Chancellor Alistair Darling revealed his Pre-Budget Report this month, which included, among the hotly debated restrictions on bankers’ bonuses, a number of sustainability measures.

“To promote growth,” he said, “we need to invest in the dynamic sectors of the future – in digital, bio and low-carbon technology.”

Speaking in the first week of COP15, he called the UN Copenhagen negotiations a “historic opportunity for a universal agreement to tackle global warming.”

Proposals in the Treasury report for tackling climate change in the UK included:

• Smart meters to be rolled out by 2020
• A boiler ‘scrappage scheme’ to trade old boilers for a discount on a newer, more efficient model
• Additional £200m for an extra 75,000 homes to be insulated through the Warm Front scheme
• An average £900 a year tax-free payment to householders selling renewable energy back to the grid
• £160m from the Innovation Investment Fund and the Carbon Trust's Venture Capital scheme for low carbon projects
• £90m of UK investment in the European Investment Bank’s €6.5bn fund for green infrastructure projects
• Twice the investment previously pledged for Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration projects
• Extra funding for renewable energy

Feature coming in print version.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pbr09_completereport.pdf

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=409429&SubjectId=2