Response to the Spring Statement 2019

Fresh from the chaos of another botched Brexit vote, Chancellor Phillip Hammond pitched his ‘clean growth’ strategy in this week’s Spring Statement address. In a bid to appeal to the ‘next generation’ of voters, the greenwashed Statement touched broadly on carbon emissions, biodiversity, and greening up the UK grid.

• The Future Homes Standard which proposes that new build homes are fitted with low carbon heating by 2025, to help lower energy bills and protect the environment. Ironically, this promise comes from the same government that scrapped plans to make all new homes carbon neutral in 2015.

• Optional ‘zero carbon’ air travel to improve consumer understanding of journey emissions, and give the option to offset them. Air travel is one of the highest contributors to carbon emissions within the transport sector, so optional carbon offsetting doesn’t go nearly far enough to tackle transport pollution.

• Global review of biodiversity to assess its economic value. This economic focus plays into the Statement’s short-sighted view of ‘green capitalism’, which is a huge contradiction in itself. We don’t need an economic value on global biodiversity. We already know that human activity has decimated wildlife habitats and contributed to species extinction across the globe – it’s time to act now.

• Increase Link going into the grid, to help reduce our dependence on natural gas and meet climate targets. It’s unclear how this fits with the government’s support of exploratory fracking – particularly amid reports that fracking at Preston New Road is due to start again, after earthquakes near the site halted activity.

• Help conserve natural habitats in UK overseas territories, including designating 443,000 km2 of waters as a Marine Protected Area. The world’s oceans are drowning in plastic, and we’re witnessing species decline at an unprecedented rate. This proposal doesn’t come close to addressing the real issue plaguing our oceans.

• Increase biodiversity on new housing developments, which requires developers to show how their plans would improve biodiversity and protect habitats. This fails to recognise that intensive farming is one of the biggest causes of biodiversity decline in the UK – with farming land accounting for 70% of British countryside.

• Businesses energy efficiency scheme, to help smaller businesses reduce their energy bills and carbon emissions. Only 10% of UK companies currently have a strategy for reducing carbon emissions – and none of them have a science-based target for fighting climate change. Scrutinising smaller businesses shifts focus away from larger corporations, who fail to take responsibility for their carbon footprint.

• Lift the ban on onshore wind. It’s the cheapest and most sustainable form of new energy available to us, but our government isn’t providing financial or legislative backing. Support for onshore wind turbines would reduce CO2 emissions and help power Britain with 100% green electricity.

• Switch the balance of energy subsidies. The government currently provides more funding for fossil fuel energy than they do for green energy. We should be spending money on energy sources that reverse climate change, not those we know cause it. The government should shift its focus, and end support for fossil fuels altogether.

• Stop taxing renewables. When renewable energy exemptions were scrapped from the Climate Change Levy (CCL) in 2015, green energy production became taxable. Reinstating the CCL renewables exemption would create greater incentive for green energy generation, and we could start phasing out our reliance on dirty energy.