Emissions from Britain's chemical sector have fallen by sixty percent, a figure that might suggest a green success story. But the Chemical Industries Association has issued a stark warning that more than ninety percent of this reduction came not from innovation or clean technology but from de-industrialisation and factory closures.
The chemicals sector is among the most energy-intensive industries in the United Kingdom, fuelling annual exports worth at least sixty-one billion pounds and employing more than one hundred and fifty thousand people. The industry body warns that without support, further job losses and factory closures are inevitable.
Robinson Brothers, a company that has operated on the same site for over one hundred and fifty years, exemplifies the crisis. The firm has endured world wars and economic catastrophes over the decades but warns that since the energy price shock of two thousand and twenty-two, it has already lost around one hundred jobs with more expected to follow.
Industry leaders accuse the government of trampling over manufacturing in its rush toward net zero targets. We are trying to gallop towards net zero and I think we are trampling over industries and stamping on them, one executive told GB News, reflecting widespread frustration in the sector.
Last week the government announced a three hundred and fifty million pound critical chemicals resilience fund to support strategically important producers. Business Secretary Peter Kyle described it as evidence of what a strategic state looks like. The Chemical Industries Association welcomed the announcement.
However, the industry is lobbying for further relief on carbon taxes levied on electricity generators, arguing that these costs are passed directly to energy-intensive manufacturers and make UK production uncompetitive compared with countries that do not impose similar levies.
The situation highlights a fundamental tension in climate policy: achieving emissions reductions through the closure of domestic industry simply offshores production and pollution to countries with lower environmental standards, while destroying jobs and economic capacity at home. The chemical sector argues that genuine green investment, not de-industrialisation, should be the path to net zero.