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The government’s net zero strategy will “support up to 440,000 jobs” by 2030, a business minister has said – as he announced a move towards the end of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

The new plan, published on Tuesday, has the intention of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions to reach the government’s aim of net zero by 2050.

It comes less than two weeks before world leaders will meet at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to discuss how to reduce the effects of climate change.

A British Gas boiler controller.
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It is the government’s “ambition” that no gas boilers will be sold by 2035

Making a statement on the government’s aims in the Commons, Greg Hands told MPs the strategy “is not just an environmental transition, it represents an important economic change too”.

But Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, described the government’s strategy as “more like a pick and mix than the substantial meal that we need to reach net zero”.

Announcements in the strategy include:

• An aim to fully decarbonise the power system by 2035

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• Path towards all heating appliances in homes and workplaces from 2035 being low carbon

• An “ambition” that by 2035 no new gas boilers will be sold

• £450m three-year Boiler Upgrade Scheme to offer households grants for low-carbon heating systems

• £60m Heat Pump Ready programme

• To secure a decision on a large-scale nuclear plant by 2024

• 40GW of offshore wind by 2030

• To deliver 5GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2030 while halving oil and gas emissions

• To end sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 with £620m for zero emission vehicle grants

• £2bn investment to help half of journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030

• £120m to develop small modular nuclear reactors

A review published by the Treasury says “the costs of global inaction significantly outweigh the costs of action” to tackle climate change.

The document, released alongside the government’s net zero strategy, says it is not possible to forecast how individual household finances will be hit over the course of a 30-year transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

FILE PHOTO: General view of the Walney Extension offshore wind farm operated by Orsted off the coast of Blackpool, Britain September 5, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble//File Photo
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Ministers have set a target of 40GW of offshore wind by 2030

Mr Hands told the Commons the strategy will see the UK government fully embracing the “green industrial revolution” and will help the UK “to level up” and “get to the front of the global race to go green”.

“We need to capitalise on this to ensure British industries and workers benefit,” he said.

“I can therefore announce that the strategy will support up to 440,000 jobs across sectors and across all parts of the UK in 2030.

“There’ll be more specialists in low carbon fuels in Northern Ireland and low carbon hydrogen in Sheffield.

“Electric vehicle battery production in the North East of England, engineers in Wales, green finance in London and offshore wind technicians in Scotland.

“This strategy will harness the power of the private sector, giving businesses and industry the certainty they need to invest and grow in the UK to make the UK home to new ambitious projects.

“The policies and spending brought forward in the strategy along with regulations will leverage up to £90 billion of private investment by 2030 levelling up our former industrial heartlands.”

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson sits on a bike as he visits a trade stall inside the conference venue at the annual Conservative Party conference, in Manchester, Britain, October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Phil Noble
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The government say they want half of journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030

The business minister, who is in charge of the energy brief, told MPs that switching to cleaner sources of energy will reduce Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels and will “bring down costs down the line”.

Mr Hands added that the government “will also introduce a zero emission vehicle mandate that will deliver our 2030 commitment to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars”.

In strategy documents released on Tuesday, the government says it will invest £620m in grants for electric vehicles and street charging points.

Ministers are also promising an additional £350m to help the automotive supply chain transition to electric.

Vehicle manufacturers will also be made to sell a proportion of clean cars every year, the plans also reveal.

Referring to the government’s strategy as “half-hearted policies”, Greenpeace UK’s Ms Newsom said: “With just eight years left to halve global emissions, the government can’t just keep dining out on its ‘ambitious targets’. Until the policy and funding gaps are closed, Boris Johnson’s plea to other countries to deliver on their promises at the global climate conference next month will be easy to ignore.”

Greg Hands makes a statement
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Energy minister Greg Hands said the strategy will help the UK ‘get to the front of the global race to go green’

Shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband said the plan “falls short on delivery” and that “there is nothing like the commitment we believe is required”.

He added: “The Chancellor’s fingerprints are all over these documents and not in a good way. So we’ve waited months for the heat and buildings strategy – it is a massive let down.”

