The UK government’s official climate advisers have warned that not enough is being done to meet the country’s legally binding net zero target.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, presenting the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) Annual Progress Report, Lord Deben, Chair of the Committee, writes:
“The failure to act decisively in response to the energy crisis and build on the success of hosting COP26 means that the UK has lost its clear global climate leadership”.
He calls on the government to “act urgently to correct the failures of the past year” and appeals directly to the Prime Minister to “reclaim the UK’s clear climate leadership role” by heeding the advice in the CCC’s report.
In 2022, a landmark High Court ruling determined that the UK’s Net Zero strategy is inadequate, and the UK Government was required to publish the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (CBDP), providing greater detail around how climate targets would be reached.
Today, the Climate Change Committee, on publishing their progress report, have stated that “better transparency is no substitute for real delivery”. Despite over 3,000 pages of new detail from the government, the CCC have said that a key opportunity to push a faster pace of progress has been missed.
UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 46% from 1990 levels. at COP26, a commitment was made to reduce them by 68% by 2030, which would require the recent rate of annual emissions reduction outside the electricity supply sector to quadruple in just seven years.
The CCC called out the UK’s ‘confusing signals’ on climate priorities to the global community, citing support for new oil and gas (beyond the immediate increase in gas production demanded by the Ukraine invasion), and the decision to consent a new coal mine in Cumbria, which has ‘undermined’ the careful language negotiated by the UK COP26 Presidency in the Glasgow Climate Pact.
The key messages in the report are:
- A lack of urgency. While the policy framework has continued to develop over the past year, this is not happening at the required pace for future targets.
- Stay firm on existing commitments and move to delivery. The Government has made a number of strong commitments, these must be restated and moved as swiftly as possible towards delivery.
- Retake a clear leadership role internationally. The UK will need to regain its international climate leadership.
- Immediate priority actions and policies. Action is needed in a range of areas to deliver on the Government’s emissions pathway.
- Develop demand-side and land use policies. The Government’s current strategy has considerable delivery risks due to its over-reliance on specific technological solutions, some of which have not yet been deployed at scale.
- Empower and inform households and communities to make low-carbon choices. Despite some positive steps to provide households with advice on reducing energy use in the last year, a coherent public engagement strategy on climate action is long overdue.
- Planning policy needs radical reform to support Net Zero. The planning system must have an overarching requirement that all planning decisions must be taken giving full regard to the imperative of Net Zero.
- Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero. As well as pushing forward strongly with new low-carbon industries, Net Zero also makes it necessary to move away from high-carbon developments.
- The need for a framework to manage airport capacity. There has been continued airport expansion in recent years, counter to our assessment that there should be no net airport expansion across the UK.
In his letter to the Prime Minister, Lord Deben warns that “Our children will not forgive us if we leave them a world of withering heat and devastating storms where sea level rises and extreme temperatures force millions to move because their countries are no longer habitable. None of us can avoid our responsibility. Delay is not an option”.
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