Labour welcomes energy experts plan to fast-track decarbonisation of energy and transport systems
Wed 23 October 2019
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The Labour Party has welcomed a fast-track plan from a group of independent energy industry experts that the Party charged with identifying the most radical feasible pathway to decarbonise the energy system by 2030. If elected, the Party says it aims to create a carbon-neutral energy system by the 2030s including insulation upgrades for every home in the UK and enough new solar panels to cover 22,000 football pitches.
At the Labour Party Conference 2019, motions were adopted calling on the Party to “work towards a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030” and “work towards a path of net zero carbon emissions within keeping of the IPCC advice including to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5C”.
The plans contain thirty recommendations to meet these goals.
The Party adopted a wide-ranging set of climate measures at its party conference in Brighton in September. They included a £250bn transformation fund to help drive its plans for a 'green industrial revolution', including a £3.4bn national network of electric vehicle charging points and a promise to ban sales of new fossil fuel cars by 2030.
Rebecca Long Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Business and Energy Secretary, said: “This report makes a major contribution to Labour’s plans to kickstart a Green Industrial Revolution".
The economic predictions were prepared by a team of economists at the Sustainability Research Institute, backed by the University of Leeds, who were tasked with analysing the impact of the plans over the decade from 2020 to 2030.
The Guardian reports that the plan has the backing of a panel of energy experts and academics who have signed up to a statement in support of the plan. The statement confirms that Labour’s energy plan is “feasible” and does not rely on “clearly implausible or inappropriate” measures to increase the UK’s low carbon energy by 2030.
The Labour Party Conference also voted to support a Green New Deal which has recently been tabled as a cross-party bill by Green MP Caroline Lucas and Labour's Clive Lewis MP.
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