THAMES WATER will only have to pay a fifth of its record £122.7 million in fines under a “sweetheart deal,” with industry regulator Ofwat branded “outrageous” by water campaigners today.
The heavily indebted utility firm was handed the penalties in May for failures over sewage treatment and paying out dividends.
It has already passed a deadline for paying them by August 20 but has now agreed to pay only a fifth by the end of next month, with the remainder subject to securing a private rescue deal and cash injection.
Ofwat said that it had set a final “backstop date” of March 31 2030 for payment of the remaining penalties whether or not Britain’s biggest water company avoids insolvency.
It would have 30 calendar days to pay up after securing such a deal or at the end of an insolvency process that would see it placed into a government special administration scheme.
River Action chief executive James Wallace said: “It is outrageous that Thames Water has been allowed to kick its fine down the road.
“This fine must be paid by those responsible, not future owners and investors.
“Ordinary people do not get to walk into court and say, ‘I’ll pay the rest of my penalty if I get a better paying job.’ Yet that is exactly the sweetheart deal Thames Water has secured.
“This is not accountability. The investors who drained the company and pocketed £170 million in dividends in October 2023 and March 2024 may never feel the consequences.
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
Just Stop Oil protesters with a police officer outside Westminster Abbey in central London after they spray painted “1.5 is dead” on the grave of Charles Darwin, in the north aisle of the nave of the Abbey, January 13, 2025
JUST STOP OIL activists painted the grave of British naturalist Charles Darwin today to demand an end to reliance on fossil fuels by 2030.
Two activists entered Westminster Abbey and sprayed “1.5 Is Dead” on the grave after it was confirmed that 2024 was the first year on record with a global average temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
During the action, the supporters said: “We have passed the 1.5° threshold that was supposed to keep us safe
“Darwin would be turning in his grave to know we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction.
“The government’s plans will take us to over 3 degrees of warming.
“This will destroy everything we love. World leaders must stop burning oil, gas and coal by 2030.”
Exclusive: Under current policies, Britain could fall short of internationally agreed goal of 68% cut in emissions by 2030
The UK government is likely to miss its targets under the Paris climate agreement by a wide margin, analysis shows, dealing a devastating blow to Britain’s standing on the international stage.
Under current policies, the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be 59% lower in 2030 than they were in 1990 – but the country’s internationally agreed target is for a 68% reduction by the end of this decade. The gap is likely to leave Britain in breach of these commitments.
The 2030 emissions goal was agreed at Cop26, the UN climate summit hosted by the UK in Glasgow in 2021, and has been reaffirmed at Cop28, taking place in Dubai this week.
Failure to meet the UK’s commitments would hinder international efforts to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.
The estimate comes from analysis of publicly available and government data carried out by Friends of the Earth. It found that current policies would achieve just over half the emissions cuts needed by 2030.
The gap had grown significantly under Rishi Sunak’s leadership, Friends of the Earth found.
Prof Lesley Hughes and others says there is ‘cognitive dissonance’ between Labor’s stated commitment to the climate crisis and its policies
The Australian government is “missing half the equation” in acting on the climate crisis by backing a shift to renewable energy but having no plan to get out of fossil fuels, according to an author of a new scientific review.
Prof Lesley Hughes is a leading climate change scientist and member of the independent Climate Council and government advisory body the Climate Change Authority. Hughes said there is a “cognitive dissonance” between Labor’s stated commitment to addressing the problem and the pace at which it is moving.
“The two things are completely at odds with each other,” she said.
Hughes is the co-author of a Climate Council review, released on Wednesday, which found Australia should be cutting national carbon dioxide emissions by 75% by 2030. The government’s legislated target is a minimum 43% cut (compared with 2005 levels).
The report said the country should be aiming to reach net zero emissions by 2035 – much sooner than the current 2050 goal. The finding is broadly consistent with other analyses that have found Australia should be moving more rapidly.
A United Nations report published Wednesday ahead of November’s COP27 talks warns that planetary heating could reach a catastrophic 2.9°C by the end of the century without immediate action from the world’s largest polluters to dramatically rein in carbon emissions and transition away from fossil fuels.
The analysis by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) examines the climate commitments of the 193 national parties to the Paris climate accord, which sets out to limit warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—an amount of heating that would still have devastating impacts across the world, particularly in poor and low-lying nations.
“Those who are expected to do more are far from doing enough, and the consequences of this is affecting lives and livelihoods across the globe.”
Even if countries meet their current climate targets—something many nations, including the United States, are not on track to achieve as climate advocates and scientists push for bolder action—global carbon emissions are projected to rise 10.6% by 2030 relative to 2010 levels and the planet is set to warm by an average of 2.1 to 2.9°C by 2100.
“The latest U.N. report is another reminder that we are still just throwing cups of water at a raging inferno,” Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, wrote on Twitter. “It’s past time for [U.S. President Joe Biden] to declare a climate emergency and use every power he has to get us off fossil fuels.”
The report notes that while “some progress” has been made toward reducing planet-warming emissions over the past year, “an urgent need for either a significant increase in the level of ambition of [nationally determined contributions] between now and 2030 or a significant overachievement” of climate action plans will be necessary to avert disastrous warming. The New York Timesnoted that “just 26 of 193 countries that agreed last year to step up their climate actions have followed through with more ambitious plans.”
“The downward trend in emissions expected by 2030 shows that nations have made some progress this year,” said Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change. “But the science is clear and so are our climate goals under the Paris Agreement. We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5°C world.”
“To keep this goal alive,” Stiell added, “national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years.”
The report was published as extreme weather made more intense by the climate emergency continues to ravage large swaths of the globe, taking lives, destroying communities, and exacerbating the intertwined crises of poverty, hunger, and inequality. Millions are reeling from devastating flooding in Nigeria and Pakistan while East Africa is in the midst of a starvation crisis intensified by prolonged drought.
The potential impacts of 2.9°C of warming are stark. As Scott Kulp, a computational scientist at Climate Central, toldBuzzfeed last year, “an estimated 12% of the current global population living on land could be threatened under long-term future sea level rise under the 3°C scenario.”
“So that amounts to 810 million people,” Kulp noted.
Another expert, Rutgers University climate scientist Robert Kopp, told the outlet that “the more we push the system above 2°C—but we don’t know how much—the more the chance we trigger ice sheet processes that could rapidly increase sea level rise.”
Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s minister of foreign affairs and president-designate of the upcoming COP27 talks, said in a statement that the new UNFCCC report is further “testimony to the fact that we are off track on achieving the Paris climate goal and keeping the 1.5 degrees within reach.”
“Raising ambition and urgent implementation is indispensable for addressing the climate crisis,” said Shoukry. “This includes cutting and removing emissions faster and at wider scope of economic sectors, to protect us from more severe adverse climate impacts and devastating loss and damage.”
“This is a sobering moment, and we are in a race against time,” Shoukry added. “Several of those who are expected to do more are far from doing enough, and the consequences of this is affecting lives and livelihoods across the globe. I am conscious that it is and should be a continuum of action until 2030 then 2050. However, these alarming findings merit a transformative response at COP27.”
A Thames Water van
