UK Government pledges £2.5bn to tackle climate change

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

The UK Government announced on Thursday that it will invest £900m in renewables and nuclear to meet a 2050 emissions reduction target.

The Government said it will spend £100m on technology that enables the capture of emissions and carbon dioxide on a national scale.

It also said that it aims to cut 20 per cent of UK emissions by 2030, through supporting businesses to improve their energy efficiency, as part of an overall target to cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050.

According to the Government, businesses and industry contributed a quarter of the UK’s total emissions in 2015, more than greenhouse gases from all vehicles on the road.

It also outlined plans to spend an additional £1bn helping consumers to switch to low carbon vehicles and £80m on building electric charging points along motorways and roads, after Prime Minister Theresa May announced plans in July to ban new petrol and diesel cars by 2040.

The Government says that overall it will allocate £2.5bn of funding – which includes the £900m and the £1bn – towards research and development for new low-carbon technology for housing, transport and the power grid. It also said that a further £62m of private funding would be available to support energy-based startups.

The Government is legally bound by the UK’s Climate Change Act, passed by Parliament in 2008, to set budgets geared towards achieving its 2050 target. In 2016, the energy and power sector recorded its biggest annual fall since 1990.

In June, renewable energy supplied over half of the UK’s power for the first time in history.

Claire Perry, minister for Climate Change and Industry, said the UK is starting its clean energy plan “from a position of strength”.

“The Clean Growth Strategy is an important milestone in the UK’s work to cut emissions and grow the economy”, she added. “But it is not the end of the process. Clean technology is developing at a rapid pace and costs are falling faster than many predicted - for example, the cost of offshore wind has halved in two years”.

Gareth Redmond-King, head of energy and climate at environmental campaign group WWF, welcomed the Government’s strategy but said the plan “fails to set out the details that underpin how this [energy efficiency] will be will be delivered”.

“This is all very welcome, but there is no support for onshore wind generally or for large-scale solar”, he added. “We also need clarity on small-scale renewables support beyond 2019 – not least because of the jobs that count on this all around the country.”