Andy Burnham Heads to COP31 as Britain’s Wind-Farm Investment Draws Mixed Reactions

Andy Burnham is preparing to travel to Turkey for the COP31 climate summit after promoting a £12 billion investment in two offshore wind projects near the Norfolk coast. The article says he is the only G7 leader attending, while leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Canada’s Mark Carney are skipping the gathering. Donald Trump is not sending US officials, it reports. The trip comes as the government faces questions over the consistency of its climate and energy policies. A cabinet committee meeting on possible changes to electric-vehicle targets was postponed, according to the article, while ministers have blocked plans for what it describes as the UK’s largest solar farm, proposed for Oxfordshire’s Blenheim Estate. Before travelling, Burnham is due to face Kemi Badenoch at the weekly prime minister’s questions session. He is then expected to speak at the summit in Antalya. His government has presented the wind-farm financing as evidence that public money can help draw in private investment and support domestic energy production. The projects, Vanguard West and Vanguard East, are being financed by energy company RWE and investment firm KKR, with £1 billion coming from the state-owned National Wealth Fund. RWE says the development will have capacity of about 2.8 gigawatts, enough to supply around three million homes, and is expected to begin construction early next year, with power generation targeted for 2030. Burnham described the funding as a vote of confidence in building in Britain and argued that the turbines would put more power under domestic control. He also said coastal communities could benefit from jobs and other opportunities. The government says the investment is expected to support more than 2,400 jobs, though the article frames the summit trip and the policy disputes at home as an awkward backdrop to his climate message.