• Government-hosted Global Investment Summit will showcase best of UK innovation and green technology
• Twelve companies from across the nation will display electric vehicles, hydrogen, offshore wind technology and more
• Summit aims to drive billions of investment to every part of the country

Twelve of the UK’s leading green innovators will showcase their technology to some of the world’s most high-profile investors at the Global Investment Summit on 19th October.

Hosted by the Prime Minister and supported by members of the Royal Family, the Summit will demonstrate Britain’s commitment to green industrial revolution in the UK and abroad ahead of COP26, and promote the UK as a top destination for foreign investment.

Around 200 investors attending the Summit will see the latest cutting-edge innovation that is helping deliver key areas of the Prime Minister’s Ten-Point Plan, helping cement the UK’s position as a science superpower and the world’s number one centre for green technology. The country’s pioneering work in this space will be vital in helping reduce emissions and limit the rise in global temperatures.

The showcase will demonstrate major leaps forward in renewable energy such as the tidal turbine technology pioneered by Orbital Marine Power, as well as advancements in green technologies like the world’s first zero-emission double-decker hydrogen bus, made by Wrightbus.

Household names like Rolls-Royce will be on hand to showcase models such as its all-electric aircraft and small modular reactor, alongside start-ups such as Automated Architecture, which will display its robot-assembled automated sustainable construction systems for housing, which could see homes being delivered more quickly by localising housing production through automation.

Minister for Investment Gerry Grimstone said:

Our Global Investment Summit will put UK innovation on the map, and demonstrate how we can use investment to nurture technological developments and propel our economy towards a more prosperous, exciting future.

These businesses show why the UK is a global hub for green technology – from major advances in tidal turbines and fusion energy, to electric vehicle development and zero emission aircrafts.

These industries of the future will not only help ensure a cleaner, greener planet but also create high-value jobs across the UK.

Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East said:

The transition to net zero is a societal imperative and one of the greatest commercial opportunities of our time. We are proud to play our part in the Global investment Summit alongside the UK Government, demonstrating the positive transforming power of industrial technology.

Orbital CEO Andrew Scott said:

We are delighted to be given this amazing platform to showcase the innovative technology we pioneered here in the UK and to share our vision of how tidal stream energy can play a part in turning the tide on climate change.

The Ten-Point Plan will mobilise £12 billion of government investment to create and support up to 250,000 highly skilled green jobs in the UK – and unlock three times as much private sector investment by 2030.

In the last decade Foreign Direct Investment has created more than 700,000 jobs across the country, and since April 2019 projects supported by the Department for International Trade have contributed more than £7 billion to the economy.

Inward investment also helps level up the UK by making companies more profitable, which means they can invest back into local economies and stronger supply chains, and more sustainable communities for the future.

Notes to editors

The below companies will be showcasing their products at services at the Global Investment Summit:

Orbital Marine Power

Location: Scotland

Orbital Marine Power develops floating tidal stream turbines and will be showcasing a model of its O2 2MW tidal turbine, the most powerful tidal turbine in the world, which is capable of generating enough clean electricity for around 2,000 UK homes and offset 2,200 tonnes of CO2 production per year.

Hydro Industries

Location: Wales

Hydro Industries is a cleantech company harnessing technology to clean up industrial wastewater, protect the environment and provide safe drinking water to some of the world’s most disadvantaged populations. It will showcase the EC 100 – a modular, compact water purification system based on Hydro’s patented Electrocoagulation (EC) technology, used for both potable water production and environmental wastewater protection.

Hy4Heat

Location: Whole of UK

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, through the Hy4Heat programme, is developing and delivering a demonstration area at the Summit with Worcester Bosch and Baxi as its key partners. The stand will showcase real appliances which have been developed by Worcester Bosch, Baxi and other UK-based manufacturers.

Tokamak Energy

Location: Oxford

Tokamak Energy is pioneering commercial fusion energy which is clean, economical and globally deployable through two world-leading core technologies, the compact spherical tokamak and high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Tokamak Energy will display three high temperature superconducting magnets, including one tested at CERN, and 3D-printed models of current and future devices. It will display visuals of its latest record-breaking fusion prototype, including video clips of hot plasmas.

First Light Fusion

Location: Oxford

This University of Oxford spin-out is looking at new approaches to fusion energy, and will display its small demonstrator electromagnetic launcher on which it can represent its techniques.

Arrival

Location: Oxfordshire and London

Arrival is creating commercial electric vehicles at prices competitive with fossil fuel vehicles to accelerate the global transition to EVs. Their product portfolio consists of the Van (10,000 ordered by UPS), Bus (trials start with First Bus in Q1 2022 in the UK), and the Car (for ride-hailing, being designed in collaboration with Uber). Guests can use their smartphones to view a virtual van on their screens and drop it into the venue space.

Aurrigo – RDM Group

Location: Coventry

Aurrigo is a leading authority on autonomous transport, having designed, developed and built a number of driverless vehicles that are currently being tested in ‘live’ traffic. The Coventry-based company will be exhibiting its 4-seater Auto-Pod – an ideal ‘first and last mile’ transport solution for city centres, and its Auto-Dolly, a new autonomous luggage and cargo system being embraced by airports all over the world.

