UK contenders for Prime Minister suggest fossil fuels would reduce high energy prices faster than cheap renewables. Britain's backsliding shows that if we want real action on climate, we’ll have to fight for it in local and general elections, and in public opinion for decades to come
Opinion: Strong commitments to climate policies are missing from the promises of the many candidates eager to succeed Boris Johnson as Tory leader and UK Prime Minister. This is raising concerns among others in politics and business leaders that the country’s cross-party support for climate action might be breaking down.
Two candidates have called for a reassessment of the UK’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, arguing the goals are too costly; and all the other candidates are curiously quiet on the subject thus far. Moreover, a few suggest more fossil fuels would be a quicker way to reduce high energy prices than more, cheaper renewables.
The most extreme is Kemi Badenoch, who says UK attempts to pursue net zero emissions amount to "unilateral economic disarmament". No matter that more than 90 percent of global GDP is now covered by net zero target; and most of the UK's main economic competitors pursue similar policies to accelerate adoption of clean technologies and to rapidly cut emissions.
When Johnson was campaigning for the party leadership in 2019, all candidates strongly supported climate action. Five months after he took office, the Conservative party’s 2019 general election manifesto committed to net zero emissions by 2050 and to “restore nature within a generation.”
The cross-party consensus was formed when the House of Commons approved the Climate Change Act in 2008. Only five MPs out of 646 voted against it. The near-unanimity has endured for almost 15 years under one Labour Prime Minister and three Tories. This has helped the UK lead on climate in domestic policies and international negotiations.
But while that’s helped the UK reduce its emissions, successive governments have still struggled to produce enough effective policy. More political will and bureaucratic competence is needed, not less.
There are "shocking" gaps in policy and "scant evidence" of delivery since the publication of the government's Net Zero Strategy last year, said the UK's Climate Change Committee three weeks ago in its annual assessment of progress towards the UK's legally binding decarbonisation goals.
"Ministers come and Ministers go; Prime Ministers come and Prime Ministers go. But many issues remain the same. Particularly important key issues, like dealing with climate change and the degradation of nature." – Theresa May, former Prime Minister
Concerned by the backsliding, the Conservative Environment Network has written to leader candidates urging them to confirm their support for ambitious climate and nature policies.
"Supportive policy measures bring down the costs of clean technology, enabling businesses to capitalise on growing global markets," it states. "The benefits are significant. From job creation, increased exports, and geographically dispersed growth to inward investment and improved air quality from clean energy. Important contributors to levelling up opportunity across the UK."
It also emphasised renewable power increased energy security and helped households reduce their exposure to high international oil and gas prices, a contributor to the rising cost-of-living.
Most major business organisations have also made strong pleas to the Tory leadership candidates. These include the Confederation of British Industry, the Corporate Leaders Group and the UK Business Group Alliance for Net Zero.
The alliance said: “We have seen first-hand that investment in low carbon infrastructure and technologies delivers huge economic benefits. Supportive policy measures bring down the costs of clean technology, enabling businesses to capitalise on growing global markets. The benefits are significant. From job creation, increased exports, and geographically dispersed growth to inward investment and improved air quality from clean energy. Important contributors to levelling up opportunity across the UK.”
The climate opportunities for poor parts of the country were also emphasised this week by two reports on the decarbonisation of the steel industry. That would rejuvenate in particular main sites in the northeast of England the southwest of Wales, two “Red Wall” regions in which Tories won seats from Labour in the 2019 election.
Theresa May, Johnson’s predecessor, was particularly vocal this week in her new role as chair of the Aldersgate Group of major corporates committed to sustainability and climate strategies.
"Ministers come and Ministers go; Prime Ministers come and Prime Ministers go," she said. "But many issues remain the same. Particularly important key issues, like dealing with climate change and the degradation of nature. I think what we must remember is that whatever else happens, this is absolutely critical for the future of our planet, for the future of people's lives and their jobs and their prosperity. And we must not take the foot off the accelerator at all."
The right-wing pushback against climate policies is even more intense in the US. Emboldened by their recent Supreme Court victory over the Environmental Protection Agency, attorneys-general from 24 Republican-controlled states wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, calling the agency’s climate-related disclosure rule “an ill-advised misadventure into environmental regulation.”
The Commission, which is attempting to bring the US in line with international guidelines under the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures which NZ among many other countries are adopting, has also been bombarded by angry and threatening submissions from the fossil fuel companies and electricity generators. Ultimately, they’re likely to appeal to the Supreme Court to impose the same highly restrictive judgement to the Commission as it did on the Environmental Protection Agency.
There are lessons in all of this for us in New Zealand:
► Our parliament passed unanimously our over-arching climate legislation, the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, in 2019 – although ACT leader David Seymour missed the vote.
► Our Labour government is making some progress on its overall climate strategies with the likes of the Emissions Reduction Plan. But actual policies, programmes and carbon cuts are lamentably lacking, even more so than in the UK.
► The National Party says it supports action on climate. But when it next forms a government, will it overhaul the 2019 Act, as it promised to do even as it voted for it? Such a break with consensus would undermine business and public confidence in the long-term policy stability essential for tackling the climate crisis. Moreover, will it side with those farmers who demand agriculture escape from, or be given an easy ride in, climate policies?
► Our climate legislation is far from robust. For example, the High Court recently ruled against All Aboard Aotearoa, a group of NGOs, who argued that it was unlawful for Auckland Council and Auckland Transport to adopt the Regional Land Transport Plan 2021-2031 because the plan would cause transport emissions to rise not fall.
The plaintiffs argued that a raft of central and local government policies and legislation require actual emission cuts. The Council, for example, declared a climate emergency in 2019 and then produced a Climate Plan. It includes a goal of halving emissions by 2030, which would require a cut of some 64 percent in transport emissions.
“To the extent All Aboard Aotearoa relies on the argument that the Regional Land Transport Plan is inconsistent with the [climate] declaration and commitments referred to, the short point is that there is no legal requirement that the Plan be consistent with them,” said Justice Venning in his 60-page decision.
So, if we want real, consistent and long-term action on climate, we’ll have to fight for it in local and general elections, in the marketplace, and in the courts of law and public opinion for decades to come.
Yet, with only a few exceptions New Zealand political and business leaders are far too reticent. If they don’t speak up, they’ll lose the climate fight – much to the detriment of all of us.
