‘We are not hair shirt-wearing, tree-hugging mung bean-munching eco freaks’, says Boris Johnson at Climate Ambition summit

Boris Johnson outlined the UK’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution on Saturday.

Speaking at the virtually-held Climate Ambition summit, the Prime Minister said the UK is putting its “foot to the accelerator in a carbon friendly way” in its plans to cut greenhouse gases.

He continued: “We want to turn the UK into the Saudi Arabia of wind power generation – enough wind power by 2030 to power every one of our homes with electricity.”

Mr Johnson also said the UK was investing in massive solar programmes, hydrogen and banning new diesel and petrol cars by 2035.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“We want the UK and London to be the natural home of green finance, we want our homes to be progressively emitting less and less CO2 with more retrofitting of homes.”

He added: “Whatever the UK may be accused of lagging in we won’t be lagging in lagging.”

Mr Johnson said that the UK would be encouraging active travel and using the “relatively new miracle of carbon capture and storage” and “consecrating” 30% of its waters and 30% of its land surface to nature.

"We think nature, wild nature, is the best and most effective way of maintaining carbon in a natural balance,” he said.

“We do all of these things because they are right for the world, they are right for our country, but also because we know this green industrial revolution will generate hundreds of thousands of high-skilled, high-paid, good-quality jobs for generations to come.”

He added the UK had earmarked £11.6 billion in overseas aid to support green technology and decarbonisation across the planet.

The UK has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 68% on 1990s levels by 2030.

Mr Johnson said: “We are doing this not because we are hair shirt-wearing, tree-hugging mung bean-munching eco freaks – although I’ve got nothing against any of those categories and mung beans are probably delicious.”

Speaking at the Climate Ambition Summit, he said: “We are doing it because we know that scientific advances will allow us, collectively as humanity to save our planet and create millions of high-skilled jobs as we recover from Covid.”

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