Almost 200 climate tech leaders have signed a joint letter calling on the next government to put climate change at the heart of their agenda ahead of the general election.
Addressed to the leaders of the main political parties, the letter’s signatories included climate entrepreneur Michelle You, Aniruddha Sharma, CEO of greenhouse gas removal firm Carbon Clean, and Christian Hernandez, founder of ClimateTech VC 2150.
The letter, organised by lobby group the Startup Coalition, describes the need for climate to be at the centre of the agenda as an “environmental and economic imperative”.
While all the main political parties have committed to delivering on net zero, their approach and timelines vary.
The Conservatives have confirmed they will invest £1.1bn through a Green Industries Growth Accelerator as part of an “affordable and pragmatic transition to net zero” by 2050.
Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party’s climate plans centre around their new £8.3bn nationalised Energy company, GB Energy, which will support their goal of reaching net zero in the energy grid by 2030.
Dr Enass Abo-Hamed MBE, co-founder and CEO of H2GO, said: “The time is right to address all the changes and challenges climate change presents to us and the opportunity technology that is produced in this country has to offer.
“We need the new government to embrace that and work with all of us to accelerate the progress we need to make as a nation on climate change.”
According to Startup Coalition’s 2024 ClimateTech Index, UK-based startups and scaleups innovating to combat climate change are worth at least £26bn and currently employ over 24,000 people.
The letter states that accelerating the growth of this sector “requires a comprehensive and joined-up policy agenda that makes the UK the best place in the world to found a climate tech business which can then scale, commercialise and export to other markets.”
The post Startups call on next government to prioritise climate tech appeared first on UKTN.
