. The new requirement means that, unless it is illegal under  the Bill or platforms would have a criminal or civil liability for hosting it,content from recognised news publishers will remain online even while a review by moderators and any subsequent appeal takes place.

Platforms can still take immediate action on content posted by normal users, who can appeal the removal of their content after it has been taken down under the Bill’s existing complaints procedures.

Instead of being informed after their content has been taken down for review, news publishers will be told in advance while it remains up on users’ news feeds, giving them time to lodge an appeal.

The government has acted to stop the spread of RT and Sputnik’s disinformation about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in the UK and sanctioned news outlets will not benefit from these protections. Ministers intend to amend the criteria for determining which organisations qualify as recognised news publishers to explicitly exclude organisations that are subject to sanctions.

ENDS

FURTHER INFORMATION

Existing protections for journalism in the Online Safety Bill

The Online Safety Bill is groundbreaking legislation to make tech companies accountable to the independent regulator Ofcom for keeping their users safe.

The exemption for news publisher content in the Bill includes news articles on publishers’ own websites as well as the comment sections underneath them, and the articles when they are shared on social media platforms.

The news publisher exemption only applies to organisations that meet the robust criteria set out in clause 50 of the Bill.

It means there is no requirement at all on in-scope companies to consider whether news publishers’ content could be harmful to their users or act on it

In addition, Category 1 companies will have a duty to put in place safeguards for all journalistic content shared on their platforms.

These safeguards will ensure that platforms consider the importance of journalism when moderating, setting out clearly in their terms of service how they have considered the importance of journalism and enforcing this consistently. This will ensure that platforms can be held to account for the decisions they make, including decisions made by automated moderation tools.

Platforms will also need to put in place fast-tracked appeals processes for producers of journalistic content.

Further amendments to the Bill to protect journalism

As well as the temporary must carry amendment, three further amendments have been made to the Bill by the government to further strengthen protections for journalism online.

The government will strengthen the exemption for ‘below-the-line’ comment sections on news publishers’ websites by making sure a future Secretary of State cannot use so-called ‘Henry VIII powers’ to remove the exemption. Henry VIII powers are clauses in primary legislation which enable ministers to amend or repeal provisions using secondary legislation.

An amendment tabled yesterday will remove the Henry VIII powers in relation to below the line comments. It will mean the exemption can only be repealed via an Act of Parliament, requiring full debate and scrutiny from both Houses of Parliament. It will reassure press industry stakeholders that the exemption cannot easily be rescinded.

A further amendment adds a requirement on Category 1 companies to carry out and publish an assessment of the impact that fulfilling their safety duties under the Bill has on journalistic content, including news publishers’ content. They will be required to publish this impact assessment once the Bill is in force and keep it up to date to reflect the impact of changes to their policies and practices.

Similarly, Ofcom will be given a new duty to undertake a review and publish a report on the impact of online safety regulation on news publisher content and the effectiveness of the protections for journalistic content. Ofcom will be required to undertake the review within two years after the relevant provisions of the Bill are in force.