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Woman Filling a Car with Unleaded Petrol, UK.
A driver filling a car with unleaded petrol, UK. Credit: Simon Belcher / Alamy Stock Photo
UK POLICY
11 March 202018:32

Budget 2020: Key climate and energy announcements

Multiple Authors

03.11.20
UK policy Budget 2020: Key climate and energy announcements

Rishi Sunak, the UK’s new chancellor, has delivered his first budget and the first for the UK sinceOctober 2018. It is also the first budget since the UK committed to reachingnet-zero emissions by 2050.

Sunak’sbudget speechwas dominated by the response to thecoronavirus outbreak. Nevertheless, it devoted significantly more time to climate measures than recent chancellors. (The most recent2018 budgetspeech made no references to climate change at all.)

The Treasury’s budget “red book” (pdf), which provides more detail than the chancellor’s speech, uses the phrase “net-zero” 17 times, with a further 31 mentions of “climate”, comparable to the government’s current buzz-phrase of “levelling up” (19 mentions).

In one example, the red book says: “[T]he transition to a net-zero economy by 2050 will require radical changes in every sector.” It also calls cutting carbon a “major government priority”.

The government’s official adviser, theCommittee on Climate Change, reacted to the budgetcallingit “a small step in the right direction”. But it added that much now rested on the National Infrastructure Strategy, delayed until later in the spring, as well as a spending review in July and a Treasury review on net-zero due before the UK hosts the next UN climate summit in Glasgow in November.

Sunak said theTreasury’s much-anticipated reviewof how the UK can manage the economic costs and opportunities of net-zero will “set out the government’s strategic choices ahead of COP26 later this year”.

Below, Carbon Brief summarises all the key climate and energy announcements from today’s budget:

Fuel duty

Sunak’s budget confirmed that fuel duty will remain frozen for a tenth year. The tax, levied on sales of petrol and diesel, has remained at a rate of 58 pence per litre, plus VAT, since 2011.

However, Sunak also moved to restrict the use of “red diesel”, where fuel duty is effectively just 11p per litre, at a cost to the Treasury of some £2.4bn per year in lost revenue. Red diesel makes up 15% of diesel sales, with the chancellor saying in hisbudget speechthat this amounted to a “tax relief on nearly 14 million tonnes of CO2 every year”.

Approved users of red diesel include farm vehicles, construction machinery, heating oil, freight trains, backup electricity generators and boats. From April 2022, approved uses will be limited – but farms, domestic oil heating, fishing boats and trains will continue to benefit, with others potentially being added to this list subject to consultation.

Thebudget costingssuggest roughly two-thirds of current red diesel usage would cease to be eligible but does not offer a detailed breakdown of demand from existing exempt users.

In the run up to budget day, there was widespreadlobbyingandspeculationon the potential for a rise in fuel duty overall. On budget day itself, however, theSunreported “victory” for its campaign to keep fuel duty frozen, saying this has cost the Treasury “an estimated £50bn in total”.

In hisbudget speech, Sunak把冻结的成本更高,£110bn. (Fuel-duty receipts arecurrently worth £28bna year.) Sunak said he was “mindful of the fiscal cost and environmental impacts” of a continued freeze, but, nevertheless, pledged to extend it for “another year”.

Instead of rising with inflation, this rate has been frozen since 2011, as the chart below shows. As a result, motorists have enjoyed a significant tax cut in real terms – at a cost to the exchequer of £11bn this year and rising – even as public transport fares have climbed ahead of inflation.

The actual rate of fuel duty, in pence per litre not adjusted for inflation, between 2008 and today (thick red line). Planned increases, cancelled at successive budget statements over the period, are shown in shades of blue. Note the truncated y-axis. Source:Institute for Fiscal StudiesandDepartment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Chart by Carbon Brief usingHighcharts.

亚慱官网analysis published this week shows that the UK’s CO2 emissions are up to 5% higher than they would have been if fuel duty had increased as planned, rather than remaining frozen.

The amount of CO2 released by road transport has risen by 3% over the past decade and the transport sector overall is now the single-largest contributor toUK carbon emissions.

Separateresearchfrom the campaign groupGreener Journeyssuggests the fuel-duty freeze has also “led to 5% more traffic, 250m fewer bus journeys and 75m fewer rail journeys”.

