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The UK is not on track to meet its climate targets is the clear message of a report by the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) today, assessing the Government’s progress towards the emissions reductions required by law.
Looking across every sector of the economy, the CCC has come to a stark conclusion: only one-third of the emissions reductions required by 2030 can be accounted for by credible policy plans.
The incoming Labour administration has pledged to make Britain a global leader on climate change and this report issues the first serious challenge to that commitment.
Will this Government rise to meet it?
The Government has hit the ground running when it comes to clean energy.
Within hours of winning the 2024 General Election, the Labour administration lifted the de facto ban on onshore wind instituted by the Conservatives in the mid-2010s, along with strong policy on solar.
Starmer’s first King’s Speech appeared to confirm that the GB Energy company would actually be producing clean energy rather than being simply an investment vehicle seeking to reduce financial risk.
These are all welcome – not least since the CCC’s report calls for yearly offshore wind installations to increase by at least three times, onshore wind installations to double, and solar installations to increase by five times.
However, one of the primary reasons the UK halved domestic emissions since 1990 and met every carbon budget since the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008 is because it had already taken great strides to clean up its energy mix – mainly by tackling coal. In a sense, making electricity clean is the low-hanging fruit on the road to net zero.
Today’s report shows that 75% of the emissions reductions required in the next six years will come from other sectors.
Increasingly, the road to net zero will travel through the lives of the public – from what we eat to how we get around – and it will call on the highest emitters to live lower-carbon lifestyles.
But the CCC report, which advocates almost exclusively for the rapid deployment of low-carbon technologies as the means of achieving the emissions reductions required to meet the UK’s climate targets, implicitly preserves the status quo in people’s day-to-day lives.
In many cases, this is sensible. Heat pumps are a clean and efficient way of warming our homes, and the call to increase the installation of this 10-fold in the next six years appears correct. The rapid roll-out of renewables is also a clearly desirable and necessary alternative to drilling for more oil and gas.
In other areas, however, the narrow fixation on low-carbon technology belies a lack of political imagination or, to be blunt, sheer magical thinking.
Noting that the electrification of surface transport has meant that the UK has seen a slight dip in emissions despite a slight increase in miles driven, the CCC appears to be content to see electric vehicles drive the requisite emissions reductions in this sector without any serious engagement with the need to tackle traffic and slash car miles.
When it comes to aviation, the report advocates for so-called sustainable aviation fuels – which cannot be scaled without impacting the environment. This is ‘greenwash’ and delaying tactics from a high-carbon industry wanting to maintain the status quo, to keep on growing, and not wanting to countenance the smallest incursion on their plans or profits for the sake of a stable climate. The reality is that there is no pathway to sustainable aviation without the people who fly most flying a little less.
Still, it is ultimately the job of the Government to take a broader view of climate science, the policy landscape, and the evidence of what works. The legislative agenda set out in the King’s Speech suggested a mixed picture on the new Government’s ability to grasp the need to change lifestyles among the highest emitters, alongside the deployment of low-carbon technologies.
On the one hand, the commitment to bringing rail franchises back into public ownership and granting more local powers to run bus services are a precondition to helping people get out of private cars and onto public transport. On the other hand, the Government appears to have also thrown its lot in with the ‘magic beans’ of sustainable aviation fuels, when a tax on the most frequent flyers and a ban on private jets is arguably what is needed.
The Government is promising an agenda of economic growth, with a commitment to reforming the planning framework to make building and development possible. The lifting of the ban on onshore wind was wholly aligned with this narrative, cutting red tape to bring forward new clean energy projects which will cut bills, create jobs, and boost growth.
The fear is that this animating purpose will indiscriminately sweep forward approvals for high-carbon infrastructure on the grounds that they, too, fit this narrative.
We will soon get a real test of this Government’s commitment to tackling climate change in concrete terms. Sitting on the desk of Angela Rayner is a planning appeal from London City Airport, seeking to increase the number of flights. This decision will provide an indication of how seriously this Government will actually heed the warnings of today’s report.
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The need to raise living standards and bring down emissions go together. Making clean heat and energy insulation accessible to low-income households will deliver warmer homes and cheaper bills. Home-grown renewables will bring down costs while boosting energy security. Taking action on car dependency in cities will cut congestion, clean our air, and get people moving around more quickly.
This is the story that the Government must tell while putting real plans and policies in place to get the UK back on track to meet our climate commitments, preserving popular public consent for policies which actually make our lives better. The real test will be its willingness to couple this with confronting and constraining the excess emissions of the wealthiest.