Prime minister Boris Johnson has unveiled a ten point plan for a green industrial revolution which will support up to 250,000 jobs across the UK
Covering clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the ten point plan for a green industrial revolution will contribute to the climate change goals for 2050.
The plan will activate £12bn of Government investment to create and support up to 250,000 highly-skilled green jobs in the UK, and spur over three times as much private sector investment by 2030.
The ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, 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 our world-leading car manufacturing bases including in the West Midlands, North East and North Wales to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, and transforming our 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 our natural environment, planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year, whilst creating and retaining thousands of jobs.
- Innovation and finance: Developing the cutting-edge technologies needed to reach these new energy ambitions and make the City of London the global centre of green finance.
‘We need tangible action’
Hannah Vickers, chief executive of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE), said: “This ten-point plan is recognition that in order to meet society’s net-zero aspirations, we need tangible action.
“We can only ‘build back better’ from Covid-19 if our growth is cleaner and greener.
“Proposals to turn London into a green financial centre are both welcome and necessary to supporting Net Zero ambitions, but giving local government the resilience and confidence to make carbon-free investments is arguably more important.
“The positive announcements on carbon capture/storage, hydrogen, nuclear, and offshore wind are areas we championed in our comprehensive spending review representation.
“However, doing all this in parallel, and at the same time as decarbonising our existing building stock, remains a huge challenge and we need to see the rapid implementation of these plans.”
‘Green Revolution needs to be more ambitious’
Brian Berry, chief executive of FMB, commented: “The extension of the Green Homes Grant for another year is very positive news, and shows that builders’ concerns have been listened to. This will give the reassurance needed to the building industry to invest in the scheme.
“However, the Green Revolution needs to be more ambitious about the built environment if the government is serious about creating a low carbon economy.”
Berry added: “Our existing homes contribute 20% of all our carbon emissions and consume 35% of our energy. A long term retrofit strategy is needed over the next two decades to make all our existing homes more energy efficient.
“Such a strategy has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and save the NHS as much as £2bn because of the cost of people living in poor housing conditions.”
Berry concluded: “The start of the Green Industrial Revolution has huge potential to improve everyone’s lives but tacking all our homes to make them greener and more energy efficient has to be an immediate priority and this requires a long term strategy.”