Flood spending

In newstrailedin the media over the weekend, Sunak said government spending on flood defences would “double” over the next six years to £5.2bn. This would help protect “people and over 300,000 properties”, he said.

Sunak also announced that he was making £120m “available immediately” to repair “all damages [and] all defences damaged in the winter floods”, as well as £200m of funding to “support those areas that have been repeatedly flooded”. This will be made available “directly to local communities” in order “to build their flood resilience”, said Sunak.

(The UK has recently experiencedrecord rainfall, with parts of the countryexperiencing severe flooding. The evidence to date suggests such events arebecoming more frequent, consistent with what would be expectedin a warming climate.)

The Boat Inn pub in Jackfield, Shropshire flooded by the River Severn, 18 February 2020. Credit: Dave Bagnall / Alamy Stock Photo. 2B2DC26
The Boat Inn pub in Jackfield, Shropshire, flooded by the River Severn, 18 February 2020. Credit: Dave Bagnall / Alamy Stock Photo.

The budget “red book” (pdf) notes that “the twin pressures of climate change and population growth mean that further action is needed” on flooding:

“The government will double the amount it invests in the flood and coastal defence programme in England to £5.2bn over six years, better protecting a further 336,000 homes and non-residential properties. According to Environment Agency modelling, this will reduce national flood risk by up to 11% by 2027.”

The current investment programme for flood defences (2015-21) still has more than a year to run and it is difficult to double-check government spending figures part-way through.

亚慱官网analysis published in 2017 found that £4.4bn had been earmarked for flood defences in England, of which £2.5bn was to be spent during the six years to 2020-21. This broadly corresponds to the£2.6bn figurequoted by theEnvironment Agency– the body responsible for flood defences in England and the source of Carbon Brief’s figures in 2017.

(Interestingly, in his speech, Sunak mentioned that the £5.2bn would protect over 300,000 properties – this is the same figurequoted by the agencyfor the 2015-21 investment programme.)

However, since Carbon Brief published its analysis, the agency has changed the way it reports flood-defence spending data. The agencyno longer publishes完成计划的成本数据,而不是only providing figures on the number of “homes better protected” by each project.

For the remainder of the current investment programme, agencydata indicatesthat UK government funding for flood defences in England amounts to £457m in 2019-20, with “indicative” figures suggesting spending of £421m in 2020-21.

Meanwhile, national infrastructure spending figurespublished by the Treasurysuggest that £621m is being spent on flood-defence schemes in England in 2019-20 and £652m in 2020-21. These figures also include “funding from other sources”, which could mean contributions from local councils and drainage boards, private companies and individuals.

Giving a hint of what was coming in the budget,BBC Newsreported on new Treasury infrastructure spending figures last month, noting that “nearly £5bn was earmarked to be spent on flood defences in England over the next six years”, covering 1,300 projects. This “makes up just 1.5% of the total £317bn set to be spent on all infrastructure across England”, the outlet said.

In its洪水长期战略草案, launched last year, the Environment Agency estimated that “we need an average annual investment of at least £1bn in flooding and coastal change infrastructure over the next 50 years”. This in addition to shifting away from “the concept of protection to resilience“, the strategy says.

These measures reflect the “increasing and accelerating” flooding threats from climate change, said Environment Agency chair Emma Howard Boyd, adding that “we can’t win a war against water by building away climate change with infinitely high flood defences”.

Therefore, the commitment to £5.2bn over six years in the budget gets close to, but falls short of, the draft Environment Agency recommendation. (The finalised strategy is due “in spring 2020”.)

The full budget documents do note that the doubling “exceeds the level of investment recommended by theNational Infrastructure Commission”. Indeed, the commission’s first-ever “National Infrastructure Assessment”, published in 2018, set out flood-defence spending of £600m per year (for 2020-25) and £700m per year (for 2025-2030).

However, this proposal was given within the confines of a “fiscal remit” – a “long-term funding guideline for public capital expenditure” provided by the UK government – and, therefore, was required to balance spending on flooding with many other infrastructure projects.

In fact, the commissionalso recommended(pdf) that the “government should set out a strategy to deliver a nationwide standard of resilience to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5% by 2050 where this is feasible”.

