The CBI is calling on the government to “step up” and release concrete strategies for transport and heat after a lack of detail in the Ten Point Plan.
Companies are waiting on these government blueprints to provide a new wave of innovation, investment and delivery, the CBI said, with the organisation urging the government to publish its long-awaited Transport Decarbonisation Strategy, with the UK needing to speed up the rollout of charging infrastructure, publish a new electric vehicle delivery plan by the end of the year and fund the development of seven gigafactories.
The Transport Decarbonisation Plan is expected to be published in the near future, with a Westminster Hall debate on the plan to take place on 16 June 2021.
Alongside transport, the government should also publish its Heat & Buildings Strategy in the next few weeks and create a National Delivery Body to coordinate retrofitting almost one million homes every year to 2050. Currently, the government is aiming to achieve over 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028, a target which has resulted in much discussion over the scaling up of deployment required.
The CBI is also calling for the government to legislate that all new boilers installed after 2025 are hydrogen ready, the announcement of the timeframe for the next leasing round for offshore wind in UK waters and the confirmation of business models to encourage businesses to invest in carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen.
In a speech at an industry event today (14 June), CBI director-general Tony Danker said that businesses need these strategies – alongside the Treasury’s Net Zero Review – to be published.
Last year, the Treasury launched its interim Net Zero Review, with this highlighting the challenges associated with predicting the investment needed for the net zero transition and the consequential impacts on operating costs.
“But it’s not enough to release these strategies into the ether and hope that’s enough. The pace of delivery must be relentless and speed of our progress intensifying all the time,” CBI director-general Tony Danker said at an industry event earlier today (14 June).
It follows the CBI’s previous recommendation to the government to accelerate the EV and heat pump rollouts in September 2020. It also called on the government in June 2020 to ensure that the recovery from COVID-19 was a green one, with the Ten Point Plan later released with the intention of detailing the government’s commitments to a green recovery.
