5.13am EDT
05:13
Johnson: Heed consumer demand for green tech, and get prices down
4.51am EDT
04:51
Johnson: Covid-19 vaccine shows way to tackle climate
4.36am EDT
04:36
Johnson: Vaccine-induced confidence creating supply chain problems
3.57am EDT
03:57
GBP5,000 grants unveiled to support home heat pump installation
3.56am EDT
03:56
British households will be GBP1,000 worse off next year, thinktank warns
3.30am EDT
03:30
Johnson: Cop 26 will be extremely tough
3.17am EDT
03:17
CAA caps Heathrow passenger charge increase
5.24am EDT
05:24
During his speech, Boris Johnson said the UK had a responsibility to lead the world in decarbonising because as the first nation to industrialise.
Or, as he dubbed it,
“we were the first to knit the deadly tea cosy of C02 that is now driving climate change”.
The PM says the UK is making “big bets” on electric vehicles and gigafactories for battery production, and also singles out hydrogen:
“Hydrogen provides that grunt, so we are making big bets on hydrogen, we are making bets on solar and hydro, and, yes – of course – on nuclear as well, for our baseload.”
(@CNBCJulianna)
?? NEW from UK PM Boris Johnson: “The UK is the Saudi Arabia of #wind power and we are making big bets on #hydrogen. And #nuclear as well for our base load. We have pledged to switch entirely to green power generation by 2035.”
(@ManeeshJuneja)
“The UK is the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power,’ said Johnson, and the ‘Qatar of hydrogen’ to drive a net zero future.” #GlobalInvestmentSummit https://t.co/vm4cFlVdqI
However… there are concerns that the UK’s hydrogen strategy isn’t green enough, because ministers plan to use ‘blue hydrogen’ (derived from a fossil fuel, methane gas), as well as ‘green hydrogen’.
5.15am EDT
05:15
The crux of Johnson’s speech is that Britain is heading into a green industrial revolution, ‘turbocharged’ by Brexit freedoms and his levelling up agenda.
He runs through the familiar advantages to encourage investment — the UK’s timezone, language, rule of law, great universities, and the cultural and media footprint.
In a classic Johnson-ism, the PM says Peppa Pig teaching Americans children to pronounce ‘tomato’ the English way, and say petrol and mummy.
There are three contenders for the world number one – Adele, Coldplay, and Ed Sheeran, (a sign of Britain’s cultural heft).
And if you’re worried about the weather, he jokes, it rains more in Rome.
(@David_S_Cairns)
The UK will become the “Klondike of Carbon Capture and Storage” says @BorisJohnson @ London’s #GlobalInvestmentSummit. Our East Coast Cluster and @ZC_Humber will lead this. @Equinor_UK @DraxGroup @bp_plc @nationalgriduk @beisgovuk @GregHands @annietrev pic.twitter.com/InqUTdkFfY
And he rounds up by citing the scene in Trading Places when the investors stop panicking, and shift from a ‘sell, sell, sell’ mentality to ‘buy, buy, buy’.
Now’s the time to buy into the UK…..
Updated
at 5.15am EDT
5.13am EDT
05:13
Johnson: Heed consumer demand for green tech, and get prices down
Johnson calls on business leaders to heed the growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly properties.
The market is going green, the PM insists. People know we have technological solutions, and they want to buy them.
Johnson says that consumers know that the price of electric vehicles, heat pumps and solar panels will come down sharply, as we’ve already seen with microwaves and mobile phones.
(@LouisaClarence)
Boris Johnson calls on business leaders to listen to consumer demand for green technology
“They know that one day we will be able to bring down the cost of EVs..solar panels in the way that we made microwaves” affordable #GlobalInvestmentSummit
The PM adds that when he was a child, 80% of UK energy came from coal, now it’s less than 1%. [although it hit a one-month high last week, when weak wind speeds hit renewable output].
Updated
at 5.13am EDT
4.51am EDT
04:51
Johnson: Covid-19 vaccine shows way to tackle climate
Johnson hails AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, and the Welsh bottling plant which got the Oxford Covid vaccine out to the UK.
That factory in Wrexham is owned by the Indian firm Wockhardt, who Johnson says it named after the founder’s family motto to work hard.
It was that spirit of hard work that made the vaccine success possible, Johnson continues, arguing that the investors, shareholders, bankers also played a role.
It was free market capitalism that helped the world develop the most effective vaccines, Johnson declares.
The formula of “Innovation, capitalism, and a strong government lead” is needed again to tackle an even bigger challenge — climate change.
Pointing to the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, Johnson says.
The lesson of Covid is absolutely clear. We have to listen to the scientists, they’ve very often right you know.