In addition, a “higher standard of 0.1% should be provided for densely populated areas where the costs per household are lower”. This, the assessment suggests, would cost around £1.1bn in annual flood-defence capital spending (between 2020 and 2050) under a scenario of a 2C warmer world.

In aresponse to the budget, commission chair Sir John Armitt said they “welcome the additional funding for boosting flood protection”, but he added that the commission has “repeatedly argued for this to be complemented by the introduction of a national flood resilience standard”.

Infrastructure spending

The chancellor delayed the UK’s national infrastructure strategy, which was due to be published alongside today’s budget. The budget “red book” (pdf) says it will now be published “later in the spring” and will set out “plans for a once-in-a-generation transformation of the UK’s economic infrastructure”.

This long-awaited document will formally respond to the firstindependent assessmentof the country’s investment needs, published in 2018 by theNational Infrastructure Commission(NIC). The commission hadsuggestedthe UK could move to a low-carbon energy system in 2050 that would have a similar cost to today’s fossil-powered heat, transport and power networks.

One reason for the delay, according tomediareportsahead of the budget, is to make sure the strategy incorporates the challenge of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The previous Conservative governmentcommitted to net-zeroin July last year.

Responding to those reports, NIC chairSir John Armittsaid in astatement:

“Naturally we are disappointed…[but] if a short delay leads to a better strategy that more comprehensively addresses our recommendations, it will be worth the wait.”

Elsewhere in the budget, the government launched its “comprehensive spending review” (CSR), which it says will conclude in July. This review will set departmental budgets for day-to-day spending over the three years to 2023-24, as well as on capital investment out to 2024-25.

The red book says:

“The CSR will prioritise improving public services, levelling up economic opportunity across all nations and regions, strengthening the UK’s place in the world and supporting the government’s ambitions to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”

The budget says public-sector investment will reach £640bn over the next five years, which,according to the chancellor, would be the highest level since 1955 in real terms. Details will be set out in the CSR.

Road spending

Reportsthat the government intended to delay a road spending plan turned out to be misplaced, as the budget announced what it called the “largest ever investment in England’s motorways and major A roads”.

Thesecond phaseof the government’s “road investment strategy” will consist of around £27bn being spent on road building between 2020 and 2025. The first phase began in 2015 and ends this year.

Sunak’sbudget speechsaid the money would pay for “over £27bn of tarmac” and would cover work on “4,000 miles of road”. He did not say if this would be new roads or, for example, additional lanes on existing routes. Since 2000, only 695 miles ofmajor roadshave been added in the UK.

The chancellor emphasised that this scheme would benefit people across England, with major investment from the A66 Trans-Pennine to the Lower Thames Crossing. The plan also includes a chunk of funding for local roads and enough money to fill “50 million potholes”.

在预算”red book” (pdf), the government states that this strategy will be delivered “alongside the government’s plans for decarbonising the transport sector”.

However, environmental campaigners have questioned the logic of such significant investments in new roads, especially given the comparatively small investment in nature (see below).

Crispin Truman, chief executive ofCPRE(formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England), said in a statement the “announcement of the £27bn worth of tarmac…will only serve to encourage more people into cars instead of using sustainable and reliable public transport, where significant investment is sorely needed”.

While road-building programmes areoften framedas being designed to ease congestion and cope with rising demand, there isample evidencethat providing additional capacity leads to a greater volume of traffic on the roads.

Prior to the budget some news sources were suggesting that this significant funding pledge would be put on hold, following the Court of Appeal’s decision to block Heathrow expansion on the basis of the UK’s climate change commitments. TheTimessuggested it would be delayed until spring or even early summer.

Following the Heathrow announcement,BBC Newsreported that the roads programme did not take into account the government’s updated target of hitting net-zero emissions by 2050.

Instead, BBC News said it was based on the old target of cutting emissions by 80% by the middle of the century. As a result, it said the plans were likely to face legal action from environmental groups. (Campaigners are indeedlaunching legal challengeson this basis.)

Low-carbon heat

Decarbonising the way UK buildings are heated is one of the major challenges on the road to net-zero emissions by 2050. Last year, theCommittee on Climate Change(CCC) said there was “still no serious plan for decarbonising UK heating systems”.

The budgetred book(pdf) sets out this context, stating:

“The heating of our homes will need to be virtually zero carbon by 2050, replacing natural gas and other fossil fuels with low-carbon alternatives – likely to be primarily a mix of green gas, heat pumps and heat networks.”

