The Clean Growth Strategy: Leading the Way to a Low Carbon Future

Seizing the clean growth opportunity. The move to cleaner economic growth is one of the greatest industrial opportunities of our time. This Strategy will ensure Britain is ready to seize that opportunity. Our modern Industrial Strategy is about increasing the earning power of people in every part of the country. We need to do that while not just protecting, but improving the environment on which our economic success depends. In short, we need higher growth with lower carbon emissions. This approach is at the heart of our Strategy for clean growth. The opportunity for people and business across the country is huge. The low carbon economy could grow 11 per cent per year between 2015 and 2030, four times faster than the projected growth of the economy as a whole. This is spread across a large number of sectors: from low cost, low carbon power generators to more efficient farms; from innovators creating better batteries to the factories putting them in less polluting cars; from builders improving our homes so they are cheaper to run to helping businesses become more productive. This growth will not just be seen in the UK. Following the success of the Paris Agreement, where Britain played such an important role in securing the landmark deal, the transition to a global low carbon economy is gathering momentum. We want the UK to capture every economic opportunity it can from this global shift in technologies and services.
Our approach to clean growth is an important element of our modern Industrial Strategy: building on the UK’s strengths; improving productivity across the country; and ensuring we are the best place for innovators and new businesses to start up and grow. A good example of this is offshore wind, where costs have halved in just a few years. A combination of sustained commitment – across different Governments – and targeted public sector innovation support, harnessing the expertise of UK engineers working in offshore conditions and private sector ingenuity, has created the conditions for a new industry to flourish, while cutting emissions. We need to replicate this success in sectors across our economy. This Strategy delivers on the challenge that Britain embraced when Parliament passed the Climate Change Act. If we get it right, we will not just deliver reduced emissions, but also cleaner air, lower energy bills for households and businesses, an enhanced natural environment, good jobs and industrial opportunity. It is an opportunity we will seize.