Missing policies to accelerate decarbonisation

Jonathan Murray, Acting Managing Director at Zemo Partnership, reflects on their recent report highlighting the policies need to accelerate transport decarbonisation, and reflects on the recent government Spending Review

I write at the end of a big week at Zemo – though, there’s never really a quiet week in this job! The launch of our report ‘Decarbonising UK Road Transport: Map of Missing Policies’ coincided with the much anticipated announcement of the Government’s Spending Review. 

We’d rather have avoided the clash of timings, of course, but as it happens the Spending Review announcement didn’t distract the attentions of the Parliamentarians present for our launch event in the House of Commons. Sarah Edward MP, who sits on the Business and Trade Select Committee, was a great host of the event while Olly Glover MP and Alex Mayer MP, both members of the Transport Select Committee, were very active participants. Chair of the Council for Net Zero Transport, Lord Deben, was also involved in what proved a very lively debate with a wide range of Zemo members and stakeholders about the key policies we need for the next stages of the transport transition.

GreenFleet has already reported on the headline elements of Zemo’s Map of Missing Policies but I’d recommend reading the full report (available on our website) for those of you interested in what our coalition of industry and other experts think are the main, current barriers to transport decarbonisation and what can be done to break them down.

The Spending Review is a critical moment in terms of the resources that will be available to support the transition, of course. The Review sets out departmental budgets for day‑to‑day spending until 2028‑29 (and until 2029‑30 for capital investment). 

Considering the general ‘mood music’ prior to the Review’s publication there were some suggestions that spending on initiatives to support the move to net zero might be scaled back. However, the outcome turned out to be a clear restatement of the Government’s commitment to the net zero transition and to the view that the UK’s industrial and economic future is dependent on our success in developing the green industries of the future. 

The Review focused on creating an attractive and supportive environment to encourage the large amounts of investment that will be needed - particularly in the UK’s energy and transport infrastructure – to deliver the low carbon transition.

The Review included £2.6bn of capital investment to “decarbonise transport” as “part of the Government’s clean energy mission”. £2.3bn is also allocated for investment in local transport grants to support “bus lanes, cycleways and congestion improvement measures” for areas outside the larger regions with mayors.

There is a lot more detail underlying these announcement to come, of course; we shall find out some of it in the Industrial Strategy,  expected to be announced around the end of June.

However, it’s already clear that this one (of the five) Government headline missions - to make Britain a “clean energy superpower” and “accelerate to net zero” - is supported at the Treasury.

What we need now is to enact those missing policies to speed us on our way!