Gauntlet for eco jobs thrown down by new Green Beast of Bolsover

At Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday, in response to a green gauntlet being thrown down by recently elected Conservative MP for Bolsover, Mark Fletcher, who asked for a “green enterprise zone” to be established in his former coal mining community to bring in “low-carbon manufacturing and research to [the] region, Boris Johnson enthusiastically replied: “The green recovery will be essential to this country’s success in the next few year.” [Q.902904]

This commitment followed close on your report on 3 June that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is planning to fund new  green jobs for workers who have lost their jobs in the 'coronacrisis'  business shut-down, and  will  financially back the  re-skilling of this environmentally–oriented  workforce.                                  

As it happens, the ‘UK Environmental Accounts: 2020’ (UKEA) were released by the Office for National Statistics on the same day.(www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-environmental-accounts-2020)

These report on the measuring of the contribution of the environment to the economy, the impact of economic activity on the environment, and society's response to environmental issues.

One intriguing finding was that, even before the huge transport lock down of early 2020 “There were reductions in GHG emissions by the energy supply and manufacturing sectors between 2017 and 2018 of around 4% and 2% respectively.”

The UKAE draws attention to two key sets of data on green jobs:

• The turnover in the UK low carbon and renewable energy economy (LCREE) was estimated to be £46.7 billion in 2018 (£40.4 billion in 2015).
• Employment in the UK LCREE was estimated to be 224,800 full-time equivalent (FTE) in 2018 (200,800 FTE in 2015).

(https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/finalestimates/2018#main-points)

This is an encouraging start on which to build a new green industrial economy in the UK.