Shaun Spiers, executive director at Green Alliance, said “mandating car manufacturers to sell more clean vehicles, supporting the switch to heat pumps and cleaning up our energy grid are essential steps to cutting emissions over the coming decade”.

He added: “But we need a more ambitious response from the chancellor at the spending review to turn these promises into jobs, growth and benefits to consumers – and if the government truly wants to level up the country, we’ll need much more investment once the dust has settled on the COP26 Glasgow climate summit.”

David Wright, chief engineer at National Grid, said the government needs to set out what tackling climate change “means in practice”.

“We’re at a critical stage in the journey where net zero is possible with the technologies and opportunities we have today and, in order to deliver on this, we have to accelerate and ramp up efforts to deploy long-term solutions at scale,” he said.

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Donald Trump announces sweeping global trade tariffs – including 10% on UK imports

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Donald Trump announces sweeping global trade tariffs - including 10% on UK imports

Donald Trump has announced a 10% trade tariff on all imports from the UK – as he unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.

Speaking at a White House event entitled “Make America Wealthy Again”, the president held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.

“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters, while hitting out at foreign “cheaters”.

Follow live: Trump tariffs latest

He claimed “trillions” of dollars from the “reciprocal” levies he was imposing on others’ trade barriers would provide relief for the US taxpayer and restore US jobs and factories.

Mr Trump said the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.

President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Pic: AP

His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am on Thursday, UK time.

Mr Trump confirmed the European Union would face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate was set at 34%.

The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bows over the country’s 20% VAT rate, though the president’s board suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations.

It was also confirmed that further US tariffs were planned on some individual sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical mineral imports.

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Trump’s tariffs explained

The ramping up of duties promises to be painful for the global economy. Tariffs on steel and aluminium are already in effect.

The UK government signalled there would be no immediate retaliation.

Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers. That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.

“The US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today.

“We have a range of tools at our disposal and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.

“Nobody wants a trade war and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”

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Who showed up for Trump’s tariff address?

The EU has pledged to retaliate, which is a problem for Northern Ireland.

Should that scenario play out, the region faces the prospect of rising prices because all its imports are tied to EU rules under post-Brexit trading arrangements.

It means US goods shipped to Northern Ireland would be subject to the EU’s reprisals.

The impact of a trade war would be expected to be widely negative, with tit-for-tat tariffs risking job losses, a ramping up of prices and cooling of global trade.

Research for the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested more than 25,000 direct jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry alone could be at risk from the tariffs on car exports to the US.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had said the tariff costs could not be absorbed by manufacturers and may lead to a review of output.

The tariffs now on UK exports pose a big risk to growth and the so-called headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to restore to the public finances at the spring statement, risking further spending cuts or tax rises ahead to meet her fiscal rules.

Read more:
What do Trump’s tariffs mean for the UK?
The rewards and risks for US as trade war intensifies

A member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), David Miles, told MPs on Tuesday that US tariffs at 20% or 25% maintained on the UK for five years would “knock out all the headroom the government currently has”.

But he added that a “very limited tariff war” that the UK stays out of could be “mildly positive”.

He said: “There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK, and some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world.

“And stuff would be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been. So there is one, not central scenario at all, which is very, very mildly potentially positive to the UK. All the other ones which involve the UK facing tariffs are negative, and they’re negative to very different extents.”

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Donald Trump’s tariffs will have consequences for globalisation, the US economy and geopolitics

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Donald Trump's tariffs will have consequences for globalisation, the US economy and geopolitics

For decades, trade and trade policy has been an economic and political backwater – decidedly boring, seemingly uncontroversial. 

Trade was mostly free and getting freer, tariffs were getting lower and lower, and the world was becoming more, not less, globalised.

But alongside those long-term trends, there were some serious consequences.

Trump latest: US president announces sweeping global trade tariffs

Mature, developed economies like the UK and US became ever more reliant on cheap imports from China and, in the process, saw their manufacturing sectors shrink.

