UK government facing third legal challenge to ‘dangerously threadbare’ net zero strategy

Campaign group is trying to force Downing Street to disclose emissions documents

The UK Government has pledged to Net Zero by 2050 (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The UK government is facing at third legal challenge to its “dangerously threadbare” net zero strategy for tackling the climate crisis.

Not-for-profit legal organisation the Good Law Project accused ministers of failing to meet its legal obligations under the Climate Change Act.

A statement read: “The climate crisis isn’t a distant problem. It’s happening now. We’re already seeing its effects every day.

“The government may have set out a vision, but it hasn’t set out the specific policies needed to lead us to Net Zero, and it isn’t measuring the emissions reductions its initiatives are meant to achieve.

“So, while the government has set the grand target of Net Zero by 2050, it fails to set out how we will actually get there. We believe this is unlawful.

“What’s more, the government is, inexplicably, refusing to release the documents that set out its calculations of expected emissions reductions. We have applied to the Court to force them to disclose these documents.”

Ministers were already being sued by environmental groups ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth over its net zero strategy.

The Good Law Project wants to force Downing Street to produce a revised strategy that sets out “specific, data-driven plans” to ensure the UK meets its commitments to confront the climate crisis by 30 June this year.

The group added: “Around the country, community groups and businesses are working hard to reduce their carbon footprints, but this will be in vain unless the Government steps up too.

“There can be no more delays. We need a strategy that covers the entire country and puts real energy, support and resources behind this.”

Filing its own legal challenge last month, ClientEarth described the country’s approach to achieving net zero carbon emissions as “pie-in-the-sky”.

The environmental law charity will argue the government breached its legal duty under sections 13 and 14 of the Climate Change Act 2008 to show that its plan will actually reduce emissions enough to meet carbon targets.

The organisation’s senior lawyer, Sam Hunter Jones, said: “It’s not enough for the UK government simply to have a net zero strategy, it needs to include real-world policies that ensure it succeeds.

“Anything less is a breach of its legal duties and amounts to greenwashing and climate delay.”

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been contacted for a comment.