A number of measures in the budget respond to this need. It states that the government will extend theRenewable Heat Incentive(RHI) for an extra year, until 31 March 2022.

The RHIis a subsidyprovided to producers of renewable heat, supporting biomass boilers, heat pumps and solar thermal by paying a tariff per unit of heat energy supplied.

It was due to close in March 2021. The government has not previously been forthcoming in announcing strategies to promote low-carbon heating after it expires.

In addition, the government said it will consult on a new “low-carbon heat support scheme” to replace the RHI from April 2022. It said this would give grants to “help households and small businesses invest in heat pumps and biomass boilers, backed by £100m of new exchequer funding”. (The RHI costs £1bn per year,according totheOffice for Budget Responsibility.)

The budget “confirms” £96m for the final year, in 2021-22, of a scheme that supports district-heat networks. It says:

“After this, the government will invest a further £270m in a new green heat networks scheme, enabling new and existing heat networks to be low carbon and connect to waste heat that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.”

Separately, a new “green gas levy” will be applied to consumer gas bills, subject to consultation. This will support the production of “biomethane”, for use in the gas grid, from food waste and other biomass. According toEmily Gosden, the Times’ energy editor, the Treasury expects the levy to initially cost £1 per household per year, rising to £5 by 2025.

On energy efficiency, the budget says the government “is committed to reducing emissions from homes and to helping keep household energy costs low now and in the future”. It says the “future homes standard” for newbuild properties will be published “in due course”.

However, there is no mention of the £9.2bn in support for energy efficiency in existing homes, schools and hospitalspledgedin the Conservative election manifesto. Carbon Brief understands this money could be allocated as part of the upcoming national infrastructure strategy.

Electric vehicles

In the run-up to the budget announcement, motoring groupscalledon the government to announce measures that could stimulate the market for electric cars.

The budget included a suite of measures the government says will help to do just that, including £500m over the next five years for charging infrastructure. This money, it said, will ensure “drivers are never more than 30 miles from a rapid charging station”.

The governmentis currently consultingon a move to bring forward the ban on selling new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2040 to 2035 or earlier, as part of its plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

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This decision hasbeen welcomedby campaigners, but there are concerns about the prevalence of electric vehicles in the UK. In February, electric carsmade up just 3.2%of new sales, a relatively small proportion, albeit a threefold increase on the same month last year.

Both the higher price of electric cars and the lack of charging points throughout much of the country are thought to be discouraging many people from making the switch.

A surveyby the RAC found 41% of drivers said they would be more attracted to electric vehicles if additional funds were announced in the budget.

The budget announced a “rapid charging fund” to “help businesses with the costs of connecting high-powered charge points to the electricity grid, where those costs would prevent private sector investment”. There will also be a new review into the nation’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The chancellor also stated that the government is “considering the long-term future of consumer incentives to support the transition to zero emission vehicles” and announced an extension of theplug-in car grantto 2022-23 with an additional £403m of funding. There will also be extensions to plug-in grants for vans, taxis and motorbikes.

Sunak’s speech says: “We’re introducing a comprehensive package of tax and spend reforms to make it cheaper to buy zero or low emissions cars.”

When it was first introduced in 2011, the plug-in car grantwas setat £5,000 for eligible ultra-low emission cars. It has since been reduced and now only applies to zero-emission cars.

In the new budget, the grant is set at £3,000, and does not include cars costing £50,000 or more.

Dr Ajay Gambhir,a senior research fellow at the Grantham Institute, noted that while these incentives were welcome, the government cut the plug-in grant just 18 months ago in a move thatsaw sales drop:

“A return to the previous level of £4,500 per vehicle, or, even better, an even greater level of support, would have been far more effective in jump-starting the electric vehicle market in the UK. In that sense, other countries like Norway continue to do much better than us.”

The Treasury also published acall for evidenceon vehicle excise duty (VED) to seek views on how it could support a reduction in road-transport emissions:

“VED rate should send a strong signal to individuals and businesses about which cars to buy as we transition to zero-emission vehicles, rewarding those who purchase zero emission and alternatively fuelled cars with no, or lower tax.”

