Chancellor of the exchequer Sajid Javid has been slammed by the green economy for adding just £30 million to the government’s net zero budget, a mere 0.1% of what is expected to be needed.
Yesterday Javid, in his first official spending statement as chancellor of the exchequer, unveiled a raft of proposals in the government’s new Spending Round for 2019.
For the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the chancellor revealed an additional £30 million of funding which it said would help “accelerate progress” towards developing decarbonisation schemes to help the country towards its net zero target. That finance will be added to BEIS’ budget settlement for the year ahead.
It added that further detail on how that progress is to be made will be established within the long-awaited National Infrastructure Strategy, to be published this autumn.
But the government has been slammed for the amount of new funding made available at this stage, with industry representatives rounding on the figure for being insignificant in comparison to what’s required.
Mike Childs, head of policy at climate NGO Friends of the Earth, said that the spending review “completely undermines” the government’s commitment to tackling the climate emergency, stressing that the level of funding made available amounted to a “few financial crumbs”.
“Today’s announcement falls a long way short of the £42 billion needed every year to tackle the Planetary emergency.
“With the planet being burnt, battered and destroyed, bold and comprehensive action is needed to meet the UK’s net zero carbon target and safeguard our natural world.”
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