Boris Johnson has announced £350m is being made available to fund cut emissions in heavy industry and drive economic recovery.

Funding will help drive decarbonisation of heavy industry, construction, space and transport – helping to achieve the UK’s target to reach net-zero by 2050.

The investment comes ahead of the PM launching the first meeting of the Jet Zero Council which will bring together government, representatives from the environmental sector and the aviation and aerospace industry to tackle aviation emissions in line with the Government’s ambition to achieve the first ever zero emission long haul passenger plane.

The Prime Minister said: “We’ve made great strides towards our net-zero target over the last year, but it’s more important than ever that we keep up the pace of change to fuel a green, sustainable recovery as we rebuild from the pandemic.”

The projects set to receive funding will work on developing new technologies that could help companies switch to more energy-efficient means of production, use data more effectively to tackle the impacts of climate change, and help support the creation of new green jobs by driving innovation and growth in UK industries.

The package includes £139m to cut emissions in heavy industry by supporting the transition from natural gas to hydrogen power, and scaling up carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. A further £149m to drive the use of innovative materials in heavy industry and £26m to support advanced new building techniques in order to reduce build costs and carbon emissions in the construction industry.

Other areas given funding include a New National Space Innovation Programme which will have a major component of monitoring climate change and R&D in the automotive sector, to help companies take cutting edge ideas from prototype to market, including more efficient electric motors or more powerful batteries.

Over the past decade, the UK has cut carbon emissions by more than any similar developed country. In 2019, UK emissions were 42 per cent lower than in 1990, while the economy over the same period grew by 72 per cent.

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