Wrightbus

Location: Northern Ireland

Wrightbus have developed the world’s first zero-emissions double-decker hydrogen bus, the fastest-charging EV double-decker on the market. Through an augmented reality display, Wrightbus will show the inner workings of the world’s first hydrogen double-decker as well as a monitor showing where Wrightbus Hydroliners are running and the journey carbon savings (versus a diesel bus of the same model).

Vertical Aerospace

Location: Bristol

Vertical Aerospace designs and builds electrically powered vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. They will be showcasing a 3m x 3m scale model of their zero-emission eVTOL aircraft, the VA-X4.

Rolls-Royce

Location: Midlands

Rolls-Royce will showcase its small modular reactor model to provide low-carbon power and its 2m x 2m model of the Spirit of Innovation aircraft that is accelerating the electrification of flight, as well as 360-degree footage of the aircraft in flight – giving the sensation of flying with the pilot.

Automated Architecture (AUAR)

Location: Bristol and London

Automated Architecture Ltd (AUAR) is a start-up company that builds affordable homes using sustainable timber materials, robotic manufacturing and automation in architecture. It will showcase its timber building blocks being automatically assembled by a robot (provided by automation specialist ABB, Switzerland).

Drax Group

Location: Northern Powerhouse

Drax is a UK-based renewable energy company that has transformed itself from Western Europe’s largest coal-fired power station into the continent’s largest decarbonisation project. They will showcase innovative bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology.

Mr President, thank you for calling this briefing session today and for the opportunity to discuss this important issue. Thank you to the briefers not only for their valuable contributions but also for all the work they do in their respective fields. It was good to hear such practical and common sense advice form them. We’re grateful too for the Secretary General’s latest report on small arms and light weapons.

It is very important that we consider peacekeeping in this context. As we have heard again and again today, peacekeeping does not happen in a vacuum so we need to consider this issue carefully in the round.

Although small arms and light weapons have important and legitimate uses, they are also subject to diversion and misuse, which every year costs hundreds of thousands of lives. Illicit small arms undermine security and in doing so, undermine sustainable development, fuelling conflict, crime and terrorism.

Many UN processes contribute to countering the illicit trade in small arms, and in this context we warmly thank the Kenyan Mission and particularly Ambassador Kimani for your able leadership of the recent Seventh Biennial Meeting of States on the UN Programme of Action, as others have said today.

As our speakers have brought out, effective control of small arms and light weapons should be seen as an important part of our wider approach to conflict. The UK is pleased to support the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in a project to integrate conventional arms control into conflict prevention work. Together we’ve developed a risk analysis toolkit for conflict practitioners that will strengthen their understanding of the risks and impact of arms, and how conventional arms control can contribute to UN conflict prevention, management and resolution.

We welcome the focus within the latest Secretary General’s report on Children affected by armed conflict and the gendered dimensions of the illicit trade in small arms. We support its recommendations, particularly on coherence in programming related to children on the role states should play in countering sexual violence in conflict by tackling illicit arms flows in line with the Arms Trade treaty and other national obligations.

The Arms Trade Treaty is a key multilateral tool to ensure a well-regulated, legal trade in conventional arms, and address illicit transfers. We continue to encourage all states to ratify and accede to the treaty.

Illicitly traded small arms affect different countries and regions in different ways. This has come out clearly today. We commend regional approaches in this area, including the African Union’s Silencing the Guns by 2020 initiative and The Western Balkans roadmap. The UK itself is leading a review of OSCE Best Practice Guidance on SALW stockpile management.

We also continue to support work to address the risks of stockpiles of ammunition, including through the recently concluded Group of Governmental Experts on Problems Arising from the Accumulation of Conventional Ammunition Stockpiles in Surplus.

The UK will continue to prioritise support to work on small arms, to strengthen domestic frameworks. We are helping countries to strengthen arms control frameworks through national legislation, to implement better stockpile management procedures, and to tackle the grave challenges recognized in the SG’s report.

Mr President, you’ve put this issue on the agenda today because it’s clearly at the very heart of the council’s work. We’ve heard again and again that unchecked proliferation causes conflict plain and simple, that conflict causes insecurity and the unchecked proliferation is therefore exacerbated even further by it. And this proliferation causes human misery where it occurs, and that cost is felt, as we’ve said, mainly by women and children, but also as we heard today by the peacekeepers that we deploy.

So it is clear that this Council needs to focus on the objectives set out again today by our speakers. And it’s also clear that we need to think very carefully when those in this Council call ours to modify or reconsider arms embargoes, which we have implemented. We implement them for a reason and we need to consider very carefully the implications of changing them.

So let’s redouble our efforts. Let’s consider whether we can sign up to the Arms Trade Treaty if we haven’t. Let’s properly apply all Council resolutions in this area and think through the issue very carefully as we mandate our peacekeeping missions.

Thank you, Mr President.

Thank you Mr President and thank you Secretary-General for your briefing.

