Could Sunak’s green review threaten UK net zero?

The prime minister has said he wants to be honest about the “costs and trade-offs” of tackling climate change.

In a statement on Tuesday, Rishi Sunak said he was proud that “Britain is leading the world on climate change”, and will stick by the agreements the UK has made internationally.

But he is considering watering down some of the government’s biggest green commitments.

So, is the UK really a world leader on emissions cuts, and how would the kind of changes the PM is considering affect its efforts?

Net zero progress

Importantly Mr Sunak says the government is still committed to the 2050 net zero target which his predecessor, Theresa May, made law back in 2019.

Net zero means a country does not add any additional greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

It is true the UK has been successful in cutting emissions compared to other countries.

Since 1990, emissions within the UK have fallen by 48.7% up to the end of 2022 – excluding international aviation and shipping – according to government data.

These cuts are greater than other countries in the G7 (Group of Seven), an organisation of the world’s seven largest so-called “advanced” economies – although Germany has reduced its emissions at a faster rate compared with the UK since 2015.

But the cuts the UK has made so far are – arguably – the easiest ones.

One of the main ways they have been achieved is by switching away from fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – to generate electricity.

Emissions from electricity generation have fallen by around three-quarters since 1990.

Meanwhile the proportion of electricity generated by renewables – like wind and solar – has grown to around 40% in the last few years, up from just over 10% a decade ago.

The government has bold plans to continue this “decarbonisation” process.

It has pledged that all of the UK’s electricity will come from low-carbon sources (renewables and nuclear) by 2035.

It plans to increase offshore wind capacity five-fold by 2030, increase solar power capacity five-fold by 2035, and approve up to eight new nuclear reactors.

There was no mention of whether the government intends to stick to these goals in the prime minister’s statement.

But achieving net zero means cutting emissions across all sectors of the economy.

That is why there are targets for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles and switching from gas boilers to heat pumps or other low-carbon alternatives to heat our homes.

The UK’s existing net zero plans – before the rumoured changes to policy

And, despite the UK’s achievements on climate so far, there have been a number of warnings that progress is beginning to falter – even before these suggestions of a weakening of climate policies.

Earlier this year, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – the government’s independent advisers on cutting carbon emissions – warned that the UK’s efforts to meet its net zero commitments were already “worryingly slow”. It also said it was “markedly less confident” than a year earlier that it would meet its targets in the 2030s.

It joined the National Audit Office and a cross party group of MPs in raising concerns that the UK risked missing its targets for tackling climate change – specifically clean electricity – without clearer planning and much faster action.

And now the CCC has told the BBC it was not consulted by the government about its latest plans to water down its climate commitments.

“We have not been approached formally or informally about what is being proposed,” a spokesperson said.

How would these changes affect net zero?

It’s difficult to quantify the exact carbon costs of the rumoured shifts in policy, because it would rely on many assumptions – for example how our consumption patterns might change.

But inevitably, it would make the current targets harder to achieve – as any extra carbon costs would have to be balanced by extra savings in other areas. And how much carbon the UK can use in coming years has already been set down in carbon budgets.

The CCC’s chief executive, Chris Stark, has said that any change to the planned trajectory of UK emissions would be a “genuine surprise” because the “legal carbon budgets [how much can be emitted in five-year periods] determine that path”.

The CCC has estimated that meeting the legally binding 2050 goal will require an extra £50bn of investment every year by 2030.

It said once the savings from reduced use of fossil fuels are factored in, the overall resource cost of the transition to net zero is less than 1% of GDP over the next 30 years. By 2044 it should become cost-saving, the CCC said, as newer cleaner technologies are more efficient than those they are replacing.

Of course, the global costs of climate inaction would be much higher, as the world would be hit by increasingly damaging climate impacts. Most recently, this was demonstrated by the floods in Libya, where rainfall amplified by climate change devastatingly hit an area unprepared for such extremes.

One of the most eye-catching of the rumoured changes Mr Sunak is considering is delaying the 2030 ban on sales of new fully petrol and diesel cars.

Despite what’s often assumed, electric car sales are actually surging. In 2022, nearly 17% of new car sales were battery electric – ahead of the CCC’s schedule and up from less than 2% in 2019.

Some in the car industry have warned that delays in the ban on new petrol and diesel cars could hit investment and therefore electric vehicle sales.

Achieving the 2030 phase-out of new fully petrol and diesel car and van sales is “vital to meeting the UK’s decarbonisation pathway”, the CCC warned in June.

Fully electric and hybrid car sales have begun to grow more quickly in the last few years, although petrol sales remain higher. [June 2023]

Will this help consumers’ bills?

Mr Sunak says his review of the government’s green pledges is all about putting the “long-term interests of our country before the short-term political needs of the moment.”

But some question whether there would be any benefit for consumers’ bills from most of the proposed changes.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a climate change think tank, points out that nobody is being forced to ditch their gas boiler any time soon.

Currently, the ban on the sale of new gas boilers is due to start in 2035, and is only relevant when your boiler breaks.

It is a similar story with cars. Four out of five of us buy second-hand cars – for which there is no phase-out date – and older cars can continue to be driven after 2030.

The 20% of people who can afford to buy a new car have six years until they have a choice between fully electric vehicles and hybrids – which can be filled up with petrol.

The rumoured changes to net zero policy “will add to the cost of living for those struggling, not make things easier”, argues Peter Chalkley, a director of the ECIU.