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The UK Prime Minister has set out a ten point plan for a green industrial
revolution and has pledged to mobilise £12 billion of government investment.
Covering clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the
Prime Minister’s blueprint aims to push the UK ahead in eradicating its
contribution to climate change by 2050, particularly crucial in the run
up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next year.
At the centre of his blueprint are the UK’s industrial heartlands, including
in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, Scotland and
Wales, which will drive forward the green industrial revolution and build
green jobs and industries of the future.
The
Prime Minister’s ten points, which are built around the UK’s strengths,
are:
- Offshore wind:
Producing enough offshore wind to power every home, quadrupling how much
we produce to 40GW by 2030, supporting up to 60,000 jobs.
- Hydrogen: Working
with industry aiming to generate 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production
capacity by 2030 for industry, transport, power and homes, and aiming to
develop the first town heated entirely by hydrogen by the end of the decade.
- Nuclear: Advancing
nuclear as a clean energy source, across large scale nuclear and developing
the next generation of small and advanced reactors, which could support
10,000 jobs.
- Electric vehicles:
Backing car manufacturing bases including in the West Midlands, North East
and North Wales to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, and
transforming national infrastructure to better support electric vehicles.
- Public transport,
cycling and walking: Making cycling and walking more attractive ways to
travel and investing in zero-emission public transport of the future.
- Jet Zero and
greener maritime: Supporting difficult-to-decarbonise industries to become
greener through research projects for zero-emission planes and ships.
- Homes and public
buildings: Making our homes, schools and hospitals greener, warmer and
more energy efficient, whilst creating 50,000 jobs by 2030, and a target
to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028.
- Carbon capture:
Becoming a world-leader in technology to capture and store harmful emissions
away from the atmosphere, with a target to remove 10MT of carbon dioxide
by 2030, equivalent to all emissions of the industrial Humber today.
- Nature: Protecting
and restoring the UK's natural environment, planting 30,000 hectares of
trees every year, whilst creating and retaining thousands of jobs.
- Innovation
and finance: Developing technologies to reach these new energy ambitions
and make the City of London the global centre of green finance.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "Although this year has taken
a very different path to the one we expected, I haven’t lost sight of
our ambitious plans to level up across the country. My Ten Point Plan will
create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst
making strides towards net zero by 2050.
Our
green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland
and the North East, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands
and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look
ahead to a more prosperous, greener future."
Despite a warm welcome from a number of government officials, the plan
has come under fire from critics who outline the level of funding falls
short to tackle the challenges the plan aims to address. The Labour party
criticised Boris Johnson's new plan highlighting that two thirds of the
funding has already been allocated.
Ed Miliband, former Labour leader and current Shadow Business and Energy
Secretary, commented: "The funding in the Government's long-awaited
10-point plan doesn't remotely meet the scale of what's needed to tackle
the unemployment emergency and climate emergency we are facing, and pales
in comparison to the tens of billions committed by France and Germany.
Only a fraction of the funding announced today is new. We don't need rebadged
funding pots and reheated pledges, but an ambitious plan that meets the
scale of the task we are facing and - crucially - creates jobs now. Labour
called for the Government to bring forward £30bn capital investment over
18 months as part of a rapid stimulus package to support 400,000 new low-carbon
jobs. Make no mistake – this announcement from government falls well short
of what’s required."
He wasn't alone in his criticism. The Green Party's former leader and co-leader
Caroline Lucas commented: “This is a shopping list, not a plan to address
the climate emergency, and it commits only a fraction of the necessary
resources.”
The announcement comes one month after the release of the Prime Minister's
new plans to Build Back Greener, making the UK the world leader in clean
wind energy – creating jobs, slashing carbon emissions and boosting exports.
Boris Johnson pledged that every UK home will be powered by electricity
from offshore wind farms by 2030 and that £160m will be spent on ports
and factories across the country to manufacture the next generation turbines.