Mr President, I start by paying tribute to UN staff around the world who work tirelessly to deliver principled humanitarian aid, assessing and addressing needs on a neutral, impartial basis. I think we all agree that their lifesaving activities should not be politicised, and that Member States should make every effort to support and facilitate their work.

That is why the United Kingdom, like many of Ethiopia’s partners, was deeply disappointed by the Government of Ethiopia’s decision to expel seven UN officials. The strength of international concern about this is apparent in the fact that over 40 countries quickly joined a joint statement delivered by the United Kingdom at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 4 October.

Mr President, as we have heard and seen, the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia is now critical.

The UN personnel who were expelled were dealing with the increasingly desperate needs of those in the north of Ethiopia. Our special envoy for famine prevention and humanitarian affairs visited Tigray and Amhara just last week and saw first-hand the UN’s efforts to respond to this emergency. The removal of key UN personnel will have a direct impact on the ability of the international community to deliver vital humanitarian assistance.

But unfortunately, Mr President, this is not the only obstacle to delivering aid in northern Ethiopia. I want to reiterate our urgent call for the TPLF to cease their military campaign and act in the best interests of ordinary people in Tigray. And likewise, I reiterate our call on the Federal Government to work with the UN and other international partners to eliminate all barriers to humanitarian access.

As we have heard before, that needs to include urgent action to restore telecommunications and banking services in Tigray, enable deliveries of food and fuel and expedite issuing of visas for humanitarian response staff. Time is of the essence: thousands of truckloads of food and medicine and millions of litres of fuel need to move into Tigray in order to avert deaths on a catastrophic scale before the end of this year.

Finally, Mr President, it should be evident to all that there will be no military solution to this conflict. It is past time to stop fighting and as the Secretary-General urged, to start talking. We welcomed the African Union’s decision to appoint His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo as an envoy in August, and I reiterate our full support for him, the African Union and the United Nations as they work to end this tragic conflict and help those in need.

Chair,

In March this year, the UK published its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. It describes a deteriorated global security environment, an increase in global competition, challenges to the international order, and the proliferation of potentially disruptive technologies. The threats facing the UK and its Allies are increasing in scale, complexity and diversity. The review sets out how we will build resilience at home and overseas, strengthen defence and security partnerships, contribute to building norms in the future frontiers of cyberspace, new technologies, data and space, and shape the open international order of the future that allows all countries, and all peoples, to be secure, prosperous and free.

There have been some positive developments this year. We welcome the extension of the New START Treaty, which has contributed significantly to international security and strategic stability, and the beginning of a new Strategic Stability Dialogue between the US and Russia. We encourage all Nuclear Weapons States to engage in similar transparency and confidence-building measures. We also welcome the successful conclusion of both the Open-Ended Working Group and the Group of Governmental Experts on cyber in 2021, and call on all Member States to be guided in their use of information and communication technologies by their consensus reports.

Chair,

The Integrated Review also serves as the official statement of the UK’s nuclear weapons policy. It made clear that the UK remains committed to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. The UK looks forward to the rescheduled tenth NPT Review Conference, which is an important opportunity to celebrate the success of the Treaty and recommit ourselves to its implementation. We also call for action, ambition and cooperation to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention at its upcoming Ninth Review Conference.

The prevention of an arms race in outer space remains a key objective for the preservation of international peace and security. To achieve this objective, we must look broadly at the behaviours, actions and omissions that could lead to conflict, not only at capabilities or placement of weapons. We thank those Member States, International Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations that contributed to the Secretary-General’s report on “Reducing space threats through norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours”. The United Kingdom is pleased to introduce a resolution at this session to establish an Open-Ended Working Group to take the issues in the report forward, and we would be grateful for the continued support of Member States.

Chair,

Full compliance with all obligations is essential to building trust and confidence. We must stick by our principles and act quickly when states fail to comply with their obligations.

The confirmed use of a Novichok nerve agent in Russia in 2020 against Alexey Navalny is a grave concern, following the Novichok attack in Salisbury in 2018. We call on Russia to account for these uses.

Eight chemical weapons attacks in Syria have been attributed to the Asad regime by the OPCW and JIM. We urge Syria to meet its obligations.

We have deep concerns about Iran’s destabilising activity and its ballistic missile activities are inconsistent with UNSCR 2231; in particular, the proliferation of weapons to proxies and non-state actors which undermines regional security. Iran’s escalatory nuclear activity undermines the counter-proliferation value of the JCPoA and threatens its preservation. We began talks in April to restore the JCPoA, and negotiated in good faith until Iran paused talks in June. We call on Iran to return to negotiations without delay.

The UK remains concerned by the development of DPRK’s illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. The DPRK’s recent ballistic missile launches on 27 September, in violation of multiple UNSCRs, are a clear indication that sanctions targeting these prohibited programmes must remain in place and be strictly enforced by the international community. We call for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the DPRK, and urge the DPRK to return to dialogue with the United States.

Chair,

The UK’s Integrated Review puts multilateralism, arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament at the heart of our approach to security. We need a collective global effort to uphold and strengthen the counter-proliferation and disarmament architecture. We look forward to engaging with all States throughout this Committee’s session.