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Green campaigners and businesses have hit out at the government’s ‘levelling up’ strategy, suggesting a lack of interest in achieving net zero carbon emissions and creating green jobs.
Michael Gove last week published his plan to generate “opportunity and prosperity” across the UK and reduce regional inequality
But the government only mentioned “the green industrial revolution and transition to net zero” second bottom of the list of 16 priorities, The Guardian reported.
The £26 billion strategy did not include promises to insulate Britain’s homes despite soaring energy costs, or to break the country’s dependency from expensive gas from abroad.
Ed Matthew, campaigns director at the climate thinktank E3G, said: “As energy bills go through the roof due to the rocketing cost of gas, it is worth remembering that the most energy-leaking housing stock in western Europe is in the north of England.
“Fixing it would slash energy bills and emissions whilst boosting the economy of the north. Failing to put that at the heart of this levelling up strategy is a spectacular own goal.”
Meanwhile, Nina Skorupska, chief executive at the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology, said the government’s plan is a “missed opportunity”.
Skorupska added offshore wind investment in Humberside has revived manufacturing jobs, something which ministers could “replicate on a much wider scale”.
And Ashden cities manager Cara Jenkinson told the newspaper her climate charity is “really surprised and disappointed” at the lack of commitments related to achieving net zero carbon emissions.
Schemes which the Tories have been urged to get serious about since the start of the Covid pandemic include home insulation, electric vehicle charging points, new cycling and pedestrian infrastructure and more trees.
The measure are believed to slash energy consumption and, with it, carbon emissions, as well as lead to health and social benefits.
The levelling-up plan also came under fire after seeming to have been partly copied from Wikipedia.
The strategy plan had big paragraphs of rambling, with entire pages talking about the history of Rome, renaissance Europe and the past of Palestinian city Jericho.
One of the sentences, for example, was the same as the first paragraph about Constantinople on the online encyclopedia, acccording to The Independent. It read: “Constantinople was the capital of the Roman/Byzantine Empire (330-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922)”.
Another part of the report appears to plagiarise Wikipedia’s list of ‘largest cities throughout history’.
But it’s not just about seemingly copying from the internet – the paragraph about Jericho has been accidentally repeated twice on the same page.
And eight out of 12 targets mentioned in the report are the same as those listed in former prime minister Theresa May’s industrial plan. Hers was launched four years ago and then scrapped by the government.
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