Boris Johnson unveils £12bn Ten Point Plan for net-zero transition

Clean hydrogen, carbon capture and storage (CCS), zero-carbon transport and offshore wind are all key pillars of Boris Johnson's Ten Point Plan to push the UK towards net-zero emissions, which will be backed by £12bn in Government investment and aim to create 250,000 new green jobs.


Boris Johnson unveils £12bn Ten Point Plan for net-zero transition

New dawn: The 10-point plan will radically change key industrial sectors in the UK in order to eliminate the nation's contribution to climate change

The Prime Minister’s highly anticipated plan was released late on Tuesday night (17 November), and signals a clear intention that the UK wants to be a world-leader in an array of clean technologies.

The plan is aimed at eradicating the UK’s contribution to climate change by 2050, which has been enshrined into law as part of the net-zero emissions target.

The £12bn plan will support up to 250,000 green jobs, with the Government aiming to secure three times as much investment from the private sector by 2030. A key aspect of the plan is to “level up” all areas of the country, with industrial heartlands in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, Scotland and Wales all focal points of the strategy.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Although this year has taken a very different path to the one we expected, I haven’t lost sight of our ambitious plans to level up across the country. My Ten Point Plan will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net zero by 2050.

“Our green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the North East, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look ahead to a more prosperous, greener future.”

At a glance: The Ten Point Plan

1) Offshore wind

As has been reported, the UK will host 40GW of offshore wind by 2030, enough to power every home and support up to 60,000 jobs.

2) Hydrogen 

The UK will aim to generate 5GW of “low-carbon” hydrogen production capacity by 2030. Up to £500m will be invested in a bid to create a Hydrogen Neighbourhood in 2023, a Hydrogen Village by 2025, and to create the first town running entirely on hydrogen.

3) Nuclear

The UK will scale up large nuclear generation while also developing small and advanced reactor. This move will cost £525m and could support up to 10,000 jobs, according to the Government.

4) Electric Vehicles

The West Midlands, North East and North Wales will champion electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. Johnson also confirms the UK will end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, but hybrid cars and vans will be given a 2035 deadline. A total of £1.3bn will be used to accelerate the rollout of chargepoints, while £582m in grants will be made available to incentivise EV purchasing. Around £500m will be used for mass-scale production of EV batteries and a consultation on the phase out of new diesel will be introduced.

5) Public transport

The Government will incentivise cycling and walking, while also investing in zero-emission public transport. Up to £5bn is expected to be funnelled into alternative cycling, walking, and low-carbon buses.

6) Aviation and shipping

Research projects for zero-emission planes and ships will be conducted to support airlines, airports and shipping firms. £20m has been set aside for clean maritime innovations at sites including Orkney and Teesside.

7) Domestic and public buildings

Homes, schools and hospitals will become more energy efficient through a £1bn spending commitment starting next year. The Government will aim to install 600,000 heat pumps annually by 2028 and create 50,000 green jobs by 2030. The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme from this summer will also be extended.

8) CCS

The UK wants to become a “world-leader” in CCS technology and will target the removal of 10MT of carbon dioxide by 2030, equivalent to all emissions of the industrial Humber today. An additional £200m will create two carbon capture clusters by the mid-2020s, with another two set to be created by 2030. In total, £1bn has been committed, which will support 50,000 jobs in the UK’s industrial clusters.

9) Nature 

Commitments have been agreed to plant 30,000 hectares of trees every year to restore the natural environment. £5.2bn has been ringfenced to create for new flood and coastal defences in England by 2027.

10) Innovation and finance

The UK will make the City of London the global centre of green finance.

The 10-point plan has been heralded as a “bold step” by green groups, with many claiming that the outlined steps will put the UK on to the net-zero trajectory. For a full round-up of reactions click here.

Matt Mace

Comments (7)

  1. Hugh Norris says:

    We welcome any plan to save us from ourselves but much more needs to be done. This ten point plan falls well short of what is needed.

  2. Pat Smith says:

    No mention of support for local govt initiatives.

  3. Charmian Larke says:

    This ten point plan has at least two points which do not move us towards zero carbon. Nuclear power is actually relatively high carbon compared to renewables as the fuel is processed from extremely low ore concentrations and the energy calculation for the fuel is almost balanced ie as much energy to process as gained from the power station. Also a new review of carbon capture and storage shows that at a useful scale all mechanical methods add CO2 to the atmosphere – such are the resource and energy requirements of the installations.

  4. Richard Lord says:

    There’s no mention I can see of how road freight can be decarbonised, or diesel emissions reduced, as ELVs are ineffective in this sector. What is needed instead is investment in sustainable biofuels as an intermediate technology ahead of the more technically challenging aviation fuel substitution or the demands on the grid and renewable generation placed by electric cars.

  5. Colin Megson says:

    Don’t just dabble with nuclear power, Boris! Decarbonise all UK energy use with massive build out of nuclear power plants (NPPs). You’ll do it for less than 1/4 of the capital investment needed per GW than attempting it with wind and solar plants (WASPs).

    The basket case energy economy of Germany, with their WASP obsession, have committed 9 billion to the manufacture of green hydrogen. But 2 billion of that is going to Morocco, because Germany can’t build out enough WASPs to manufacture their own. How lunatic is that???

    NPPs combined with electrolyser plants are the combination made in heaven. The NPPs can generate 24/7/365 electricity at 100% availability and load follow electricity and/or green hydrogen demand.

    Not only can it be done on a daily basis, but also across the seasons of the year, by switching between grid electricity supply and green hydrogen manufacture.

    It doesn’t matter how many TWh per year needs generating, this proportion of 18.47 billion every year for WASPs, against 4.06 billion every year for NPPs will apply:

    Search for: National Grid s FES 2020 will cost 18.47 billion every year-FOREVER!!!

  6. Iain Whyte says:

    Yet another example of how we export our pollution to other countries so that we can appear greenish. Rare metals mined at huge environmental cost in Africa and Finland, batteries made by Chinese industries reliant on coal fired power stations then transported by highly polluting ships to the UK. Yes the UK will be greener – a sort of sickly green. I doubt if 2030 will happen for cars, there will be several changes of government by then. Don’t forget that the government has no money, it is our money that they spend frivolously and waste.

  7. David Dundas says:

    This latest Government plan to achieve net zero fossil fuel carbon emissions by 2050 gives insufficient support for the hydrogen economy compared with that given to EVs, when we will need to to deliver so much more green power by 2050 to heavy transport: busses, HGVs, trains, earthmovers and ships, as well as to decarbonising steel and cement manufacture which are all much more efficiently supplied with the energy carrier hydrogen.

    The UK is already behind many other developed economies in the roll out of our hydrogen infrastructure, such as France, Germany, Japan and even California. And hydrogen can be used to produce zero fossil hydrocarbons to fuel aircraft. An infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations is urgently needed in the UK to refuel heavy transport and these could also refuel hydrogen powered cars which are needed for many people in cities and towns who do not have a driveway for charging an EV.

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