We need urgent government action.
But we must mobilise the markets, we must bring in the private sector.
I can deploy billions, with the approval of the chancellor*, Johnson deadpans.
But the investors here today represent $24trn — and the PM says each of those dollars is “very welcome to the UK”.
* – That’s not a joke. Confidential documents leaked to the Observer last weekend showed an extraordinary rift between Johnson and Rishi Sunak over the potential economic effects of moving towards a zero-carbon economy.
The Treasury is warning of serious economic damage to the UK economy and future tax rises if the UK overspends on, or misdirects, green investment, which green experts warn is a ‘one-sided’ view that doesn’t take in benefits such as green jobs, lower energy bills and avoiding the disastrous impact of global heating.
Updated
at 5.00am EDT
4.36am EDT
04:36
Johnson: Vaccine-induced confidence creating supply chain problems
Prime minister Boris Johnson is speaking at the Summit now.
He starts by citing the display at the Science Museum, such as the Spinning Jenny, as an example of successful innovation.
They are the cornflakes that got to the top of the packet, like those of you in the audience, says Johnson, trying to charm the global investors attending today’s shindig.
He hails the UK’s development of the Covid-19 vaccine within a year — it is thanks to that vaccine protection that can meet at the summit and even shake hands again.
The ‘lightning speed’ of the vaccine rollout was due to several factors, Johnson says.
Scientists at a great university (my own, Johnson mentions immodestly) created an affordable room-temperature vaccine, the government struck a ‘fantastic deal’ that will see 1.5bn doses sent overseas, and the NHS and volunteers who injected it into the nations arms.
But there was another factor: Free-market capitalism – the willingness to spend masses sums at risk on something which might not come off.
Johnson also argues that ‘vaccine-induced confidence’ is causing the current stresses and strains in global supply chains, with demand surging as economies reopen.
And he says the UK is on track for the fastest growth in any advanced economy next year, according to the OECD.
[However, that follows one of the worst slumps of any advanced economy in 2020, and the IMF warned last week that the coronavirus crisis will bring more longer-lasting damage to the UK economy than any other country in the G7]
4.15am EDT
04:15
The Global Investment Summit is under way at the Science Museum in London.
There’s a live feed at the top of this blog.
4.15am EDT
04:15
Over in China, the coal price is surging amid the global energy crunch.
(@JavierBlas)
Coal prices are going parabolic in China, with futures climbing 110% since Sep 1 to almost 2,000 yuan per tonne today (~$300). Coal for prompt delivery in the physical market is trading much higher. To put it in context, Newcastle and Richards Bay coal trades ~$230 per tonne pic.twitter.com/hrotNxlv1f
(@JavierBlas)
The rally is so spectacular that thermal coal prices in China are nearing the price of oil. Measured in barrel of oil equivalent, Chinese coal futures are at about $77 a barrel, compared to WTI-Brent crude trading currently at $82-85 a barrel
Prices are rocketing, after Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng last week ordered state-owned energy giants to secure fuel supplies for winter at any cost, with Beijing planning to build more coal-fired power plants.
4.09am EDT
04:09
With the Christmas rush approaching, Asda is seeking to recruit 15,000 people to help with the busiest time of the year for retail.
The supermarket giant will be hiring the temporary workers for a raft of roles in its stores and depots and for its home delivery service.
About 500 jobs will be based in depots and 1,500 will be home delivery roles, with the remainder being in stores across the UK. More here:
(@PA)
Asda is seeking to recruit 15,000 people to help with the busy Christmas period https://t.co/xZFPnatiYd
3.57am EDT
03:57
GBP5,000 grants unveiled to support home heat pump installation
Peter Walker
Ministers have unveiled plans for GBP5,000 grants to allow people to install home heat pumps and other low-carbon boiler replacements as part of a wider heat and buildings strategy that some campaigners warned lacked sufficient ambition and funding.
Labour also condemned the plans as “more of Boris Johnson‘s hot air”, without sufficient substance.
Details for the scheme, to be formally set out on Tuesday alongside the government’s net-zero strategy, include GBP450m committed towards grants to replace boilers, with a pledge that the fund will mean heat pumps should cost no more than boilers to install or run.
More widely, the heat and buildings strategy contains a commitment to funding totalling GBP3.9bn to decarbonise buildings and how they are heated, with a confirmed 2035 target for all new heating systems in UK homes to be energy-efficient.
With the crucial Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow starting in a fortnight, the business and energy secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said recent gas price rises “have highlighted the need to double down on our efforts to reduce Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels and move away from gas boilers over the coming decade”.
