19 November 2020
Dunne welcomes 10-point plan for green revolution

South Shropshire MP and Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, Philip Dunne, has welcomed the government’s 10-point plan for a green revolution, but says the devil will be in the detail.

The plan covers clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies, and is intended to allow the UK to forge ahead with eradicating its contribution to climate change by 2050, particularly crucial in the run up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next year.

The government will mobilise £12 billion to pay for the plan, including an extra £1 billion for extending the Green Homes Grant to March 2022, an extra £200 million to support carbon capture, up to £500 million to trial hydrogen in homes, £525 million to develop large and small-scale nuclear plants and £1.3 billion to accelerate the rollout of chargepoints for electric vehicles.

Mr Dunne said: “The Prime Minister’s 10-point plan to build back greener, and supporting 250,000 green jobs, is an important commitment a year out from hosting COP26, though somewhat disappointing that of the £12billion funding in the plan, only £4billion is new.

I am pleased that the Government has put innovation at the heart of moving towards net-zero; powering homes with offshore wind generation and paving the way for a hydrogen town.

The Climate Assembly has recently called for leadership from Government to reach net zero, and the Prime Minister has today set this direction very clearly, especially by bringing forward the phase out of new petrol and diesel fuelled cars to 2030 and hybrid to 2035. However, the devil will be in the detail. I hope the private sector and Government can now work together to achieve the overwhelming potential a green future can bring.

I look forward to scrutinising the government’s performance against each point in the plan as Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee.”

The Prime Minister’s ten points, which are built around the UK’s strengths, are:

  1. Offshore wind: Producing enough offshore wind to power every home, quadrupling how much we produce to 40GW by 2030, supporting up to 60,000 jobs.
  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.
  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.
  4. Electric vehicles: Backing our world-leading 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.
  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.
  6. Jet Zero and greener maritime: Supporting difficult-to-decarbonise industries to become greener through research projects for zero-emission planes and ships.
  7. Homes and public buildings: Making our 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.
  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.
  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.