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Huge job losses to follow Britain’s cut-back in renewable energy investment

Given the announcement today that unemployment has now reached 2.5 million, the potential loss of such a large number of jobs from the economy is likely to further weaken Britain’s ability to withstand a double-dip recession.

Scaled-down green investment bank is a disaster, guardian.co.uk, Nicholas Milton, 14 Dec 10, Chris Huhne’s admission that the green investment bank is likely to be no more than a “green bonds” fund not only jeopardises the future of Britain’s renewable energy industry and climate change targets, it will also finally lay to rest any pretence that this will be “the greenest government ever”. The announcement will also be a disaster for jobs,……

According to the report of Green Investment Bank Commission published in June, the financial commitment required for the UK to meet its renewable energy and climate change targets is unprecedented: levels of investment would need to rise to £550bn between now and 2020. By way of comparison, back in the 1990s, £11bn was invested in Britain’s “dash for gas”, which was considered a massive investment at the time.

The commission identified a number of market failures and barriers which meant that investing in a low carbon infrastructure and meeting the UK’s targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 could not be achieved without considerable state interventionthe UK’s targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 could not be achieved without considerable state intervention. It argued strongly that an act of parliament should be used to establish a green investment bank, which would open up investment by better managing risk. Scaling back the bank to the point proposed by Huhne not only threatens the transition to a low carbon economy, it also makes it very difficult for Britain’s to meet its demanding climate change targets…….

Yet is the effect on jobs – particularly on rapidly expanding green technologies such as offshore wind power, where Britain is a world leader – which will probably have the greatest long-term impact. .At the last election Labour said it would match £1bn of public money with £1bn from the private sector to finance a green investment bank, pointing to forecasts that an additional 400,000 jobs could be created in the low-carbon sector by 2015, taking the total figure to well over 1.2 million.

Given the announcement today that unemployment has now reached 2.5 million, the potential loss of such a large number of jobs from the economy is likely to further weaken Britain’s ability to withstand a double-dip recession.

Scaled-down green investment bank is a disaster | Nicholas Milton | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

December 16, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK