The Prime Minister confirmed he plans to announce a commitment to scale back fossil fuels at the Tory conference in Manchester
Boris Johnson has confirmed plans for all of Britain’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2035 as he seeks to reduce the country’s dependence on gas and other fossil fuels.
The Prime Minister is expected to increase investment in renewable and nuclear energy as Britain faces an energy price surge.
He is expected to argue that taking all electricity from green sources would be a significant step towards the government’s ambition to hit net zero emissions by 2050.
Asked whether that was his plan on a visit in Manchester, the PM said: “Yes, it is.”
He added: “What I’m saying is we can do for our entire energy production by 2035 what we’re doing with internal combustion engines in vehicles by 2030.
“By 2030, you won’t be able to buy anymore a new hydrocarbon-fuelled internal combustion engine car and we’re going to move to clean power of one kind or another.”
He added: “What we’re also saying is that by 2035, looking at the progress we’re making in wind power, where we lead the world now in offshore wind, looking at what we can do with other renewable sources, carbon capture and storage with hydrogen potentially, we think that we can get to complete clean energy production by 2035.”
A No10 spokesman confirmed: “We are confirming that switch to renewables from 2035.”
It comes after the PM told The Times he would “deal with the cost of electricity and energy” by increasing “our clean energy generation”.
He told the newspaper: “Dealing with the cost of electricity and energy [is one of] the long-term things that government has got to do. We’ve got to get back into nuclear, we’ve got to increase our clean energy generation.
“That will bring the cost of energy down and bring down the cost of transport.”
It comes as millions of Brits face a ‘winter of discontent’, with the energy price cap rising by £139 on October 1 and likely to rise again in April.
HGV driver shortages have caused gaps in supply to supermarkets and triggered panic-buying of petrol, with many forecourts still struggling to keep up in London and the south east.
The Army began driving tankers today to get petrol to forecourts more quickly.
Source: The Mirror
