UK: Boris Johnson plans "green industrial revolution"

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Partner Bill Gates, Boris Johnson in London

Photo: Leon Neal / Getty Images

Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to spark a "green industrial revolution" in Great Britain with investments of billions from abroad. At an investor conference in London, the British government announced contracts with foreign donors amounting to £ 9.7 billion (€ 11.4 billion). The announcements met with skepticism among environmental activists; they spoke of »greenwashing«, an attempt to only superficially give the government a green image.

The conference revolves around the transformation of the economy and the participation of private investors in the fight against climate change.

The government announced that 18 contracts would be signed at the meeting in London.

This should create at least 30,000 new jobs.

Britain is moving "in an exciting new direction with a green industrial revolution," said Johnson.

Brexit will give "new regulatory freedoms".

Alliance with Gates

One of the approximately 200 participants in the conference is the US billionaire Bill Gates.

A £ 400 million partnership has been agreed with the Microsoft Founder's Foundation.

The money, half of which will be invested by the Gates Foundation and half by the UK government, will be used to develop "the next generation of breakthrough clean energy technologies," Johnson said.

One of the largest projects presented at the conference was a new wind farm off the coast of East England, which the Spanish energy company Iberdrola plans to build.

Iberdrola subsidiary Scottish Power announced investments of six billion pounds on Monday.

7,000 new jobs would be created.

The project has yet to be approved.

According to the government, further investments will go into the expansion of the Getir grocery delivery service in the UK.

The company is based in Turkey.

In addition, the Turkish company Eren Paper will invest in a plant for the production of cardboard from paper waste in Wales.

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The German energy company RWE also took part in the investor conference. In the next ten years, RWE will accelerate the expansion of wind energy throughout Great Britain, the company announced. Including investments in projects already under construction, the plan is to "invest around £ 15 billion in new green technologies and projects in the UK by 2030".

Johnson told Bloomberg news agency that despite the tensions with China, investments from the People's Republic would not be rejected either.

China is "a gigantic part of our economic life and will be for a long time - the time of our lives."

But that does not mean "that we can be naive about our important infrastructure".

Johnson named nuclear energy and 5G technology.

His government’s concerns about China’s involvement in this regard are legitimate.

Criticism from Greenpeace

According to the government's plans, the UK should obtain all energy from renewable sources by 2035. Great Britain wants to achieve what is known as carbon dioxide neutrality by 2050, i.e. not emitting more quantities of this climate-damaging gas than can be offset by forests and other natural reservoirs. Johnson's climate policy is a particular focus at the moment as his government is hosting the world climate conference COP26 in Glasgow, which starts at the end of October.

Critics complained that "greenwashing" was carried out by companies at the investor conference in London.

The NGO Global Justice Now said four banks that attended the meeting have invested $ 173 billion in fossil fuels over the past few years.

The energy company Drax Group, which was also invited to the conference, caused more CO2 emissions in 2019 than Ghana.

Environmental activists also criticized the British government's climate strategy.

"As long as the political and financial gaps are not closed, Boris Johnson's appeal to other countries to keep their promises at the world climate conference next month will be easy to ignore," said Greenpeace.

beb / dpa