UK unveils £12 billion 'green industrial revolution'

By Dominic Ellis
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson's 10-point plan aims to create up to 250,000 jobs and will see sale of new petrol and diesel cars banned from 2030...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson today sets out his ambitious 10-point plan for "a green industrial revolution" which will cost £12 billion and aims to create up to 250,000 British jobs.

Covering clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the Prime Minister’s blueprint dovetails with the UK's net-zero emission target by 2050, and comes ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next year. 

The stand-out measure is the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2030, 10 years earlier than planned.

At the centre are the UK’s industrial heartlands, including the North East, Yorkshire and Humber, West Midlands, Scotland and Wales, which will drive forward the green industrial revolution and build green jobs and industries of the future.

The 10 points are:

  1. Offshore wind
    Producing enough offshore wind to power every home, quadrupling how much the UK produces to 40GW by 2030, supporting up to 60,000 jobs
    Investment last month's announcement earmarked £160 million (click here).
  2. 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.
    Investment £240 million invested in new hydrogen production facilities.
  3. 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.
    Investment £525 million to help develop large and smaller-scale nuclear plants, and research and develop new advanced modular reactors.
  4. 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 our national infrastructure to better support electric vehicles.
    Investment £1.3 billion to accelerate rollout of EV chargepoints and £582 million in grants for those buying zero or ultra-low emission vehicles.
  5. Public transport, cycling and walking
    Making cycling and walking more attractive ways to travel and investing in zero-emission public transport of the future
    Investment £5 billion for alternative greener ways of travel including cycling, walking, and buses.
  6. Jet Zero and greener maritime
    Supporting difficult-to-decarbonise industries to become greener through research projects for zero-emission planes and ships.
    Investment £20 million for a competition to develop clean maritime technology.
  7. Homes and public buildings
    Making 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.
    Investment £1 billion next year into making new and existing homes and public buildings more efficient.
  8. 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.
    Investment extra £200 million of new funding to create two carbon capture clusters by the mid-2020s, with another two by 2030.
  9. Nature
    Protecting and restoring our natural environment, planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year, whilst creating and retaining thousands of jobs.
  10. 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.
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