Green for growth

18 November 2020

The Prime Minister has today announced his ambitious Ten Point Plan to bring about a ‘green industrial revolution’ creating and supporting up to 250,000 British jobs, eradicating the UK's contribution to climate change by 2050 and stimulating industry.

The potential for introducing such measures has been discussed in some industrial quarters in recent months. Boris Johnson believes the plan will mobilise £12 billion of government investment and more than three times as much private sector investment by 2030.

The ten points are:

Offshore wind - to produce enough offshore wind to power every home

Hydrogen technology - for industry, transport, power and homes

Nuclear - developing the next generation of small and advanced reactors

Electric vehicles

Public transport, cycling and walking

‘Jet Zero’ - projects for zero-emission planes and ships.

Homes and public buildings - encouraging greener homes, schools and hospitals, with a target to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028.

Carbon capture - technology to remove and store harmful emissions

Nature - Protecting the environment and planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year,

Innovation and finance - making the City of London the global centre of green finance.

The plans represent an ambitious declaration of intent and there will be much debate about how they will be implemented and funded. In theory, they could generate considerable construction activity.

The Prime Minister has announced new investment to support these aims. This includes up to £500million for hydrogen based projects, including trialling homes using the fuel for heating and cooking, £525m to develop large and smaller-scale nuclear plants, and £200m to create two carbon capture ‘clusters’ by the mid-2020.

To stimulate use of electric vehicles, Boris Johnson has announced that the UK will end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, ten years earlier than planned. The sale of hybrid cars and vans will be allowed until 2035.

Some £1.3 billion has been allocated to accelerate the rollout of charge points for vehicles in homes, streets and on motorways across England. Given the work involved in the past with the installation of broadband and cable television, the scale of work necessary could be considerable. Indeed, the RAC has said the UK's charging network would need to grow ‘exponentially’ to cope.

Photo: Aniek Wessel/Unsplash