Reform UK Councils Are Dismantling the Fight Against Climate Change

Seven out of ten Reform UK controlled councils have scrapped their climate targets since being elected last May, while the party continues to push discredited ideas about the cause of man made climate change, according to new academic analysis.

Reform-run councils have removed content about climate change from strategy documents, and three have successfully moved to rescind Climate Emergency Declarations, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics has found. 

Climate change denial has also been expressed by Reform UK councillors in at least five councils (Kent, Durham, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Lancashire), the new briefing notes. 

In September 2025, Kent County Council pointed to a supposedly “unproven view of anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change” in a motion to rescind the county’s Climate Emergency Declaration, citing several widely discredited sources. 

Rescinding the KCC Climate Emergency Declaration last year, Reform councillor Chris Hespe claimed: “I’ve been involved in award-winning sustainability projects for 25 years, and I’ve never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax.” 

Their report comes after a recent Byline Times investigation showed that more than 700,000 homes across the ten English councils now governed by Reform UK are projected to face medium or higher flood risk by the middle of the century. It equates to roughly one in five households in the party’s local strongholds. Several Reform-run councils have faced protests from locals opposed to their climate stance. 

Deputy Leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, has referred to an “extreme cult of Net Zero” and much of the party’s local election literature in 2025 reflected this stance, promising to “scrap Net Zero to cut your energy bills” and “reduce waste and cut your taxes” in elecon leaflets. Every Reform council since, however, has raised council tax, many by close to the legal limit. 

The authors conclude: “The promotion of climate change denial by both its national leadership and many of its local councillors indicates that Reform UK is failing to recognise the growing risks the British public face from climate change impacts, including rising sea levels, heavier rainfall and more intense heatwaves. It also demonstrates that the party does not accept the need for evidence-based policymaking.”

They state that “it is often unclear what Reform UK councils count as ‘net zero spend’ and how they account for savings supposedly achieved by removing climate-related targets.” 

The authors say they were unable to obtain detailed estimates of projected savings associated with motions related to climate ambition rollback, and in some cases headline figures have been disputed. The LSE paper states: “Lessons from a year of Reform UK administrations, and the prospect that the party will win more seats in May 2026, indicate that national government should no longer assume voluntary ambition at the local level to progress national legislative and policy goals on climate change.” 

Although Farage and Tice have made scrapping net zero a key part of the Reform UK national campaign strategy, the report points out that there is variation in how “scrapping net zero” is being implemented by Reform councils, “reflecting an apparent divergence of views within the party”. 

Kent has committed to keeping emissions reporting as a key performance indicator, while Lancashire County Council plans to stop voluntary reporting on the council’s carbon footprint. 

Tice held a press conference in November 2025 to discuss over £300 million in savings apparently identified by councils run by Reform UK since that May. But he did not mention savings from net zero, despite the party’s emphasis on this alleged benefit.

Despite public support dipping in recent months, Reform UK has maintained its overall poll lead over the other parties. Reform are likely to take control of more councils in England in May 2026, with approximately 5,000 seats in 136 local councils up for election. It means this round is larger in scale than in 2025 and includes a greater proportion of unitary councils with responsibility for planning applications and housing. 

The UK Government is likely to “face greater challenges in ensuring that local authorities contribute to the delivery of legislative and policy climate goals,” the authors say. 

They recommend stronger “incentives to promote climate progress”, rather than assuming voluntary action by councils, and making standardised emissions reporting mandatory, to track progress of programmes that reduce emissions.

Eight Reform councils have replaced mention of climate change or decarbonisation in certain documents with language related to “the environment”, “sustainability” or “energy efficiency”. For example, Kent County Council has replaced its Net Zero Plan with an Energy Efficiency Plan and Staffordshire’s Climate Emergency Declaration has given way to a supposedly “broader more practical” Environmental Strategy. 

Other examples of restructuring include Derbyshire’s removal of the Climate Change, Biodiversity and Carbon Reduction committee and North Northamptonshire’s dissolution of the Sustainable Communities Executive Advisory Panel (which included carbon reduction as a performance metric). 

The report finds that Reform UK does not currently have a clear and explicit position on climate change overall – and statements denying the existence of anthropogenic climate change were removed from its voter ‘Contract’ in 2024 when Nigel Farage became leader. “However, there is evidence to indicate the party and its councils may be returning to the ‘denialist’ stance that rejects anthropogeni