Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says plans to remove a million tonnes of carbon emissions from his region's economy are "in the balance" because of a lack of support from Boris Johnson's Government.
Speaking on the eve of the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, which starts today, the mayor says the net zero agenda to cut harmful emissions is a chance to "reindustrialise the North of England" by creating new green industrial bases.
Greater Manchester leaders last month unveiled their "accelerated plan for carbon reduction" to cut emissions by a million tonnes over three years and achieve net zero for the region by 2038, 12 years before the Government's 2050 target for the UK.
This would see 850,000 tonnes of carbon removed with the help of a huge programme of retrofitting, the practice of modifying existing homes and buildings and helping to insulate them to make them more energy-efficient.
A further 100,000 tonnes could be saved, according to the strategy, by overhauling public transport and creating what Mr Burnham hopes will be the UK's fully 'zero carbon' public transport system with more electrified vehicles.
But the mayor said the plan needed the Government's backing in the spending review and Budget delivered by the Chancellor last week.
And he told The Northern Agenda politics newsletter that he "didn't hear enough" in Rishi Sunak's speech "to give us that confidence that it can move at the pace required".
He said: "[We need} investment now, so that we can get retrofitting moving, we can build the skills, we can start the pipeline of work, it has to happen now.
"It's about investments now to pump-prime the thing. With retrofitting, the public sector can do the early stages but then later once you build the skills base, you've established the network etc then the private sector can take over the latter stages. It's going to be hard without that early upfront substantial investment in the changes needed.
"On transport, with the right funding, we have said to government we can remove a million tonnes of carbon from the economy in the spending review period. But there are still some doubts as to whether we will get that release of funding in transport and housing and other areas as well.
"I don't think we can afford to be less ambitious. We need to get the support that we've been led to believe we'll get in full and we need to move now basically. It's in the balance, we'll have to keep making the case to government and we'll have to make the best of whatever comes.
"This is an opportunity to reindustrialise the North but also to level it up because they are one and the same thing. If you have a major retrofitting programme, you improve people's homes, you create loads of good jobs, you create prosperity that way. You also narrow inequality."
Mr Burnham travelled up to Glasgow this weekend and will be appearing at COP26 today and tomorrow. He said one of the messages he wanted to take to the event was that it was possible to achieve net zero and the Government's 'levelling up' ambitions at the same time if the right investments are made.
He said the huge retrofitting programme like what is planned in Greater Manchester could offer people "jobs for life" for the first time because of the long-term nature of the climate targets leaders hope to meet.
He wrote in the Sunday Mirror this weekend : "Retrofitting could also provide jobs with real longevity in the parts of the country which have suffered the most from the loss of traditional industry.
"At no point in my lifetime have I ever been able to tell young people that if they train in a particular set of skills that they’ll have a good chance of a job for life.
"But industry body Net Zero North West estimates that retrofitting could bring 200,000 jobs to our region. These people will then be equipped with skills they can take to other parts of the country."
But he said "serious acceleration" was now needed and warned that if the Government moves too slowly in supporting work in areas like home energy efficiency then the cost would fall on individuals, potentially widening inequalities.
The mayor said the unique geography and history of Northern England meant it could have "a cluster of pioneering future-facing industries across the whole of the North". He pointed to the work being done on green hydrogen in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region's efforts to harness tidal power as well as wind power in the North East.
He said Greater Manchester was looking at a mixture of different technologies in energy and transport rather than a "VHS vs Betamax winner-takes-all situation" - a reference to the 1980s battle between different formats of video recorder.
And while he admitted the introduction of new energy sources would come with an "upfront cost" they would ultimately be the answer to the current cost-of-living crisis rather than making it worse as it would replace the reliance on volatile fossil fuels with more sustainable sources of energy.
He said: "There is a right way of doing it and a wrong way. The wrong way is letting individuals shoulder the burden because that risks widening inequalities as a result of decarbonisation, and that is a real and present danger and it comes from government failing to provide significant upfront investment.
"From what I heard [in the Budget}, I don't think we did get sufficient upfront investment in pump-priming this major change."
The Budget speech on Wednesday contained only a short section on net zero in which the Chancellor said the Government's 'ambitious net zero strategy' would invest £30bn to create the new, green industries of the future.
As part of the strategy, homeowners will be able to apply for grants of up to £5,000 to install low-carbon heat pumps to replace gas boilers and there will be £620m in grants for electric vehicles and street charging points.
According to the government’s official climate advisers, the UK strategy to reach net zero emissions by 2050 is achievable and affordable.
The Climate Change Committee said the plan was the most comprehensive in the G20 and strengthened the position of the UK as it prepares to preside over the COP26 summit.
A Government spokesperson said: “Improving public transport is key to reaching net zero, and the Spending Review has committed £1.07bn to deliver transformative economic and environmental change in Greater Manchester by investing in integrated, cross-modal transport.
“We have also committed £1.2 billion in new funding to transform bus services across England, backed by a further £355 million of new funding into zero emission buses.”
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