He said:
“As the technology improves and costs plummet over the next decade, we expect low-carbon heating systems will become the obvious, affordable choice for consumers.”
However, some environmental groups said more urgent action was needed. Caroline Jones, of Greenpeace UK, said efforts to decarbonise housing were being hampered by “unambitious policies and inadequate funding”. She said:
“More money must be provided to rapidly increase the number of homeowners switching to heat pumps over the next few years, with full costs covered for families on low incomes.
“A clearer signal would have been a phase-out of new boilers before 2035. And all of this must be delivered with a fully funded, nationwide programme to insulate our homes at a scale and speed that the government hasn’t fully grasped.”
3.56am EDT
03:56
British households will be GBP1,000 worse off next year, thinktank warns
Richard Partington
British households will be GBP1,000 worse off next year from a cost of living squeeze created by rising energy prices and shortages of workers and supplies caused by Covid and Brexit, a leading thinktank has warned.
The Resolution Foundation said higher levels of inflation would weigh down workers’ earnings next year, contributing to a hit to the average household income in Britain at a time when the government is cutting benefits and raising taxes.
It said the average household disposable income, after adjusting for inflation, would be about 2% lower by the end of 2022 relative to forecasts made in March by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), before the surge in shop and energy bill prices.
Although the OBR had predicted that household disposable income would rise in 2022, the Resolution Foundation said soaring inflation would mean households would have GBP1,000 less than originally forecast.
“Higher inflation reduces the amount of goods and services that households are able to afford, eroding the real value of incomes.”
3.51am EDT
03:51
Britain is deploying its trump card, the Queen, as it tries to woo the world’s largest financial institutions to invest in the UK.
Top investors and business leaders attending today’s investment summit will travel to Windsor Castle for a reception attended by the Queen and other senior royals.
The government hopes that the royal touch, of drinks and canapes at the Castle, will go down well with investors.
The UK is tussling with other European nations to secure green investment deals, notably Paris. France holds an investment summit in recent years — this summer’s gathering saw 22 new investment projects representing EUR3.5bn announced.
3.44am EDT
03:44
Boris Johnson also told Bloomberg that the UK won’t “pitchfork away” investment approaches from China, saying:
China is a gigantic part of our economic life and will be for a long time — for our lifetimes — but that does not mean that we should be naive in the way that we look at our critical national infrastructure, the way you look at — you mentioned nuclear power — you mentioned 5G technology, those are all legitimate concerns that any government, many, many other governments around the world have.
Last month, we reported that ministers were close to removing China from the project to build a GBP20bn nuclear power station at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast.
Johnson also argued that the City has a bright future, despite some major City firms moving jobs abroad since Brexit (such as JPMorgan’s new trading hub in Paris).
Johnson insisted that “far fewer” jobs have actually moved than had been suggested:
The City of London is crucial not just for our country but for the whole of Europe and for this hemisphere and that’s why — for the world — and that’s why I think it’s profoundly in the interests of our partners to ensure that we do have good relations, we do continue to see proper flow of capital and services between London and all the other parts of Europe, and I’m sure that that will continue.
If you want to raise money around Europe, if you want to finance your merger or whatever it is, London is still the place to come and always, always will be.
3.30am EDT
03:30
Johnson: Cop 26 will be extremely tough
Boris Johnson has given an interview to Bloomberg, in which he warns that the COP 26 global climate talks taking place in Glasgow at the end of the month will be “extremely tough”.
Asked about his goals for the summit (which China’s Xi Jinping seems unlikely to attend), Johnson says he’s hoping for a “good turnout”, and to “keep 1.5 alive” (the goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees celsius).
Johnsons says:
I think COP was always going to be extremely tough, we’re hoping that we’ll get a good turnout in spite of the pandemic. What we want people to focus on is their nationally determined contributions, in reducing their CO2, making those hard pledges. Plus we want commitments on coal, cars, cash and trees. So we want the world to move away from coal by 2040 (2030 for the developed nations).
We want to make sure that everyone stops using hydrocarbon-fueled internal combustion engine cars and the U.K.’s in the lead there, we said that we would stop that by 2030. We want a big package for the developing world to help countries that haven’t been historic emitters to cut their carbon so we need that 100 billion dollars a year, we need that 100 billion dollars, and the last thing is we want to make sure we plant millions and millions of trees to help to fix the carbon and to restore the balance of nature so those are the — we need the nationally determined contributions, we need to keep 1.5 alive, we need to restrict the growth in temperatures to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.
We think that with the commitments that we’re seeing we could, we could do it but we’re going to need to see some real action from the participants in Glasgow.
