The UK industrial decarbonisation strategy revisited

Abstract

Since 2010, successive UK governments have produced various strategies for industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (‘decarbonise’). This paper scrutinises the most recent version that was published in March 2021: the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy (IDS). It contrasts the policy content of the IDS with previous industrial roadmaps, action plans and strategies (including the Clean Growth Strategy of 2017). In addition, it compares the proposals in the IDS with the latest recommendations of the UK government's independent Climate Change Committee, as well as drawing on lessons learned from the techno-economic assessments published by the author and his collaborators for a number of key ‘foundation industries’. The latter emit significant shares of UK industrial carbon dioxide (CO ₂) emissions: the iron and steel (∼25%), chemicals (∼19%), cement (∼8%), pulp and paper (∼6%) and glass (∼3%) sectors. They also produce about 28 Mt of materials per year, which are worth £52 billion to the UK economy, and account for ∼10% of UK total carbon dioxide emissions.