UK Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt has said US President Joe Biden’s inflation reduction bill is an try and “catch up” on investment in clean energy.
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UK Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said on Friday that the US Inflation Reduction Act was an attempt by US President Joe Biden to “catch up” on clean energy investment after years of neglect by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Hunt told CNBC that the US has seriously underinvested in the green transition under climate change skeptic Trump and is only now implementing programs that exist already in the UK
“We’ve to comprehend that the US is coming from behind,” CNBC’s Tanvir Gill told the G-20 meeting in Bengaluru, India.
They’d a president before that who was very skeptical… so there is a little bit of a catch-up happening in the US
Jeremy Hunt
UK finance minister
“Previously, they’d a president who was very skeptical of anything to do with climate change, so there is a little bit of a catch-up happening in the United States,” he said.
Trump has been very vocal in denial of climate change while in office, often dismissing the warnings of climate scientists and famously withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement inside his first months in office.
Asked if the UK was motivated to disclose recent business incentives to compete with the US’s $369 billion climate and energy package, the chancellor said the UK would do things “its own way”.
“We are going to be certain that the UK continues to be a really attractive place for all clean energy investments, but we’ll do it another way, our way,” he said.
Around 40% of UK energy got here from renewables in 2022, up from 35% in 2021. report by researchers at Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights.
“They do not have things we have had for a few years, like carbon pricing,” Hunt said, referring to a mechanism that puts a levy on organizations’ carbon emissions and offers incentives to supply less.
“We’re very happy with the progress we now have made and can proceed to blaze trails,” he added.
Hunt’s comments put pressure on Europe to enhance its competitiveness in green technology industries.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Saturday that the European Union is working on a package of subsidies for European cleantech firms to “level the planning field” with the US
“For us, the task now is to match the US subsidies in the European Union as well, because we must always not forget that all of us need a cleantech sector,” von der Leyen told CNBC at the Munich Security Conference.