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Climate change ‘set to disrupt up to 10m jobs’ The UK’s climate change targets threaten almost twice as many jobs in the Midlands and north as in London and the south east, a recently published report says. Up to 10m jobs will be disrupted by the UK’s legally binding commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050 and 52 per cent are concentrated in the north, Midlands or Scotland, the research found. The poorest regions could be hit hardest by the race to cut emissions. This will be a fresh blow for places that were blighted by deindustrialisation in the 1980s and 1990s, the report by think tank Onward, warns. The authors said that the results showed the need for a government plan to “smooth the transition” for communities that rely heavily on carbon-intensive industries and face by far the greatest threat. But as the UK goes further and faster to delivering net zero there will increasingly be geographic, political and economic trade offs that need to be better understood and mitigated. Looking at the distribution of jobs in industries that contribute more than 2 per cent of UK carbon emissions, Onward finds that the UK’s least prosperous regions disproportionately rely on heavily emitting industries for jobs at present. The East Midlands has the highest proportion of jobs in high emitting industries (42 per cent). This region is closely followed by the West Midlands (41 per cent), Yorkshire and the Humber (38 per cent), and the North West (38 per cent). In contrast, London and the South East have the lowest proportion of jobs in high emitting industries, with 23 per cent and 34 per cent, respectively.
GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Efficiency at heart of Ten Point Plan Improving the energy efficiency of buildings is a key part of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a green industrial revolution. He is emphasising the employment potential of “making our homes, schools and hospitals greener, warmer and more energy efficient.” During the present decade, he has committed the UK to reducing emissions by 68 per cent since 1990, increasing earlier targets by over 10 per cent. However, within days the Chancellor of the Exchequer had issued a document which revealed in its small print that next year will see a near 90 per cent drop in size of the government’s flagship Green Homes grant programme for England. Originally started last October, the programme is backed by £1.5bn of grant support for just the six months to this March. The Prime Minister described it in a speech to the United Nations as “huge, very, very ambitious.” It would, Mr Johnson promised, “be changing the windows, changing the boilers, changing the lagging. “Indeed, he chortled that “we will never be caught lagging on lagging.” Some 600,000 existing homes are
officially set to be energy improved during this period This initiative is intended to stimulate investment in energy efficiency equipment at the equivalent of £3bn a year. Installers have been urged to sign up to this programme, by becoming accredited with the TrustMark organisation. There has been much media criticism coming from householders regarding the scarcity of participating installers. Initial reluctance to expend timing and funds to register with TrustMark had largely been due to the short-term nature of the programme, together with a convoluted qualification mechanism of primary and secondary measures. The latter complication has led
to very few of the nation’s 10,000 glazing companies getting involved. Announcing expenditure plans for 2021/22, Chancellor Sunak made great play of the fact that he was responding to concerns about the programme ending after just six months, by promising it would continue until the end of March 2022. What he did not emphasise is that the second scheme will have a total budget of just £325m over the entire 12-month period. This means that the deemed expenditure and hence activity rate will be running at just 11 per cent of the first scheme, scheduled only for the current financial year. While the second year of the scheme will operate under broadly the same rules as currently, all funds allocated for the current financial year will have to be spent by the end of this March. There is no arrangement made to carry over any unspent funds to year 2021/2022. Next year’s diminished budget may well deter many more companies from signing up as trainers and installers. Particularly as there is as yet no public commitment to continue with any scheme at all to improve UK buildings after March 2022.
ePrivacy legislation could hamper clean energy sector There are warnings that proposed ePrivacy legislation currently under discussion would hamper many new business models in the clean energy sector. These models are almost all based on the collection and treatment of data by home equipment and smart meters, warns a sustainable energy campaign group. Consumers would need to give their prior consent to companies processing energy data from equipment installed in people’s homes. Anybody could revoke that consent at any moment, without advance notice. “This makes data processing for innovative energy services practically impossible, even where only business data is involved,” argues smartEn, an association for digital and decentralised energy solutions. “Almost all innovative business models in the energy sector are based on the processing of consumption, condition, and measurement of data. “ The campaign’s warning illustrates a shift in the public debate about data privacy in the digital age. Concerns over data protection have until now been centred largely on people’s internet browsing behaviour, advertising, social media, and platforms such as Uber or AirBnb. With the digitalisation of electricity, the debate now firmly enters the energy realm. “The ePrivacy concept is not just about cookies and online advertising. It could also have far-reaching
consequences for new business models in the energy sector,” said Frauke Thies, executive director of smartEn. “Innovative energy services rely on specific data, for example for energy management systems, e-mobility services and smart home applications which help consumers save money and support the clean energy transition,” she warned.
06 | ENERGY IN BUILDINGS & INDUSTRY | JANUARY 2021
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