This year marked England's second-worst harvest on record, which is predicted to drive up food prices in what’s being called “Climateflation”. The impacts of climate breakdown are not just being felt in England either, as the catastrophic, climate-fuelled Hurricane Melissa made clear. In fact, climate-linked disasters in the first half of this year have been the costliest on record.
Despite the very evident urgency of this situation, the previous Government produced two unlawful climate plans, which were insufficient to reach our carbon budgets.
In this context, people waited with baited breath for the Labour Government's release of their new Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan, which was unveiled in the most unassuming way on 29 October. No press conference, no big government statement, no media rounds, just a statement and a web link. This was not quite a headline-grabbing press strategy fit for what the government called “the greatest long-term global challenge that we face”.
The Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan critically outlines how we will decarbonise our economy and gives us the best mechanism for analysing the probability of the UK meeting our climate commitments. To much relief, the latest version of the plan has provided more detail and a more complete pathway than we have seen before, as recognised by Friends of the Earth, who took them to court in the first place.
But it’s not all rosy. There are signs of progress that we should recognise, but equally, there are aspects of the plan that remain concerning. Most significantly for climate is the plan’s admission that current policies are not enough to meet our Paris Agreement commitments. The Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan would achieve only 96% of the cuts for the 2030 NDC, and 99% for the 2035 NDC (none of which is legally binding). Furthermore, although there is a welcome reduction, plans still rely heavily on unproven technologies to get us there.
The plan's evident shift in language recognising the need of joining up our climate and nature work is very welcome, and in no small feat part of all of your campaigning. The plan contains commitments for tree planting, peatland restoration and recognises the importance of the new climate and nature statement, which will be delivered to parliament annually (and is a direct Zero Hour campaign win). However, in some places the plan overlooks the toll that efforts to decarbonise can have on nature, which we depend on to mitigate emissions and protect us from the worst impacts of climate change.
For example, the plan’s reliance on sustainable aviation fuel would lead to the UK offshoring ecological impacts, including deforestation. We are also concerned to see that both tree planting and peat restoration have been dramatically scaled back from previous carbon plans, highlighting that the planned action is not matching the ambition of their shift in language. More than this, solely focusing on planting trees, rather than implementing a more holistic ecosystem-based approach, is problematic and a key issue that the Climate and Nature Bill seeks to address.
This is a step forward from the previous plan in many ways, including both in scale and detail, but with risks of underdelivery and throwing nature under the bus, it’s not the reassurance we had hoped for.
For us at Zero Hour, this only strengthens our belief that the UK must make its international targets legally binding via the Climate and Nature Bill. This would help rebuild trust that our political system can deliver at the scale and pace required, and make sure that we can’t have plans that fall short of the Paris Agreement.
to rebuild trust in the ability of our political system to deliver in a smart way and at the scale, speed required.
In short, we welcome:
- Recognition of the role of nature, carbon sinks, and nature restoration within the plan is something that takes steps towards the joined-up approach we have called for.
- The introduction of an annual climate and nature statement, brought about by Zero Hour campaigning, to give the public the transparency they need and parliamentarians to question the government on the implementation of their plan.
- Ambitious targets on the rollout of Electric Vehicles, recognising that transport remains one of the biggest contributors to UK emissions.
- The intention to double the number of green energy jobs by 2030, to 860,000 as part of the Clean Energy Jobs Plan, a big step towards delivering a just transition to deliver “benefits to every nation and region”.
We are concerned by:
- The success of the plan relies on carbon capture and storage at scale, which is expensive and unproven. The plan continues to roll out CCS within the power supply, in direct contradiction to CCC advice.
- The plan rolls back ambition on both:
- Tree planting, reduced to 7,455 hectares planted by 2030 (compared with 40,000 hectares planted in the previous plan).
- Peatland restoration with the plan committing to 8000 hectares (compared with 10,000 under the plan under the Conservatives).
- There is no recognition that, more than tree-planting, we need an ecosystem-based approach to restoring nature.
- The strategy removes the ban on new gas boilers.
- A lack of commitment to reduce overall flights (internally or internationally).
- Oversight of the impact that the plan’s 22% Sustainable Aviation Fuel target will have on key international ecosystems.
There are reassuring commitments to climate action in this plan, which when considering the faltering political consensus amongst UK leaders, cannot be understated. However, we remain concerned that we are unprepared to protect communities and our economy from the worsening impacts of climate change and nature loss, and fear that we risk not delivering our fair share of international agreements.
The seemingly disjointed approach from Government is also adding fuel to the fire, with a commitment to climate and nature action one day, while the very next day Rachel Reeves considers slashing funding for more energy-efficient homes, or the Government greenlights the expansion of airports and or fails to rule out the looming potential of more oil and gas with Rosebank. We will only tackle the greatest challenge we face with a coordinated, whole-of-government approach, which is exactly what the CAN Bill calls for.
A science-led update to legislation remains the best pathway to ensure the UK faces the severe, fundamental risks that climate change and nature’s breakdown pose to the economy, our health, energy and food security before we “lose control of our climate for good”.