The average amount of CO2 per kilometre for new cars sold in the UK has been rising for several years – and cars collectively contribute more to theUK’s emissionsthan power stations.

Carbon pricing

The budget increased theClimate Change Levy(CCL) on gas from 2022-23, while freezing the rate for electricity. The levy is paid by businesses to cover their energy use and the budget says rebalancing rates to favour electricity will “encourage businesses to operate in a more environmentally friendly way”. (Sunak’sspeechnoted that “electricity is now cleaner than gas”.)

There will also be a two-year extension to 31 March 2025 for voluntary “climate change agreements”, which give participating businesses a discount on their CCL bill if they meet targets on energy efficiency and decarbonisation.

The “carbon price support” – a top-up carbon tax paid by power plants via the CCL – will be frozen at £18 per tonne of CO2 for another year during 2021-22. The Treasuryestimatesthis will cost £15m per year, relative to the previously assumed increase in rate.

Thered book(pdf) says that after this year’s Brexit transition period, the UK “will continue to apply an ambitious carbon price from 1 January 2021 to support progress towards reaching net zero”. It says the finance bill 2020 will legislate for a UK Emissions Trading System (ETS) to replace the EU ETS, but says the two “could be linked”.

The government will also legislate for an alternative carbon-pricing policy based on a carbon-emissions tax, the red book says, with a consultation on the details in “spring 2020”.

Woodland expansion

There was an expectation that the budget would provide more details about how the government would achieve its ambitious tree-planting targets to help achieve net-zero.

总理也提到树planting, promising to “protect, restore and expand” woodlands with a £640m “nature for climate fund” for England, which had previously beenset outin his party’s manifesto.

According to Sunak, this would mean an additional 30,000 hectares of trees, “a forest larger than Birmingham”, over the next five years.

This appears to be far off the afforestation targets suggested by theCommittee on Climate Change(CCC) and, indeed, the government’s own manifesto, asProf David Reayfrom the University of Edinburgh was quick to point out:

“For ‘net-zero’ the UK needs to be planting around 30,000 hectares of new trees every year. Trees take many years before they really start hitting their straps in terms of carbon uptake and storage, so a weak tree-planting target today will mean millions of tree-shaped gaps in UK climate change action tomorrow.”

In therun up to the election, the Conservatives said they would “work with the devolved administrations to triple UK tree-planting rates to 30,000 hectares every year – space for at least 30m more trees”. This target is in line with the CCC’s net-zero guidance, which is based on reaching such levels by 2024.

Tree planting rates have declined in the UK since the 1980s, but the Committee on Climate Change has recommended a rate of 30,000 hectares per year from 2024 until 2050 in order to meet the nation’s net-zero target. Source: Forestry Commission. Chart by Carbon Brief usingHighcharts.

Prof Simon Lewis from University College London (UCL) said the announcement of 30,000 hectares by 2024 in England is far from this pledge “unless Scotland, Wales and Northern Island have plans far exceeding those of the chancellor”.

The red book says that the fund – whichwill also“恢复35000公顷泥炭地”——会分辨ase the rate of tree planting in England “by over 600%”.

Last year, 1,420 hectares of trees were planted in England, so a 600% increase would result in 8,520 hectares being planted annually.

树种植在英国,2019年12月。信贷:乔nathan Plant/Alamy Stock Photo. 2B21G72
树种植在英国,2019年12月。信贷:乔nathan Plant/Alamy Stock Photo.

Tree planting in the UK has been in severe decline over the last few decades and the Conservative government has missed itsprevious commitmentto plant 11m trees by 2020,by around 70%.

Ahead of the budget, Friends of the Earthsaidthe £5.2m going towards afforestation in England under the countryside stewardship scheme this financial year would only support 1,260 hectares of new trees. The group argued this was not in line with the government’s ambitions.

In response, the government said there would be other measures to drive tree planting, including the “nature for climate” fund itself.

In total, theCCC estimates£500m per year will be required to meet its tree-planting targets, as well as £200m for growing trees on farms. While a lot of this is expected to come from private investment, it says public funding will be necessary for certain tree-planting projects.

The budget also references a nature recovery network fund for England, consisting of £25m to “partner with landowners, businesses and local communities” to create new “nature recovery networks” that will include woodlands.

