Rapid progress needed to make up lost ground on climate action, advisers warn
A shift to net zero can deliver investment, energy security and lower bills, but the UK is off track to meet its targets, it was warned.
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The new Government must make electricity cheaper to boost heat pumps and reverse green policy rollbacks to get the UK back on track to meet climate targets, advisers have urged.
The Climate Change Committee said the shift to net zero – cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero overall by 2050 – can deliver “investment, lower bills and energy security” and help the UK keep its place on the world stage.
But only a third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the UK’s first net zero-aligned target, its international commitment to cut emissions by 68% on 1990 levels by 2030, are covered by “credible” plans, the statutory body warned.
The committee said the UK had a successful track record of cutting emissions, with greenhouse gases down by half since 1990, and there were significant reductions in pollution in 2023.
The transition to net zero can deliver investment, lower bills and energy security. It will help the UK keep its place on the world stage. It is a way for this Government to serve both the people of today and the people of tomorrow
But the previous Government sent “inconsistent messages”, signalled a slowing of pace and reversed or delayed key policies last year.
Rapid progress is needed to make up lost ground, according to the committee in its legally mandated annual report to Parliament.
Responding to the report, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband claimed it laid bare the failures of the previous government, and said Labour was “wasting no time” delivering on its mission to make Britain a clean-energy superpower.
The report comes against a backdrop of rising climate impacts, with the wettest 18 months on record in England hitting agricultural production, as well as falling costs of key low-carbon technologies and a global scramble to secure investment to drive economic growth.
While the committee’s leaders said they welcomed action already taken by the new Labour Government, for example in lifting the de facto ban on onshore wind, the focus needs to extend beyond electricity.
They called for rapid progress on electric cars, heat pumps and tree planting, all of which are off-track to meet the UK’s climate target.
Around 10% of homes will need to be heated by an electric-powered heat pump in 2030, compared with just 1% now, while the market share of new electric cars needs to increase from 16.5% today to nearly 100%.
And annual installation rates of offshore wind farms must treble, onshore wind installations must double and the amount of solar panels being installed must increase five times, the report said.
The committee has set out 10 priority actions the new Government should take this year, including making electricity cheaper by removing levies that pay for renewables, insulation and fuel poverty from electricity bills.
This would support industry to go electric and ensure people save on bills from installing efficient, clean heat pumps instead of gas boilers, it said.
It also called for the new Government to reverse recent policy rollbacks including the decision to exempt 20% of homes from a new gas boiler phase-out by 2035, the removal of obligations on landlords to improve energy efficiency and pushing back the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales.
Our children are going to look back and wonder why on Earth we ever used these highly inefficient, polluting technologies. It'll be like going to the museum and seeing biplanes and silent movies and wondering why the world looked like that
The Tories rowed back on the green policies – claiming the changes would save people from costs of net zero – as they tried to draw dividing lines with Labour, which made clean energy a central “mission” of its offer to the country.
But the committee warned that polling shows the UK public has “no appetite for climate division”, echoing other recent surveys suggesting that stepping back on climate measures was not a vote winner.
And the committee’s acting chief executive Dr James Richardson said: “These rollbacks were unhelpful, they will slow progress, they don’t help households with high energy costs nor do they help the UK energy security.
“To do that we need to accelerate the move away from fossil fuels.”
Reversing the rollbacks would save people money, either today or at the point where those changes take place, he said.
The Climate Change Committee said British-based renewable energy was the cheapest and fastest way to reduce the country’s vulnerability to volatile fossil fuels, which saw prices soar in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine.
The committee’s report said: “The faster we get off fossil fuels, the more secure we become.”
Dr Richardson added that despite misinformation and concerns about some of the new technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles, they were “just going to be the technologies that we are used to in the future”.
“Our children are going to look back and wonder why on Earth we ever used these highly inefficient, polluting technologies.
“It’ll be like going to the museum and seeing biplanes and silent movies and wondering why the world looked like that,” he said.
Other priorities the report sets out for the Government include removing planning barriers for heat pumps and electric vehicle charge points, ensuring enough funding for the auctions for offshore wind contracts and doubling slow tree planting and peatland restoration rates.
There also needs to be a strategy for skills and helping workers and communities reliant on sectors where job losses are expected or change needed, such as offshore energy, and efforts to decarbonise public buildings such as schools and hospitals.
The Climate Change Committee also warns that adapting to the already inevitable impacts of climate change, such as flooding and heatwaves, must become a “fundamental” part of policy across all departments.
The good news is that this report confirms that a clean-energy future is the best way to make Britain energy independent, cut bills, create good jobs, and tackle the climate crisis. That is why the Government is wasting no time in delivering our mission
Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the Climate Change Committee, said: “The transition to net zero can deliver investment, lower bills and energy security. It will help the UK keep its place on the world stage.
“It is a way for this Government to serve both the people of today and the people of tomorrow.”
Mr Miliband said the report showed the country was off track to meet targets, while the country paid the price with higher bills and energy insecurity.
“The good news is that this report confirms that a clean-energy future is the best way to make Britain energy independent, cut bills, create good jobs, and tackle the climate crisis,” he said.
“That is why the Government is wasting no time in delivering our mission.
“In just one week, we have scrapped the nine-year onshore wind ban, established a National Wealth Fund, and consented more solar power than has been installed over the past year.
“This action will accelerate us towards meeting our targets, as we drive forward in our mission to make Britain a clean-energy superpower.”