Going Green: Positive change is already happening

After fourteen years of Conservative rule in the UK, there are plenty of changes afoot with Labour in power.

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to make the UK a leader in green technology saying she wants to "start getting money out of the door".

Labour has proposals and projects ranging from green steel and hydrogen to capturing carbon, with investments totalling around £7.3 billion so far through a newly created national wealth fund.

They’ve pledged to decarbonise electricity by 2030 and make the UK a clean energy superpower too.

To help this they appointed Chris Stark – formerly leader of the Climate Change Committee, as the Head of Mission Control for Clean Power which is a job title from Iron Man’s Tony Stark.

They’ve also lifted the ban on onshore windfarms and a wind turbine was approved in East Riding of Yorkshire within days of this change.

They consented three solar parks with combined capacity of 1.35 GW (very big) as part of their new solar for energy security plan and unveiled plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels to reduce energy bills and tackle the climate crisis. Great British Energy will help finance build low-carbon infrastructure.

Warmer homes are a huge priority as cold, damp and mouldy homes are a real health risk for millions of people.

The new government has promised around £13 billion additional funding to help the most vulnerable who need support most.

Landlords will have to improve the quality of houses as well to achieve a minimum rating of an EPC of C, which will help lower energy bills and improve health for those living in the private rented sector.

Heat pumps are the future for home heating but at time of writing this, the government is yet to commit to an end date for gas boilers or ruling out hydrogen for home heating. When they do this then big corporates who are delaying roll outs now will get fully on board and heat pump uptake will increase.

When it comes to travel, renationalising the rail network as franchises come up is popular and they’ve pledged to allow communities to take control of their local bus services too

They’re stopping new licenses for oil and gas in the North sea but aren’t removing existing licenses.

They’ve talked about developing a food strategy with 2024 yielding some of the worst harvests since World War Two and they’ve also promised to clean up the waterways putting water companies into “special measures” – a strong premise considering just prior to the election Thames Water admitted it was a “risk to public safety.”

They’re also planning to tackle air pollution – allowing only electric vehicles to be sold from 2030 because around 30,000 people in the UK die prematurely annually because of toxic air.

There’s a lot so far that helps to protect the environment, create jobs and improve energy security so positive change is already happening.

Finally if you use X @Ed_Miliband is the account for the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and whoever is his social media manager is doing a great job.