This week is the first ever Green Great Britain Week, a week of events and activities bringing together businesses, schools, universities, communities and charities to explore the opportunities of low carbon commitments, to celebrate what we’ve achieved as a world leader in this area and challenge ourselves to do more to protect our environment and take action against climate change.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report made clear the scale of this global challenge to fight dangerous climate change. But our record shows that we can make a difference: since 1990 we’ve cut our emissions by over 40 per cent (the last time emissions were this low, Queen Victoria was on the throne!) while growing the economy by more than two thirds - among the best performance in the world.

But it is also clear we must raise our ambition, which is why I wrote this week to the Committee on Climate Change to ask for advice on how we can achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions across the economy.

It’s not just good for the planet, but good for business - our low carbon economy currently employs more than 400,000 people and is set to grow four times faster than the rest of the economy, as more and more people take up ‘green collar’ jobs.

One of the questions that’s cropped up is whether further development of gas extracted from shale rock is consistent with our ambition on emissions. The answer is a resounding yes.

While renewable energy goes from strength to strength, gas is still used by the majority of us for cooking and heating. Gas is relatively easy to decarbonise, and every scenario proposed by the Committee on Climate Change to meet our carbon reduction commitments shows that gas has an important role to play, and while overall use will fall, we’ll end up importing more and more, which we can either import more from a market in which the swing producer is Russia, or we can begin safely and soberly exploring the resource right beneath our feet.

The shale industry could also create many high-skilled and high-paid jobs, particularly in parts of the country which are struggling, which is why the GMB Union also strongly supports shale extraction.

We are currently going through a consultation process to see how we can make the planning system work better for industry and local decision makers, and whilst we don’t have any shale resources in the Devizes Constituency, I would encourage everyone who is concerned to read the Shale Myth Buster on my website, and respond to the consultation, here: https://www.claireperry.org.uk/news/shale-myth-buster and here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/permitted-development-for-shale-gas-exploration.