Ditching fossil fuels will cost Britain £1.4TRILLION by 2050
DECARBONISING Britain by 2050 will cost £1.4trillion — the equivalent of £50,000 a household.
Tearing out gas boilers, cleaning up industry and switching to electric cars will all carry big price tags, a shock Treasury watchdog report warns.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak would have to impose carbon taxes to make up for the loss of fuel duty and other hits to its coffers when fossil fuels are ditched, the 242-page Office for Budget Responsibility study predicted.
Boris Johnson has vowed to reach Net Zero emissions by 2050 in a global bid to halt climate change.
But the OBR forecasts the bill will be £1.408trillion over 30 years — or £50,647 for every UK home.
The OBR reckons the state will have to find £344billion towards the cost.
Yet it insisted a large chunk of the bill — £1.086trillion — will be covered by savings as cars and homes become more energy efficient and cheaper to run.
That would mean a typical household playing £11,583 in three decades.
But the OBR warned doing nothing on climate change would have “catastrophic economic consequences”.
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Floods and other extreme weather disasters would wreak economic damage.
A scramble for resources globally might also spark war and mass migration that could harm Britain.
And the OBR said that acting sooner rather than later would be more cost-effective in the long run.
Vauxhal in £100m job boost
VAUXHALL is investing £100million in a factory revamp to build electric vehicles, safeguarding more than 1,000 jobs.
Its cash injection will secure the future of the Ellesmere Port site, built in 1962 and which once employed 12,000 people.
The future of the factory had been in doubt after the car-maker said its new Astra model would not be built there.
Now, electric vans will roll off the Cheshire line from next year, with electric cars for Vauxhall, Opel, Peugeot and Citroen to follow.
PM Boris Johnson said: “It’s a huge vote of confidence in our economy.”
It follows last week’s news that rival Nissan is to commit to producing its new electric cars in Sunderland.