(@ZSchneeweiss)
Boris Johnson sees ‘extremely tough’ global climate talks in Glasgow https://t.co/8Tbno7wfuW via @elashton pic.twitter.com/ljQGjp0cWZ
However, the signs ahead of Cop26 are’t encouraging, with some sponsors unhappy that the climate summit is “mismanaged” and “very last minute”…
3.17am EDT
03:17
CAA caps Heathrow passenger charge increase
The UK’s aviation regulator is curbing Heathrow’s bid to sharply raise passenger charges, as the country’s busiest airport tried to recover from the economic shock of the pandemic.
The Civil Aviation Authority has proposed this morning that Heathrow could raise its price per passenger to between GBP24.50 and GBP34.40 over the next five years.
The range is planned to come in effect from summer 2022, with an interim cap of GBP30 being introduced at the beginning of the year.
Previously the charge was set at GBP22, so this is still a significant increase – which will ultimately be paid by passengers as airlines add the cost to the price of tickets.
But, Heathrow has been pushing for the cap be set at between GBP32 and GBP43 per passenger, as it looks to rebound from the plunge in revenues during the pandemic.
That move, though, was opposed by airlines who didn’t want to face raising ticket prices to cover higher airport charges, as they also try to recover from Covid-19.
The CAA said its proposals, which will be finalised next year, struck the right balance between consumer interests and the airport.
Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said:
“While international air travel is still recovering, setting a price control for Heathrow Airport against the backdrop of so much uncertainty means we have had to adapt our approach.
Our principal objective is to further the interests of consumers while recognising the challenges the industry has faced throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. These initial proposals seek to protect consumers against unfair charges, and will allow Heathrow to continue to appropriately invest in keeping the airport resilient, efficient and one that provides a good experience for passengers.
(@UK_CAA)
Our role as a regulator is to protect consumers. In doing that we set the maximum amount Heathrow Airport can charge airlines to use the airport, which is then included in airline ticket prices.
We are currently consulting on what the charge will be for the next five years. pic.twitter.com/mtV1rwETET
Updated
at 3.31am EDT
3.14am EDT
03:14
Introduction: Top financiers and executives attend Global Investment Summit
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.
Some of the biggest names in business are in town today as the UK pushes for foreign investment in green industries of the future.
Boris Johnson is hosting a one-day Global Investment Summit (GIS) where Britain will try to secure global partnerships to support green growth, with more than 200 of the world’s financiers and executives expected to attend.
Bill Gates, Goldman Sachs boss, David Solomon; JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Barclays CEO, Jes Staley, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman are among the attendees.
Prime minister Boris Johnson will be pitching the case for global investment in UK companies, based on green technology and finance.
Johnson is due to announce GBP9.7bn of “new foreign investment” in the UK has been secured at the Global Investment Summit, creating at least 30,000 new jobs.
However, the top three “green growth” projects highlighted by the prime minister – and worth a combined GBP8.5bn – have already been announced by the companies involved.
The list includes Spanish utility group Iberdrola investing GBP6bn in the East Anglia Hub offshore windfarm through its ScottishPower Renewables. The plan, which is said to create 7,000 jobs, was reported back in February — and is subject to securing planning consent and a government subsidy contract (a Contract for Difference).
Iberdrola’s Chairman, Ignacio Galan, says this project would help the UK hit its climate goals:
We share the ambition of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan and, following the stable and predictable UK framework, we are committed to playing our part. Our GBP6bn investment in the East Anglia Hub would be a significant step to achieving enough offshore wind to power every UK home by 2030.
Johnson hopes to get more deals nailed down:
We will see new partnerships for green growth forged at today’s Global Investment Summit, as we look ahead to COP26 and beyond.
Last night, the PM hosted an exclusive dinner for some of the world’s most influential business leaders on Monday evening as he urges them to provide a “rocket boost” for “global Britain”.
He looked to woo top investors with a power dinner prepared by the Michelin three-star chef Clare Smyth, which included canapes of jellied eel, chicken liver parfait, pumpkin and white truffle gougeres.
Smyth’s signature starter of potato and roe, a main course of venison cooked with 16-year-old whisky, and lemon and pear meringue was also on the menu.
Also coming up today…
Shareholders in supermarket group Morrisons are expected on Tuesday to approve a GBP7bn billion pound offer by U.S. private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, ending a long takeover battle
The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee will question representatives of the UK’s haulage, manufacturing and food and drink industries on the UK’s supply chain disruption and shortages, and their impact on households and companies.
The agenda
9am: UK hosts Global Investment Summit
10.30am BST: BEIS committee hearing on the impact of supply chain delays on UK businesses and consumers
1.30pm BST: US building permits and housing starts for September
Updated
at 3.19am EDT
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