SOME of the announcements in today's Budget have already been revealed in advance.
One was that there will be £20 billion of extra funding for measures to cut carbon emissions. The money will be focused on carbon capture projects and low carbon energy production. Benefitting particularly will be projects for the construction of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). These choices of what to fund are very controversial. Carbon capture is largely a technology that does not currently exist, and many environmentalists disagree with the government's claim that nuclear energy is "green" (although in my opinion it is probably necessary to have more nuclear power to enable a quick enough transition away from fossil fuels.)
As well as for the environmental impacts, another reason for this funding is the worry that the US government's huge recent green subsidies of over £300 bn are attracting firms to move their operations to the USA. Currently the UK has a competitive advantage in many climate change industries such as wind power, but there is fear that we could lose this to the USA. However, renewables are not receiving any of this additional funding and it may seem that the UK's sum of £20 bn is rather small compared to that of the USA.
Read the full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/10/jeremy-hunt-budget-cut-carbon-emissions-clean-energy-small-nuclear-reactors
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