Published on Twitter by Sarah Olney MP November 19, 2020 9:26 PM

 Sarah Olney MP, the LibDem Environment spokesman says:

10 reasons why the #10pointplan isn’t as good as it seems.

• 1.Two-thirds of the money in Boris’ Climate Plan has already been pledged. Of the £12bn “announced” today, only £4bn is actually new.
• 2. The plan continues to invest in nuclear power – this is a huge waste of time and an even bigger waste of money that we could be investing in renewable energy. The unit cost of nuclear is now far higher than the unit cost of renewables, making nuclear a poor investment.
• 3.The £12 billion (sorry, £4 billion) pales in comparison with the investment we have seen in other countries, such as €42 billion in Germany and €35 billion in France. This sum is nowhere near what we need to spend.
• 4. Boris has repeatedly claimed this plan is part of a highly ambitious COP26 strategy as the hosts of next year’s UN climate talks. However, this plan gets the UK nowhere near the emissions reductions needed to be consistent with Paris Agreement or 1.5C warming.
• 5. The PM mentions only one nature-based solution in his entire plan – planting trees. Clearly the Government doesn’t care enough about the biodiversity crisis to invest in the UK’s peatlands, wetlands or native woodlands.
• 6. Despite promising to end petrol and diesel car sales by 2030, this plan will allow hybrids to continue to be sold – keeping fossil fuel cars on the road for at least five more years.
• 7. This plan makes absolutely no changes to how the climate crisis is handled by the Government. There is still no Department of Climate Change to deliver the net zero commitment and no new powers for local authorities who have an important role to play.
• 8. This plan has completely ignored the need for net zero newbuild homes yet again, as does the Planning White Paper. Since the Conservatives scrapped the net zero homes legislation in 2016, another one million homes have been built which will need to be upgraded.
• 9. The Conservatives scrapped previous Liberal Democrat work on Carbon Capture and Storage only to come full circle back to it now. They have wasted the last five years which they could have spent investing in and developing the technology.
• 10. Extending the Green Homes Grant for another year, doesn’t give the construction industry the investment it needs to recruit and train the skills needed to deliver home upgrades on the scale needed. A much longer-term commitment is needed to provide green jobs.