Of the top five western European economies – France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK – the UK government has invested the least in green spending, and also comes out worst in terms of per capita green energy investment.

Greenpeace based its analysis on the International Energy Agency (IEA) government energy spending tracker, which focuses on investment over the period April 2020 to April 2023.

The analysis revealed that France, which has a similar population size to the UK, spends almost twice as much on green spending as a whole at $952.40 per capita, compared to the UK’s $494.43 per capita.

When breaking it down into sectors, the UK ranks worst out of the top five for total spend on low carbon and efficient transport, despite transport being the UK’s largest emitting sector for greenhouse gas emissions.

Compared to Italy and Germany, the UK is woefully behind with its $13.1bn investment in low carbon and energy efficient transport, whereas Italy spends $47.8bn and Germany $38.1bn.

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