Of the top five western European economies – France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK – the UK government has invested the least in green spending, and also comes out worst in terms of per capita green energy investment.
Greenpeace based its analysis on the International Energy Agency (IEA) government energy spending tracker, which focuses on investment over the period April 2020 to April 2023.
The analysis revealed that France, which has a similar population size to the UK, spends almost twice as much on green spending as a whole at $952.40 per capita, compared to the UK’s $494.43 per capita.
When breaking it down into sectors, the UK ranks worst out of the top five for total spend on low carbon and efficient transport, despite transport being the UK’s largest emitting sector for greenhouse gas emissions.
Compared to Italy and Germany, the UK is woefully behind with its $13.1bn investment in low carbon and energy efficient transport, whereas Italy spends $47.8bn and Germany $38.1bn.
Out of the five, the UK also comes out second to last in terms of energy efficient buildings and industry. France spends almost double what the UK spends at nearly $28.5bn, compared to the UK’s $14.6bn.
When broken down further to energy efficiency in the home, the UK spends $11.3bn, putting it again in second to last out of the big five.
“It’s clear that despite the government’s bluster, we are utterly failing on the world stage when it comes to green investment. Not only are the US and China leaving us in the dust in the race on green technology, we’re also doing terribly compared to our European neighbours,” said Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Georgia Whitaker.
“We urgently need a bold green industrial strategy to boost our flailing economy, help ordinary people with the cost of living, and tackle the climate crisis. Green infrastructure investment – with a focus on renewable energy, insulating our homes and making transport greener – would do just that.”
While recent data from the IEA reveals that global energy-related carbon emissions slowed down by 1.1% in 2023 compared to the previous year due to the continued expansion of renewables, global energy-related carbon emissions reached a record level of 37.4 billion tonnes in 2023. As such, there needs to be far greater efforts by governments to increase clean energy investment.
