Climate change: Britain announces the impact of new energy revolution plans on China-BBC News

In recent years, China has been implementing new energy strategies, including the development of the automobile industry. In early November, the State Council of China just released the “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)”; Furthermore, many Chinese companies also hope to participate in the investment and participation in the construction of UK nuclear power.

What impact will the new UK energy plan have in this regard?

Regarding the design of new energy vehicles, the British government has already proposed a plan to ban the sale of new cars and trucks powered entirely by gasoline and diesel in the country in the future, and has repeatedly advanced on this plan. .

The total amount of new funding announced by Prime Minister Johnson in the corresponding package is 4 billion. This is only around 4% compared to the estimated cost of £ 100bn for the HS2 high-speed train.

Critics of the plan say the £ 4bn grant is too small for the challenges the plan faces.

British Commerce Secretary Alok Sharma told the BBC that this is part of a £ 12bn public investment plan and will also help attract three times the amount of funds from the private sector.

Sharma is the chair of the 26th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Climate Change Summit to be hosted by the UK next year. He said the funds will also help create 250,000 green, high-value-added jobs in parts of the UK.

In addition to banning the sale of diesel motor vehicles in 2030, the British government’s package plan also includes the construction of a large nuclear power plant, which may be located in West Severk, Suffolk, and a small advanced nuclear reactor. This is expected to be Rolls. Royce (Rolls-Royce) and other companies create about 10,000 jobs.

The government expects that, overall, up to 250,000 jobs will be created, especially in the north of England and Wales, including 60,000 jobs in the offshore wind market.

The clean energy revolution will also directly affect some people’s homes.

The British government will advance the date when new homes do not need to use natural gas heating until 2023.

By 2028, it plans to install 600,000 heat pumps each year, which are energy-efficient electrical equipment used for home heating.

After a large number of people welcomed the filling of the thermal insulation layer of old houses, the government has extended the application for a subsidy for family warm green housing for one year.

Clean hydrogen will be blended into the natural gas supply to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions. The government hopes to find a city to voluntarily conduct 100% hydrogen cooking, industrial and heating trials.

The hydrogen power scheme will receive a subsidy of up to 500 million pounds and will be produced in places like the northeast of England and some of the energy provided by offshore wind.

The government hopes to create four groups of companies that use carbon capture and storage by linking hydrogen production with the manufacture of wind turbines, injecting new life into the former industrialized areas of Britain.

This plan is to capture carbon emissions, such as through chimneys, and force them into underground rock storage, with the aim of transforming the currently impoverished areas of Britain into high-tech hubs. This plan will receive an additional £ 200 million of financial support.

Another key point of the British government’s plan is to allocate 1,300 million pounds to invest in the construction of charging points for electric vehicles. The subsidy allocation for consumers buying electric cars will be expanded to 582 million pounds to help people make the transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles.

There are also nearly £ 500 million of government funding for battery manufacturing in the Midlands and North East England.

Today, British automakers have warned that the challenges are enormous, but the British government believes that implementing mandatory technology changes can give companies a competitive advantage.

But will Britain’s green revolution achieve the goal of large-scale job creation?

Experts say that if £ 4 billion is used to support labor-intensive industries, much can be accomplished, but if you invest in expensive mechanized carbon capture, this investment is not enough.

Prime Minister Johnson made it clear that his plan aims to create jobs while also addressing climate change. However, opposition parties in the UK, including the Labor Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, have criticized the government’s plans for investing too late, too late and not enough.

The UK will host the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow in November next year, considered the most important round of negotiations to address climate change since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. It was originally scheduled to be held in 2020, but was postponed for 12 months due to the global pandemic of the new corona epidemic.

The British government’s Green Revolution plan aims to enable the UK to achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050. It includes investment support in 10 main areas:

In April 2019, the European Union issued the strictest carbon emission standards in history, and Europe leads the world in terms of green energy.

In the competition for the development of clean energy vehicles, the United Kingdom is second only to Norway, and the date of abolition of fossil fuel vehicles in Norway is 2025.

Today, countries around the world are accelerating the transition to electrification. From a political perspective, new energy vehicle development in Europe is the most active, followed by China, followed by Japan and South Korea, and the United States is relatively conservative.

In the context of global competition and the development of new energy plans, the Chinese media is also very concerned about the latest plan announced by the UK. Because China has been designing new energy strategies in recent years, including the development of the automobile industry.

China’s proposed “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” in 2020 proposes that by 2025, sales of new energy vehicles and new vehicles will reach approximately 20% of total vehicle sales. new, and by 2035, pure electric vehicles will become the mainstream of newly sold vehicles.

Chinese state media Xinhua said in a report that, at present, the UK has made it clear that the sale of fuel vehicles will be banned in 2030, and that China’s national timetable and roadmap are more urgent.

In terms of building nuclear power gates, 15 Chinese companies expected to participate in building nuclear power in the UK. However, when Sino-British relations found twists and turns, the British government came under pressure from Parliament and said it would review China’s investment in the UK nuclear power sector.

Furthermore, the proportion of nuclear and other energy construction in the UK has always been controversial. An assessment report by the UK National Infrastructure Commission in mid-2020 believes that in view of the balance of cost and risk, the renewable energy system appears more reasonable and, compared to the construction of nuclear power plants, the renewable energy is safer.

Among critics of the British government’s new energy revolution plan mentioned above, the British Green Party stated that the high cost of investing in nuclear power will affect related investment in offshore wind power generation.