The chancellor of the exchequer has been urged by a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to double spending on tackling climate change – raising it to a similar level as defence and secondary education.
Fifteen groups, ranging from Amnesty International and Greenpeace to Friends of the Earth and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, have signed a joint letter calling on Sajid Javid to increase investment in climate change and the environment to at least £42 billion per annum in this week’s spending review.
The Treasury announced last week that the exercise, which will set out government spending for the next year, will take place on Wednesday, fuelling speculation that a general election will take place this autumn.
The £42 billion figure, which equates to around five per cent of total government spending, is the ‘absolute minimum’ required to meet the net-zero emissions target of 2050, the NGOs say.
They say that much of the extra spending could be found by phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, which are worth £10 billion per annum, and redirecting funds from high-carbon projects like road building and the expansion of Heathrow airport that will make it more difficult to hit the net zero target.
Revenues could also be raised by introducing new taxes, like a frequent flyer levy, they suggest.
The biggest chunk of the additional spending would be a more than five fold increase in investment on supporting the transition to a low carbon transport system to £14.3bn per annum.
Other items include a near tripling of the £1.1 billion currently invested in low carbon heating and an additional £1 billion of public capital on top of the existing energy efficiency budget, which the NGOs predict would leverage a further £3.5 billion of private investment.
In addition, they are urging for an additional investment of £300 million per year of innovation funding to promote highly energy efficient approaches to construction like Energiesprong and Passivhaus.
They say the existing £8 billion per annum budget for decarbonising electricity generation will not need to be increased, but additional investment will be required to develop energy storage and the smart grid.
While welcoming the government’s adoption of a target for the UK to be a net zero emitter of carbon by 2050, the letter says this date should be ‘brought forward significantly’.
And this commitment must be backed up with fiscal measures, it says: “The litmus test of the new government’s credibility in tackling this problem will be the policies and financial commitments it makes over the next 18 months to transform every sector of the economy and restore our natural landscape through a just transition.
“It is hard to think of anything that would have more long-term benefit for the country than future proofing against climate change and ecological destruction.”
The groups have also called on a commitment to a “just transition” to net zero to be “embedded across government policy and financial decisions at all levels”.