Net zero strategy ‘will support 440,000 jobs by 2030’ and plans to end sale of new petrol and diesel cars revealed
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.
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
• 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.
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.”
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.”
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.
Shipping traffic through the vital Suez Canal artery in Egypt has plunged by 66% since cargo was forced to divert due to attacks on vessels, according to official figures.
The data, from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), covered the period from mid-December to the beginning of April.
It is important as it represents the scale of disruption to supplies through the artificial channel linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea since Iran-backed Houthi fighters started firing on ships in the run-up to Christmas last year.
There are fears that soaring costs for insurance, fuel and wages risk stoking a fresh wave of inflation as the diversion to Europe from destinations such as manufacturing powerhouse China, around the southern tip of Africa, adds up to 14 days to transit times.
Separate ONS data covering the pace of price increases is yet to show any real impact on the UK economy but the Bank of England is among institutions monitoring the situation as a number of companies report a hit from higher costs.
Container prices, for example, rose by more than 300% as the disruption gathered pace early this year.
Houthi fighters based in Yemen have been targeting ships which, they claim, have links to Israel.
They argue that they are acting in sympathy with Palestinians and a number of attacks have found their targets despite a US-led naval operation to protect vessels in the Red Sea.
The vast majority of major shipping companies have, for some months, used the diversion around the Cape of Good Hope.
The ONS said volumes started to increase in December 2023 and throughout the first weeks of 2024, more than doubling levels observed in February 2023.
“By the first week of April 2024 (week 14), the volume of cargo and tanker ships through the Suez Canal was 71% and 61% below the level of ship crossings seen in the previous year, respectively.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Why the crisis in Yemen is getting worse
It added that weekly crossings through the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Iran between February and April, showed a “significant decrease” compared with previous years.
It noted that shipping journeys were particularly low between weeks five and 10, with an average 23% reduction in crossing volumes compared with the same weeks in the previous year.
This was mainly due to lower tanker crossings, it noted.
Read more:
Why are the Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea and what does it mean for inflation?
Iranian navy seizes tanker in Gulf of Oman
The prospect of more perilous journeys for tankers has been a factor behind rising oil prices.
Brent crude, which had been trading around the $80 a barrel mark at the start of the year, rose as high as $91 earlier this month amid the see-saw of tension across the conflict in the Middle East.
It culminated in tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran.
It is currently trading at $88, reflecting the lack of escalation since last week.
The AA reported on Tuesday that average petrol costs in the UK had crossed back above the 150p-a-litre mark for the first time since November.
Experts have warned that they probably have further to go, with a weaker pound versus the dollar this month adding to higher oil costs as the commodity is priced in the US currency.
Business
Post Office boss Nick Read led ‘campaign to defame and ostracise me’, ex-HR director claims
A former HR director at the Post Office, whose misconduct claims against chief executive Nick Read were dismissed following an internal investigation, has written to MPs in a bid to plead her case.
Jane Davies, who was in post for seven months from December 2022 until she was dismissed, claimed Mr Read led a “deliberate campaign to defame and ostracise me” after she failed to secure him a satisfactory pay rise.
In the March-dated letter released by the business and trade committee on Tuesday, Ms Davies said she spent the first eight weeks in her role as group chief people officer dealing with Mr Read’s “pay demands”.
Money latest: Aldi recalls product amid police investigation
He has previously denied an allegation by sacked Post Office chairman Henry Staunton that he had threatened to resign numerous times on the pay issue.
Ms Davies said she was writing to the committee in support of Mr Staunton’s version of events in his evidence to the committee in February.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
February: Post Office redress delay overshadowed by executive drama
“He [Mr Read] regarded the final offer of 5% increase as insulting,” she wrote.
“As a result, he regarded me as a failure for not getting the remuneration increase. What followed was a deliberate campaign to defame and ostracise me.
“From my perspective, his charm had been replaced by someone who was not authentic or honest and importantly who lacked genuine concern or care for others, employees, hard-working postmasters and those that had been wronged.
“The role that I was being asked to do, looked nothing like the role that had been sold to me when I was recruited. It was clear that cultural change that needed to start with the senior leaders, was simply not high on Nick Read’s agenda.”
The Post Office announced last week that its chief executive had been “exonerated of all misconduct allegations” following an independent review into the bullying allegations.
The issue has proved to be a further thorn in the organisation’s side as it faces a public inquiry over the handling of the Horizon IT scandal that saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of theft and fraud.
At the same time, the government has moved to speed up redress for all those failed.
Mr Staunton, who also wrote to the committee in correspondence that was released on Tuesday, expressed concerns over a “lack of clarity around the investigation” into Mr Read’s conduct.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
January: Why sack Post Office chair after a year?
The former Post Office chair, who was sacked by the government in January, was also the subject of a complaint raised by a whistleblower that he said related to an alleged use of politically incorrect and potentially offensive language.
“The implications of the allegations, namely that I am racist and misogynistic, are ones that are deeply distressing, would be contested by everyone who knows me, and are definitely not borne out by my behaviour as a champion of diversity in all the organisations I have worked for, including the Post Office”, Mr Staunton wrote.
“It is not clear to me how these allegations became incorporated into an investigation which was prompted by a whistleblower complaint about alleged bullying by the chief executive, particularly as the complaint was directed at no-one else, and did not mention me by name.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The business and trade committee issued no comment when it released the contents of the letters.
A Post Office spokesperson responded: “Just last week a highly reputable barrister produced an extensive, robust, and impartial report that fully exonerated Nick Read of all the misconduct allegations levelled against him, and in so doing discredited many of the claims raised in these letters.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the barrister was fully empowered to investigate and conclude as she saw fit.
“Our focus remains on providing redress for postmasters; learning from the grievous errors of the past; and building an organisation able to meet the challenges of the future.”
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment11 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports6 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Technology3 years ago
Game consoles were once banned in China. Now Chinese developers want a slice of the $49 billion pie
-
Politics2 years ago
Have the last few wobbly weeks seen a turning point for Johnson as PM?