Green campaigners and experts have said that the government’s latest budget will do little to meet the UK’s net zero carbon goals, missed opportunities to create a green economy, and would saddle households with high energy bills driven by fossil fuel prices.
Jeremy Hunt, chancellor of the exchequer, was a self-styled “green Tory” as a backbencher, and in his speech gave a nod towards the UK’s green ambitions with a boost for nuclear power and for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
According to reports, what was missing from the budget was any hint of the hoped-for focus on home insulation, any strengthening of the windfall tax on record oil and gas profits, or removal of the barriers to onshore windfarms.
Instead, the continuing freeze on fuel duty will benefit drivers of fuel-guzzling SUVs, and would leave the UK on the starting blocks while other countries – including the US, the EU and China – are racing ahead in creating green jobs, analysts said.
Read also: Floods kill 14 in earthquake-ravaged provinces
In his reaction, Luke Murphy, associate director for energy and climate at the IPPR thinktank, said: “There is a global race to the top in reaching net zero, and the UK now risks falling seriously behind our competitors. The government needs to learn the lessons from the US and Europe, ramp up public investment, and bring forward a green industrial strategy, safeguarding our economy and environment for the future.”
Hunt repeated his mantra of four Es for the UK’s future investment – enterprise, education, employment and everywhere. Josh Burke, the senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute, part of the London School of Economics, said: “This budget has failed to deliver a long-term, economy-wide investment plan to accelerate the transition to sustainable and resilient growth. The two Es missing from the industrial strategy are the environment and energy.”
On her part, Ami McCarthy, the political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said that the focus on small nuclear plants, called small modular reactors, and CCS, both early-stage technologies, missed out far more realistic opportunities to pursue low-carbon power.
“This misguided budget shows the stranglehold fossil fuel and nuclear lobbies have on this government. Why else would it take such a dangerous gamble on unproven technologies?” she asked. “Squandering taxpayers’ money on nuclear reactors that don’t even exist yet and fanciful carbon capture is irresponsible, and does nothing to reduce our emissions now.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