Finally, the budget includes a natural environment impact fund, consisting of “up to £10 million to stimulate private investment and market-based mechanisms” to improve the environment.

Carbon capture and storage

The budget firmed up the Conservativemanifesto pledgeto invest £800m in carbon capture and storage (CCS), with the red book stating that the technology “will be important to decarbonising both power and industry”. It adds: “ [CCS] can provide flexible low-carbon power and decarbonise many industrial processes, whilst also offering the option fornegative emissionsat scale.”

There are two parts to the budget commitment on CCS. First, as pledged in the manifesto, it promises “at least £800m” for a CCS infrastructure fund that will “support” efforts to “establish CCS in at least two UK sites, one by the mid-2020s, a second by 2030”.

Last year, a parliamentary committeeidentifiedfive potential CCS clusters and said the government should “target the development of the first CCS projects in at least three clusters by 2025”.

Second, the budget gives a new commitment to support the privately financed construction of “at least one” gas-fired power station fitted with CCS. Support will be via consumer subsidy. The budget does not specify, but thiscouldbe modelled on existing “contracts for difference”.

The red book justifies support for gas CCS as follows:

“Costs have fallen so quickly that offshore wind, onshore wind and solar are likely to be the UK’s primary source of electricity in the future. However, the power generated by these renewable sources is dependent on the weather, so the UK also needs reliable low-carbon power from technologies such as nuclear, gas with CCS, and hydrogen.”

The language echoes that inconsultationsissued last year by theDepartment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy(BEIS). One of these consultations said: “[I]t is clear that a significant capacity of new nuclear power stations and gas-fired power plants with CCUS [carbon capture, utilisation and storage], alongside renewables, will also be required.”

The need for gas CCS has been questioned by theNational Infrastructure Commission(NIC), whichsaidin 2018 that the technology was “unlikely to form part of a cost competitive generation mix”. In areportpublished last week, however, the NIC said significant gas CCS capacity “is needed in 2050”, unless hydrogen-fired turbines are available.

The NIC has also beenhesitanton new nuclear power. Last week’s report reiterated this position, with apress releasesaying that new technologies “weaken the case” for committing to a new fleet of reactors. Beyond the passing reference above – and research funds for nuclear fusion – nuclear power is conspicuous by its absence in today’s budget.”

Research and innovation

The chancellor’s announcement included a reference to £900m for research on “nuclear fusion, space and electric vehicles”.

The red book elaborates on this, stating this money will “ensure UK businesses are leading the way in high-potential technologies”, including the commercialisation ofnuclear fusiontechnology.

It also notes that a portion of this funding will go into a broader investment scheme of £1bn to develop UK supply chains for the large-scale production of electric vehicles, whichwas announcedin September last year.

In addition, the government will “at least double” the size of its “energy innovation programme” to accelerate “the design and production of innovative clean energy technologies”, with the exact budget to be decided at the comprehensive spending review.

现有的能源创新计划有一个萌芽状态get of £505m covering 2015-2021, which is supporting research on “smart systems” (£70m), energy efficiency and heating (£90m), industrial CCS (£100m), nuclear innovation (£180m), renewables (£15m) and energy entrepreneurs (£50m).

Other announcements

  • Air Passenger Duty: ADP rates will increase in line with inflation for 2021-22, which means short-haul rates will remain frozen at £13, while the rate for long-haul economy flights will increase by £2, premium economy, business and first class by £4, and private jets by £13. A consultation on aviation tax reform later this year “will consider the case for changing the APD treatment of domestic flights”.
  • Plastic packaging tax: This new tax, which comes into force from April 2022 to incentivise the use of recycled plastic, will come with “carbon savings of 200,000 tonnes”, according to the chancellor.
  • Distilleries: £10m will be allocated for R&D to help decarbonise UK distilleries, including the whisky sector.
  • Business rates and solar power: The budget announced a fundamental review of business rates, which theSolar Trade Associationhas welcomed as it says they are the “main barrier to the deployment of large rooftop PV”.
  • An article forPoliticsHomeearlier this month asked whether the budget might launch “green bonds”, designed to support investment in climate measures. The article correctly concluded this would not happen, citing issues such as a potential markup on rates.
Sharelines from this story
  • Budget 2020: Key climate and energy announcements
  • All the key climate and energy announcement's from the UK's 2020 budget

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