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Leaked UK government plan to protect against climate heat ‘very weak’

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/17/new-uk-government-plan-to-protect-against-climate-heat-very-weak

[Guardian] Exclusive: Document ‘falls far short’ of what is needed to safeguard lives and livelihoods from heat, drought and storms, say experts

The government’s plan to cope with the climate crisis has been condemned as “very weak” by experts, who say not enough is being done to protect lives and livelihoods.

Responding to the document, which was leaked to the Guardian, one highlighted its failure to adequately protect people in the UK from extreme heat. The heatwave in 2022, when temperatures surpassed 40C for the first time, led to the early deaths of more than 3,000 people, wildfires, buckled rail lines and farmers struggling with drought. Southern Europe is in the grip of a searing heatwave.

Another expert said there was a “yawning gap” in measures to restore nature, which is a vital part of adapting to climate change.

The National Adaptation Programme is expected to be published on Tuesday by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which is required by law to produce a plan every five years. In March, the government’s official advisers, the Climate Change Committee, said its publication would be a “make-or-break moment”.

Ministers have been criticised for years over the failure to make adequate plans for the impacts of global heating. The CCC said in March that the UK was “strikingly unprepared” and that there had been a “lost decade” in action on adaptation. It said heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms would intensify in the coming years until carbon emissions reached net zero.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/17/new-uk-government-plan-to-protect-against-climate-heat-very-weak

Continue ReadingLeaked UK government plan to protect against climate heat ‘very weak’

UK should quit ‘climate-wrecking’ energy treaty, say official advisers

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/10/uk-should-quit-energy-charter-treaty-climate-change-committee

The UK should quit a controversial energy treaty to stop it delaying vital climate action and triggering huge taxpayer payouts to fossil fuel companies, according to the government’s official advisers.

The energy charter treaty (ECT) is a system of secret courts that enables companies to sue governments over policies that would cut their future profits. Companies have sued over phasing out coal-fired power stations, ending offshore oil drilling and banning fracking. The UK’s Climate Change Committee said Britain should withdraw from the ECT because recently proposed reforms did not go far enough.

The UK and Japan are the only major economies not to have committed to exiting the ECT. France, Germany, Spain and others have already said they will leave and the EU is set to pull out en masse after saying that staying would “clearly undermine” climate targets.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/10/uk-should-quit-energy-charter-treaty-climate-change-committee

Continue ReadingUK should quit ‘climate-wrecking’ energy treaty, say official advisers

Just stop the need for Just Stop Oil, says climate adviser

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https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/climate-energy-nature/2023/06/climate-change-committee-report-oil-net-zero

Protest by Just Stop Oil
Just Stop Oil protest

A scathing report from the independent Climate Change Committee has condemned government’s slow progress.

Lord Deben, the outgoing chairman of the UK’s climate advisory board, is not a personal fan of the protest group Just Stop Oil. “I do not think it promotes the cause which we all have,” he said this week. But as his Climate Change Committee (CCC) released its new report, he called on the government to listen to the group’s demands and remove the need for protest in the first place.

“Governments and oppositions ought to recognise why it happens,” he said. “It happens because a very, very large number of people, many of them young, really do feel that their whole lives are threatened because governments are not leading, not taking up the challenge, not moving fast enough, not keeping [a 1.5C limit to global warming] within possibility, not, in other words, doing what they ought to do if they are to meet the needs of our population and the population of the world.”

Deben was speaking at a press briefing for the CCC’s latest progress report, released on Wednesday (28 June). The statutory document says that the current Conservative government is failing to make sufficient progress towards the UK’s legally binding net-zero goals. Energy and climate experts described its findings as “damning”.

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https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/climate-energy-nature/2023/06/climate-change-committee-report-oil-net-zero

Continue ReadingJust stop the need for Just Stop Oil, says climate adviser

UK has made ‘no progress’ on climate plan, say government’s own advisers

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/28/uk-has-made-no-progress-on-climate-plan-say-governments-own-advisers

Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.

UK has lost leadership in climate action and almost all targets are being missed, Committee on Climate Change finds

The government’s plans to hit net zero have been comprehensively criticised in a withering report by its own advisers that warns targets are being missed on nearly every front.

Fewer homes were insulated last year under the government-backed scheme than the year before, despite soaring energy bills and a cost of living crisis. There is little progress on transport emissions, no coherent programme for behaviour change, and still no decision on hydrogen for home heating.

Meanwhile the installation of new wind and solar farms and the upgrading of the electricity grid are still too slow to meet net zero, according to the Committee on Climate Change, which says that the lack of urgency of government and a failure of political leadership means progress has stalled.

Lord Deben, outgoing chair of the CCC, said the UK had “lost the leadership” on climate action shown at Cop26 in 2021 and done “a number of things” – such as greenlighting a new coal mine and new oil and gasfields in the North Sea – that were “utterly unacceptable”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/28/uk-has-made-no-progress-on-climate-plan-say-governments-own-advisers

Continue ReadingUK has made ‘no progress’ on climate plan, say government’s own advisers

Time is short for Tories and Labour to show leadership on the climate crisis

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/28/time-is-short-for-tories-and-labour-to-show-leadership-on-the-climate-crisis

Neither party is showing much appetite for the hard policy decisions that are necessary to cut CO2 emissions – and time is running out

Extinction Rebellion protest, banner reads NO MORE PLANET WRECKING FOSSIL FUELS DEMAND RENEWABLE ENERGY
The UK’s Committee on Climate Change has accused the government of dithering about expanding onshore wind.

The Conservatives are lagging far behind on the climate crisis, that much we know. But the Labour party is not showing the leadership that the country needs on reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the chairman of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has warned.

Lord Deben, a former Conservative environment secretary, has long been a critic of the government, and recently praised Labour’s stance on opposing new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.

But as he presented his final annual progress report as chairman, he warned that Labour was failing to take on vested interests.

“If you lead, then there are bound to be people who would prefer you not to have made those decisions,” Deben said. “And what we are seeing at the moment is not only in government but in opposition, people being unwilling to lead lest some people don’t like the decisions that are being made. But these decisions have to be made, and there will be some people who disagree with them, and it is no good hoping that it will all go away.”

He added: “Right across the political spectrum, there is an unwillingness to lead.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/28/time-is-short-for-tories-and-labour-to-show-leadership-on-the-climate-crisis

Continue ReadingTime is short for Tories and Labour to show leadership on the climate crisis