CGTN Europe interviewed Kingsmill Bond, Energy Strategist for Ember
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00:00Separate research by Imperial College London shows that the UK is set to
00:04overtake Canada and France this year to become the leading low-carbon economy in
00:10the G7. Kingsmill Bond is an energy strategist at the think tank Ember and
00:15joins us now. Hello. So the UK net zero sector growing three times faster than
00:21the overall UK economy. Why is it leaping ahead and who gets to take the credit?
00:26Well this is a global phenomenon. All over the world we're seeing people
00:32grabbing huge amounts of growth as solar and wind and EV and heat pump and
00:39electrification industries surge in growth everywhere from China to Europe
00:43to United States to the global south and the UK we're also taking part in
00:49that great race. Is the current pace of growth in the UK enough to get us to the
00:54goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 though? Well whether
01:00or not it's enough to get us to net zero is some kind of secondary to the huge
01:05amount of growth and jobs which are being created. I think it's very hard to
01:10look forward 25 years but the main point is that we need to get on with deploying
01:14these technologies and finding the solutions before our global competitors
01:19do and as we do that then new opportunities will open up but it makes
01:22it possible, makes net zero possible. What's opening the way? Is it government
01:28policy or is it investors making the push? The main thing that's opening the
01:33way is the very rapid fall in the costs of clean energy technologies in large
01:41part because of the investment made by China and the falling costs of the
01:46technologies coming out of China. People are deploying these
01:50technologies, the solar panels, the cheap electric vehicles, the cheap wind
01:55turbines, the cheap electrification technologies and they're able to do
02:01so at much lower cost than the fossil fuel alternative and that in turn drives
02:05growth. Yeah you're saying earlier it's a global phenomenon but also Imperial
02:09College research suggesting the UK is going to soon overtake Canada and France
02:15as the leading low-carbon economy in the G7. What is the UK doing differently to
02:22give it that edge in competitiveness? So well one thing the UK does have to its
02:28advantage is we've got adults in the room running the show and so the
02:34policies of Ed Miliband and this current government to drive solar and wind
02:40deployment have been very effective. That's the primary reason why one of
02:45the primary reasons why we've been able to overtake our competition but
02:49we shouldn't sit on our laurels. Don't forget that we're doing a lot of work to
02:53decarbonize the electricity system but we're not yet electrifying the economy.
02:58That's stage two and I think this is something that the government needs to
03:02focus on considerably more to the second vector of the energy transition to
03:07electrify stuff that's heat and transport and and every other aspect of
03:12the economy. All right thank you so much for your views that's Kingsmill Bond an
03:16energy strategist at the think tank EMBA.