14 December 2020
The Green Party has warned that the UK government’s energy white paper published today [1] goes “nowhere near far enough” to tackle the climate emergency.
Green Party energy spokesperson Andrew Cooper said:
“It is welcome that the government does appear to be catching up with what we have known for a long time, that we need to transform our whole industrial and transport systems and not just our electricity generation industry.
“Yet this white paper still goes nowhere near far enough and pales into insignificance when compared with the €1trn EU Green Deal and President-elect Biden’s commitment to invest $2trn. We need to see the colour of the government’s money before celebrating their plans for a greener future.
“From what we have seen so far, there is no clear commitment to an adequate level of investment and 220,000 jobs is nothing like the scale of ambition we need to see.
“The commitment to rapidly develop the UK’s world-leading offshore wind resources is also very welcome but the suggestion of diverting resources towards new nuclear simply makes no sense at a time when the costs of renewables is plummeting.
"There is also real inconsistency in the government promising to take fossil fuel vehicles off the road, while investing £27 billion in the largest ever road-building programme.
"The Green Party's proposal of a carbon tax of up to £100 per tonne of carbon rising to £500 by 2030 is the most efficient and effective way to drive fossil fuels out of the economy.
"It's clear that the government are moving in the right direction, and this white paper does appear to be another step that way, but they still fail to grasp the scale of what needs to happen and are moving far too slowly.”
ENDS
Notes
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