Climate protection: Great Britain founds development bank

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Wind turbines off the British coast (archive image)

Photo: Peter Byrne / dpa

With a new development bank, the British government wants to enable investments in climate-friendly infrastructure.

The Treasury Department said it was about financing important projects for clean energy, transport, sewage and waste in all parts of the country and regions of the United Kingdom.

The infrastructure bank will initially be provided with a capital of 12 billion pounds (about 14 billion euros) and be able to issue government guarantees amounting to 10 billion pounds.

This will help free more than £ 40 billion in total investment, the ministry said.

For comparison: the funding volume of the German KfW was around 135 billion euros last year.

The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson is counting on the expansion of the infrastructure as an important building block in the plan to create equal living conditions across the country.

Outside of large cities such as the capital London, roads and railways, for example, are in poor condition and there are large gaps in local public transport.

Hundreds of billions of pounds will be invested in the infrastructure in the coming years.

The new bank will work with the private sector and regional policy and support projects that combat climate change and promote economic growth.

The institute is based in Leeds in the north of England.

dab / dpa