Commenting on UK’s Department for Transport’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan, Maritime UK Chief Executive, Ben Murray, said that despite being bigger than aviation and rail combined, maritime has been largely overlooked.
Cleaner air and tens of thousands of new green jobs are set to become reality according to the UK’s Transport decarbonisation plan.
The plan provides a ‘greenprint’ to cut emissions from UK’s seas and skies, roads and railways, setting out a pathway for the whole transport sector to reach net zero by 2050.
Cleaner transport will create and support highly skilled jobs, with the production of zero emission road vehicles alone having the potential to support tens of thousands of jobs worth up to £9.7 billion GVA in 2050.
As part of this vision, the government announced its intention to phase out the sale of new diesel and petrol heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) by 2040, subject to consultation – combined with the 2035 phase out date for polluting cars and vans, this represents a world-leading pledge to phase out all polluting road vehicles within the next 2 decades.
The consultation proposes a 2035 phase out date for vehicles weighing from 3.5 to 26 tonnes and 2040 for vehicles weighing more than 26 tonnes – or earlier if a faster transition seems feasible.
However, Mr. Murray notes that:
No headline commitments and no money to get on with the task in front of us. Government has led the way in setting stretching targets, but as yet we have no clear path to meeting them
As he explains, the TDP rightly recognises that power points need be installed around the coast, but there is no reason to delay getting on and installing them.
From the recent Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, we know there is real appetite and capability across the UK’s maritime industries for identifying the solutions to propel net zero vessels. If we are to level up our coastal communities and bring shipbuilding home, we need government to do what other maritime nations do, and invest in research and innovation on a scale similar to UK automotive and aviation
For this reason, Maritime UK said that the maritime sector is ready to work intensively with government to kick-start the decarbonisation of the sector and realise the ambitions of the Transport Decarbonisation Plan.
