UK PM makes green investment promise

Brexit Party rejects pact

LONDON, Nov 14, (Agenices): Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to increase Britain’s target for offshore wind power and ensure no home is more than 30 miles (48 km) away from a electric vehicle charging point in an attempt to woo green voters ahead of a Dec 12 election.

Environmental issues have become a policy battle ground for the election, with thousands protesting this year across the country for tougher climate goals alongside the Extinction Rebellion and school strikes by children raising awareness.

The policy plan, announced late on Wednesday, said Britain should raise its target for offshore wind power to 40 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, up from the current 30 GW target and also invest 500 million pounds ($640 million) in electric vehicle charging points.

Some 800 million pounds would also be invested in technology to capture and store carbon dioxide to help industrial sectors reduce emissions and meet Britain’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, the document said.

Green groups welcomed the pledge but said more detailed policies are needed for the net

Johnson

zero target to be met.

“To set us on track to meeting the net zero target, renewable generation needs to be tripled between now and 2030. So we will still need even more offshore and onshore wind and solar to plug the gap,” said John Sauven, executive director at Greenpeace UK.

Britain’s climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, said reaching the net zero target would require wholesale changes in the way that Britons travel, eat and consume electricity.

The main opposition Labour Party has also vowed to create a green industrial revolution if it wins power. Under its plans offshore wind capacity would also increase, with the government owning stakes in new projects.

Labour would also ramp up investment in electric vehicle charging and has proposed several other green measures including plans to cut emissions from the residential heating sector.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Brexit Party has rejected an electoral pact with the ruling Conservatives, saying it will field 300 candidates in next month’s election to force Prime Minister Boris Johnson to deliver on promises of a clean break with the European Union.

Pressure

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said Thursday the party had to contest the seats to keep pressure on Johnson, rebuffing Conservative arguments that doing so risks splitting the pro-Brexit vote and helping parties that want to remain in the EU. His comments came on the final day for candidates to register for the Dec 12 election.

“What we’ve got so far in this campaign is for Boris to promise to change direction, what we now have to do is to hold him to account to make sure we get a proper Brexit, and that’s my job,” Farage said.

Britain is holding a national election on Dec 12 because Johnson wants to security a majority so he can take the UK out of the bloc by the next Brexit deadline of Jan 31. All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs.

Johnson has reached a Brexit deal with the EU but has not persuaded enough British lawmakers to pass it. The single-issue Brexit Party, meanwhile, prefers to leave the EU without a deal.

The Brexit Party earlier this week agreed not to run candidates 317 parliamentary seats currently held by Conservative lawmakers after Johnson pledged there would be no further extension of the Brexit deadline. But the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday that Farage rejected a last-minute strategic offer from the Conservatives to only put up token opposition in 40 key seats if the Brexit Party would stand aside in other constituencies.

Currently the Conservatives have 298 seats and the opposition Labour Party has 243. Analysts say to get a majority the Conservatives need to flip Labour seats in the north and east.

Farage noted that “there are very clearly seats in which we are the lead challenger and there are other seats in which they (the Conservatives) are the lead challenger to Labour.”

“We could have done a deal on that basis, but the priority for the Conservative Party, they do not want the Brexit Party to get seats in Parliament,’’ Farage said.