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Why local areas need to be given more power to move to net zero

Posted on 28 September, 2021 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Amy Norman, senior researcher at the Social Market Foundation.

Over the next three decades, the pursuit of net zero will transform localities throughout the UK. This will bring opportunities for creating businesses and jobs in new green technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture and renewables on land and at sea. The good news is that many of these projects are already underway, like the recent approval of major decarbonisation plans for six industrial clusters from South Wales to St Fergus.

Low carbon future

We need a fair heat deal to overcome all the hot air about green homes

Posted on 15 June, 2021 by Joe Tetlow One comment

This post was originally published by Business Green.

The government is right. The way we heat our homes needs to change if we are to reach net zero.

Over 85 per cent of UK homes are currently heated using fossil gas and this accounts for around 16 per cent of total UK emissions. But getting those emissions down to zero is shaping up to be one of the most politically difficult parts of the government’s decarbonisation agenda.

Political leadership

Without Treasury backing the UK could fall behind on net zero

Posted on 14 June, 2021 by Sam Alvis Leave a comment

This post was originally published by City A.M.

Some truisms are worth repeating: the Treasury is powerful. Unlike its counterparts overseas, the Treasury in Britain is able to set policy for economic development and control government spending. This power, however, is also an impediment on progress. It is one of the slowest Whitehall departments to change its ways and is holding back the government’s green agenda.

Green economy

Net zero: an update from the transport committee

Posted on 28 May, 2021 by Green Alliance blog One comment

Green Alliance is tracking the UK’s net zero policy progress in key areas of government throughout this year. This week we are featuring a series of daily blogs in which we hear from the chairs of five parliamentary select committees, who answer our questions about the progress being made in their committee’s area of interest. This post is by Huw Merriman MP, chair of the Transport Select Committee.

Political leadership

Net zero: an update from the business, energy and industrial strategy committee

Posted on 27 May, 2021 by Green Alliance blog One comment

Green Alliance is tracking the UK’s net zero policy progress in key areas of government throughout this year. This week we are featuring a series of daily blogs in which we hear from the chairs of five parliamentary select committees, who answer our questions about the progress being made in their committee’s area of interest. This post is by Darren Jones MP, chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee.

Political leadership

Net zero: an update from the environmental audit committee

Posted on 24 May, 2021 by Green Alliance blog One comment

Green Alliance is tracking the UK’s net zero policy progress in key areas of government throughout this year. This week we are featuring a series of daily blogs in which we hear from the chairs of five parliamentary select committees, who answer our questions about the progress being made in their committee’s area of interest. This first post is by Phillip Dunne MP, chair of the Environment Audit Committee.

Political leadership

If Number 10 wants a ‘green industrial revolution’, they’d better tell the neighbours

Posted on 21 May, 2021 by Green Alliance blog One comment

This post is by Joe Tetlow and James Fotherby of Green Alliance.

The prime minister’s Ten point plan for a green industrial revolution was published last November with the intention of framing the way the UK could “build back better” from the pandemic on the way to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Political leadership

Will net zero really cost ten million jobs?

Posted on 15 January, 2021 by Green Alliance blog 2 comments

This post is by Jess Ralston, analyst at ECIU. This article was originally posted on ECIU’s blog

Growing new jobs and the skilled workforce to do them is an essential part of the net zero transition, and represents both a challenge and an opportunity. In the same way the internet has radically changed a swathe of jobs and sectors, and continues to do so, low carbon technology is already disrupting major industries. Elon Musk is having his day.

Climate change

Without the right building blocks in place, ‘net zero’ will just be an aspiration

Posted on 13 November, 2020 by Caterina Brandmayr One comment

To most people ‘infrastructure’ is an abstract word. Something engineers and policy wonks worry about, which has little to do with their everyday lives. And yet, from the buildings we live and work in, how we move around, the way we get our energy and water, to the systems that give us access to food and other goods, infrastructure is the backbone of our economy and our society. It governs all of our choices, including how green we can be.

Green economy

Lessons from the coalface: what the Cumbria coal mine story tells us about UK climate strategy

Posted on 9 October, 2020 by Rebecca Willis 6 comments

The UK may see itself as a climate leader, with cross-party support for a net zero goal. But, last week, local politicians granted planning permission for a proposed coal mine on the West Coast of Cumbria. Burning the coal from the mine, to make steel, will release nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. That’s more than double Cumbria’s total current emissions. (There’s more on the background to the mine in this briefing.)

Low carbon future

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