PM commits £350 million boost to fuel green recovery

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 22:30

UK industry will receive around £350 million to cut down carbon emissions under new plans to step up efforts to tackle climate change, PM Boris Johnson announced today (22 July). The multimillion pound investment package will build on the Prime Minister’s work throughout his first year in office to drive forward progress on the UK’s target to reach net zero by 2050, by helping businesses to decarbonise across the heavy industry, construction, space and transport sectors...Request free trial

UK industry will receive around £350 million to cut down carbon emissions under new plans to step up efforts to tackle climate change, PM Boris Johnson announced today (22 July).

The multimillion pound investment package will build on the Prime Minister’s work throughout his first year in office to drive forward progress on the UK’s target to reach net zero by 2050, by helping businesses to decarbonise across the heavy industry, construction, space and transport sectors and to secure the UK’s place at the forefront of green innovation.

The investment comes ahead of the PM launching the first meeting of the Jet Zero Council later today, which will bring together government, representatives from the environmental sector and the aviation and aerospace industry to tackle aviation emissions in line with the government’s ambition to achieve the first ever zero emission long haul passenger plane.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

“We’ve made great strides towards our net zero target over the last year, but it’s more important than ever that we keep up the pace of change to fuel a green, sustainable recovery as we rebuild from the pandemic.

“The UK now has a huge opportunity to cement its place at the vanguard of green innovation, setting an example worldwide while growing the economy and creating new jobs.

“That’s why we’re backing cutting edge research to cut costs and carbon across our great British industries, and even paving the way for the first ever zero emission long haul passenger flight – so that our green ambitions remain sky high as we build back better for both our people and our planet.”

Business and Energy Secretary, Alok Sharma, said:

“Climate change is among the greatest challenges of our age. To tackle it we need to unleash innovation in businesses across the country.

“This funding will reduce emissions, create green collar jobs and fuel a strong, clean economic recovery – all essential to achieving net zero emissions by 2050."

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

“Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face today, and tackling it will require action from everybody. This is why we’re bringing together Government, businesses and investors in a ground breaking new partnership.

“The Jet Zero Council is a huge step forward in making change – as we push forward with innovative technologies such as sustainable fuels and eventually fully electric planes, we will achieve guilt-free flying and boost sustainability for years to come.”

The projects set to receive funding will work on developing new technologies that could help companies switch to more energy-efficient means of production, use data more effectively to tackle the impacts of climate change, and help support the creation of new green jobs by driving innovation and growth in UK industries.

The package includes:

£139 million to cut emissions in heavy industryby supporting the transition from natural gas to clean hydrogen power, and scaling up carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology which can stop over 90% of emissions being released from industrial plants into the air by storing carbon permanently underground
£149 millionto drive the use ofinnovative materials in heavy industry; the 13 initial projects will include proposals to reuse waste ash in the glass and ceramics industry, and the development of recyclable steel
£26 millionto supportadvanced new building techniquesin order to reduce build costs and carbon emissions in the construction industry
A £10 million boost for state of the art construction techwhich will go towards 19 projects focused on improving productivity and building quality, for example, re-usable roofs and walls and “digital clones” of buildings that analyse data in real time
Launching a NewNational Space Innovation Programmebacked by£15 million initial fundingfrom the UK Space Agency, which will see the first £10million go towards projects that will monitor climate change across the globe, which could protect local areas from the impacts of extreme weather by identifying changes in the environment
Opening up bids for a further £10million for R&D in the automotive sector,to help companies take cutting edge ideas from prototype to market, including more efficient electric motors or more powerful batteries

Chaired by the Transport and Business Secretaries, today’s first ever Jet Zero council meeting will discuss how to decarbonise the aviation sector while supporting its growth and strengthening the UK’s position as a world leader in the sector.

The members will look at how to work across their sectors to achieve these goals, including through brand new aircraft and engine technologies. These could include using new synthetic and sustainable aviation fuels as a clean substitute for fossil jet fuel, and eventually the development of electric planes.

One year on from taking office, today’s announcements form part of the PM’s wider efforts to ensure the UK meets its legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050, whilst also driving forward a green recovery from the pandemic.