Large swathes of the rust belt in the US – and much of the Midlands and North of England – were hollowed out.

And to some extent that’s where the story of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” really began – with the notion that free trade and globalisation had a darker side, a side he wants to remedy via tariffs.

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He imposed a set of tariffs in his first term, some on China, some on specific materials like steel and aluminium. But the height and the breadth of those tariffs were as nothing compared with the ones we have just heard about.

Not since the 1930s has the US so radically increased the level of tariffs on all nations across the world. Back then, those tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression.

It’s anyone’s guess as to what the consequences of these ones will be. But there will be consequences.

Consequences for the nature of globalisation, consequences for the US economy (tariffs are exceptionally inflationary), consequences for geopolitics.

President Trump with his list of tariffs for various countries. Pic: Reuters
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Imports from the UK will face a 10% tariff, while EU goods will see 20% rates. Pic: Reuters

And to some extent, merely knowing that little bit more about the White House’s plans will deliver a bit of relief to financial markets, which have fretted for months about the imposition of tariffs. That uncertainty recently reached unprecedented levels.

But don’t for a moment assume that this saga is over. Nothing of the sort. In the coming days, we will learn more – more about the nuts and bolts of these policies, more about the retaliatory measures coming from other countries.

We will, possibly, get more of a sense about whether some countries – including the UK – will enjoy reprieves from the tariffs.

To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the trade war, or even the beginning of the end – perhaps just the end of the beginning.

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Heathrow bosses were warned about power supply after stolen cables turned off runway lights, MPs told

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Heathrow bosses were warned about power supply after stolen cables turned off runway lights, MPs told

Heathrow bosses were warned its power supply was vulnerable less than a week before a major outage, and a terminal could have got some flights moving by mid-morning rather than being shut for a day, a committee of MPs has heard.

The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told MPs of the Transport Committee he raised issues about resilience on 15 March after cable and wiring theft took out lights on a runway.

Mr Wicking said he believed Heathrow’s Terminal 5 could have been ready to receive repatriation flights by “late morning” on the day of the closure, as “there was opportunity also to get flights out”.

Politics latest: ‘Disastrous’ not to shut Heathrow during outage, airport boss says

A fire at an electricity substation in west London meant the power supply was disrupted to Europe’s largest airport for a day – causing travel chaos for nearly 300,000 passengers, the committee heard.

“I’d actually warned Heathrow of concerns that we had with regard to the substations and my concern was resilience”, said Mr Wicking, the head of a body representing more than 90 airlines using Heathrow Airport.

“So the first occasion was to team Heathrow director on the 15th of the month of March. And then I also spoke to the chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before regarding this concern.

“And it was following a number of, a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft, of wire and cable around some of the power supply that on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time. That obviously made me concerned.”

Other problems

The biggest challenge was getting information, Mr Wicking said.

The desire for information on the outage and closure was so large that a Teams call on the day of the closure was “maxed out” with “a thousand participants”, he added.

However, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said keeping the airport open during last month’s power outage would have been “disastrous”.

There was a risk of having “literally tens of thousands of people stranded in the airport, where we have nowhere to put them”, Mr Woldbye told MPs.

Fire surveillance and CCTV systems were down as a result of having limited electricity, he added, meaning it would not have been safe to reopen.

‘The most expensive airport in the world’

Heathrow should have top quality infrastructure and service, Mr Wicking said.

“It is the most expensive airport in the world with regard to passenger challenges. So from our perspective, that means we should actually have the best service. We should have the best infrastructure,” he added.

Aerials show burned substation which shut Heathrow Airport
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Aerials show burned substation which shut Heathrow Airport

A review on resilience at Heathrow was done in 2018, he told MPs, but was told it was “not for sharing” with airlines.

“I think it is for sharing now because frankly, we’re paying enough”, Mr Wickling said he told Mr Woldbye.

“I don’t feel that we should be paying more attention for further resilience. The resilience should have been there in the first place.”

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