Millions of jobs may need retraining or replacing if UK is to hit 'net zero' target

Some 43 per cent of workers in the so-called 'red wall' of former Labour constituencies in the North and Midlands, as well as 38 per cent in Yorkshire, work in currently high-emitting industries, according to analysis by Onward.

The think-tank today launches a cross-party programme of research to understand the political and practical challenges to achieving net zero by 2050, and to develop policies to help people and places who may be disrupted in the transition.

Former Don Valley MP Caroline Flint, who co-chairs the Getting to Zero programme, said: “The challenge of net zero is immense; the deadlines are rushing towards us. This requires faster decision making than we are used to in British politics, as we change our industries, our homes, how we get from place to place and the very energy we use."

She added: "In cleaning up our act, no community should be left behind. They will all have to be part of the journey and share the benefits."

In June 2019, the UK became the first major country to legislate for a net-zero target for carbon emissions by 2050, with China, Japan, France and South Korea since announcing net zero emissions targets.

With the USA expected to join the club in 2021, more than three fifths of global CO2 emissions, and three quarters of global GDP will shortly be subject to legally binding net zero targets.

The UK’s manufacturing, industrial, heat and electricity sectors have all decarbonised by around half since 1990, the highest rates in the G7 of the world's seven largest so-called advanced economies.

Over the same period, China and India have seen their manufacturing and industrial emissions grow by 370 per cent and 280 per cent respectively and China’s emissions from heat and electricity have risen 540 per cent.

The UN Climate Summit takes place in Glasgow in November and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to use the event to advance his own domestic agenda including investing in green technology.

A report by Onward to mark the launch of the research project said achieving 'net zero', when the amount of greenhouse gas produced is balanced out by what is removed from the atmosphere, will affect all parts of the UK in different ways.

A foreword by Mrs Flint and co-chair Dame Caroline Spelman, a former Environment Secretary under David Cameron, said the country must not be naive about the changes in behaviour needed and the political trade offs that will follow.

They wrote: "It is undeniable, too, that many jobs will be lost, totemic industries will become unviable and the prices for some goods may rise. And perhaps most notably, given divisions in Britain today, these changes will affect different places in markedly different ways - as the South Yorkshire industries and Midlands auto manufacturers we used to represent in Parliament will testify."

Onward research suggests the UK’s least prosperous regions disproportionately rely on heavily emitting industries for jobs at present. The East Midlands has the highest proportion of jobs in high emitting industries at 42 per cent, closely followed by the West Midlands (41 per cent), Yorkshire and the Humber (38 per cent), and the North West (38 per cent).

In contrast, London and the South East have the lowest proportion of jobs in high emitting industries, with 23 per cent and 34 per cent respectively. The more rural a constituency is, the more its local economy relies on high emitting jobs.

Some sectors in Yorkshire have already embraced the 'net zero' agenda, with major investment in wind, biofuels and renewable energy around the Humber estuary.

The research will spend the next nine months ahead of COP26 looking at three aspects of the net zero transition: how to decarbonise existing industries; how to retrain and upskill workers at risk of disruption; and how to create the regulatory and financial conditions for innovation.