So far this year, this includes committing to consult on ending the sale of new petrol, diesel or hybrid cars by 2035 or earlier; launching the Transport Decarbonisation Plan to cut emissions across the sector; providing over £1 billion at Budget to support the rollout of ultra-low emission vehicles in the UK via support for a super-fast charging network for electric vehicles; and committing up to £100 million of new funding for research to develop a brand new clean technology, Direct Air Capture

Over the past decade, the UK has cut carbon emissions by more than any similar developed country. In 2019, UK emissions were 42% lower than in 1990, while our economy over the same period grew by 72%.

ENDS:

Notes to editors

The £350 million package of funding is being made available by the UK Government across four sectors:

Heavy Industry

Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Fund

For heavy industry, £139 million is being made available to 12 successful projects in Scotland and Wales, and Teesside, the Humber, the North West and the West Midlands to support industry transition from using natural gas to clean hydrogen power, potentially cutting manufacturers’ overall emissions by 20% by 2030 - the equivalent of taking almost two million cars off the road.
TheIndustrial Decarbonisation Challengefund will also explore and scale up carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which can stop over 90% of emissions being released from industrial plants into the air by storing carbon permanently underground.

Transforming Foundation Industries Programme

Also revealed today were the first 13 projects to receive funding as part of a £149 million fund to explore recycling waste ash for reuse in the glass and ceramics industry, recyclable steel, and low-carbon, cement-free concrete to tackle some 40 million tonnes of CO2 emitted from heavy industry each year. The projects are located across the country, from Manchester to Swansea.
Foundation industries including glass, metals, cement, ceramics, bulk chemicals and paper produce 75% of materials in the UK’s economy and account for around 10% of the UK’s CO2 emissions.
The Transforming Foundation Industriesprogramme is backed by £66m Government funding and £83 million private sector investment.

Construction

For the construction industry, £36 million is being made available for projects using state-of-the-art technology to reduce build costs, design errors and carbon emissions in the construction industry. Advanced digital clones of buildings that analyse energy performance data in real time and a system that manages hundreds of building sites simultaneously - using AI to maximise use of heavy equipment which could otherwise sit idle - are just two of the winning concepts.
Another project, based in Halifax, is working to reduce costs and energy usage in construction by producing large, factory-made components for buildings, including whole roofs and walls, away from the construction site. These could ultimately be dissembled from the building and reused for future projects.
Nine projects across the UK will receive £26 million to demonstrate the feasibility of new techniques – such as highly advanced digital blueprints or ’clones’ of buildings, which will make advanced predictions about a building’s energy performance, and subsequently pull in live data about a building’s assets to improve energy efficiency performance throughout its lifecycle - showing how improvements in the UK construction sector can be delivered at scale.
In addition, the remaining £10 million is being awarded to 19 projects that will focus on improving productivity and building quality in the UK construction sector. One winning project in Bristol will result in over 400 homes for local communities over the next year.
The winning projects, from Bath to Glasgow, will improve building energy performance, reduce waste and deliver affordable net-zero homes of the future.

Space

For the space sector, a new National Space Innovation Programme launches today with an initial £15 million funding from the UK Space Agency for projects related to earth observation, communications and international partnerships.
The first £10 million of this funding will support high-risk, high-reward projects that give us new tools to tackle climate change and better prepare us for weather events like flooding – from novel technologies that help us monitor global progress towards international climate change commitments, to satellites that give us more reliable, real-time climate data.
To help meet the needs of technologies like AI, autonomous cars and a future 5G economy, the funding will also go to projects in ‘ubiquitous communications’, with money for satellite technologies that can increase network coverage for rural areas and new satellite applications that can reduce the threat of hacking and cyber-attacks.

Transport

Another £10 million is being made available for research and development projects in the automotive sector. The funding is designed to help companies take their low carbon transport innovations from prototype to market – from more efficient electric motors to more powerful batteries.
This forms part of the Government’s Automotive Transformation Fund to scale up manufacturing of the latest technology to prepare vehicles for a greener future. Winning projects will help establish new facilities and develop technologies in the UK for quick and cost-effective manufacturing and recycling of components for low emission transportation – including batteries, battery management systems, fuel cells and power electronics – the technology that converts and controls electric power in cars.