This policy insight is an assessment of the combined economic impact of the 550 projects in the Treasury infrastructure pipeline. Our senior economist estimates the significant positive impact that low carbon infrastructure investment could continue to have on the UK economy and finds that there is an unusually strong short run economic opportunity for the UK to be gained from developing low carbon infrastructure.

The analysis finds that an increase in spending on low carbon infrastructure projects should increase GDP by at least 0.7 per cent by 2015. Conversely, if the government abandoned its low carbon investment programme, the overall impact on GDP could be a reduction of as much as 2.2 per cent, and such a drop could push the UK back into recession.