Climate Change Committee also says rowing back on climate policies has harmed investment into UK
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In a damning verdict on the prime minister’s announcements last month, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) warned of a “substantial policy gap” that was putting the UK off track to meet its crucial 2030 carbon targets.
Piers Forster, the acting chair of the CCC, said: “The prime minister has relaxed important policies to decarbonise buildings and transport and sent a message to business and the international audience that he will allow more time for the UK to transition to key clean technologies.”
He added: “We remain concerned about the likelihood of achieving the UK’s future targets, especially the substantial policy gap to the UK’s 2030 goals.”
The CCC found there were “insufficient” plans to meet about a fifth of the emissions reductions required by 2030 to hit the government’s international goal of cutting carbon by 68% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.
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Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Energy Monitor talks to leading climate change economist Dimitri Zenghelis about an open letter from 100 economists lamenting UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s recent net-zero U-turns.
One of the many occasions UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet.
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So, what’s behind Sunak’s net-zero moves then?
It’s got nothing to do with cost; it’s pure politics. It’s dog-whistle stuff. He thinks he can turn this issue into an identity politics story. Hence, the “seven bins”. He’s talking about these cosmopolitan elite liberals with their fetishistic recycling (hence the seven bins) and how they’re wanting to take away our cars – from hard-working people who don’t have access to transport. It’s another “us against them” story.
It is true that if you live next to public transport in central London, you can afford to legislate against dirty vehicles, but if you live in a suburb with a terrible bus line, and you can’t afford the latest electric vehicle, yes, it is potentially quite punitive. So, this has to be done in a very careful and fair way. But just removing legislation that doesn’t impose costs sends a signal to the electorate that you’re taking a position, but to businesses that you absolutely haven’t a clue what you’re doing. Because on the one hand, you’re saying you’re committed to net zero by 2050; and on the other hand, you’re providing absolutely zero policy certainty because even when you do apply policies, you then rescind them. It’s economic short-termism.
Sunak’s playing politics with people’s livelihoods, and he’s selling it as if he’s actually trying to help people’s livelihoods instead of actually grappling with the issues of net-zero disruption and figure how we make it easier for people to adjust, how we support people in making their house as energy efficient as possible and transition to heat pumps, how we support people with bad public transport who at the moment can’t afford electric vehicles. But he’s thinking of what happened with ULEZ [Ultra Low Emission Zone] in the Uxbridge vote and what those culture wars can do to turn around his chances in the upcoming election. And if the economy suffers, well that won’t be his problem, because he probably won’t be in government by then. It’s just so cynical.
It’s hard for him to argue this is what economists are saying when both the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] and the Treasury have provided numbers that show the cost of delaying this transition is more expensive than the cost of pursuing it, as has the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC).
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
In February this year, the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) wrote a letter to government in which it claimed that more domestic oil and gas extraction would have “at most, a marginal effect on prices”, recommending instead that the best way of reducing exposure to volatile energy markets is “cut[ting] fossil fuel consumption, improving energy efficiency, [and] shifting to a renewables-based power system”.
Meanwhile, research from campaign group Uplift reveals that gas from undeveloped UK oil and gas fields in the North Sea, including Rosebank, will deliver at most three weeks of energy to the UK per year, while oil would provide up to five years of oil demand, even if none of it were exported. In reality, most production from North Sea fields, along with Rosebank, which is joint-owned by Norwegian state oil major Equinor (40%), Canadian Suncor Energy (20%) and Israeli-owned Ithaca Energy (20%), is likely to be exported abroad, as is currently the case with 60% and 80% of North Sea gas and oil, respectively.
Further analysis of data from GlobalData reveals just how far burning oil and gas from Rosebank would threaten the UK’s climate targets. According to GlobalData, Rosebank contains the largest untapped oil and gas reserves of all proposed North Sea fields, with 370 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Using US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conversion figures – according to which one barrel of oil emits 0.43 tonnes (t) of CO₂ when burnt and 1,000 cubic feet of gas emit 0.0551t of CO₂ when burnt – Rosebank is likely to release 155 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (mtCO₂) into the atmosphere over its lifetime.
However, in a “balanced” net-zero pathway, as per the CCC’s sixth carbon budget, emissions from fossil fuels fall 75% by 2035 from 2018 levels. In total, emissions from “fuel supply” – predominantly made up of fossil fuels – amount to 298mtCO₂-equivalent (mtCO₂e) between 2023 and 2050, meaning lifetime emissions from Rosebank are equivalent to more than half of the UK’s remaining carbon budget for total fuel supply.
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Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Donations raise eyebrows with Rishi Sunak expected to reject Climate Change Committee advice on banning expansions
A dirty jet passenger aircraft
Airport operators have lavished Britain’s last three prime ministers with VIP services worth more than £200,000 since the 2019 election, analysis by openDemocracy has found.
Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May are among the Conservative MPs who have accepted more than £275,000 in donations-in-kind from airport operators, while Conservative Party HQ has also taken more than £13,500 in donations from airport operators.
It comes as the government signals its backing for airport expansions, in contrast with advice from its own climate advisers that adding runways to Heathrow and Gatwick would be incompatible with the UK’s net zero goals. The Department of Transport told openDemocracy it was “supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way”.
Peter Barclay, the chair of Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, said gifts to the Conservative Party were “all part of the industry’s efforts to oil the government machine in their favour”.
“It makes you very suspicious of politicians,” he said.
Sarah Clayton, coordinator of climate campaign group AirportWatch said: “Rishi Sunak has no interest in the environment, his only interest is keeping the Conservative Party going.
“The airports will use every little trick in the book in order to make sure that the law isn’t changed so they can get their expansion plans through.”
Truss, Johnson and May have accepted tens of thousands of pounds in donations in kind from Heathrow Airport Ltd and Gatwick Airport Ltd in the last four years. Both airports are hoping to open additional runways.
Theresa May alone accepted donations in kind worth more than £183,000 for the use of the VIP Windsor suite at Heathrow Airport a staggering 44 times, according to declarations made on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Heathrow advertises the private suite as a “unique and luxurious service” that includes a chauffeur and dinner prepared by a Michelin starred chef “served by your own personal butler”.
Boris Johnson also used the suite at least 34 times, accepting stays worth £58,000 from the airport, four of them while still in office. In addition, he made use of a VIP suite at Gatwick Airport for him and his family on three occasions after leaving office, a donation in kind worth more than £4,000.
His short-lived successor Liz Truss also made use of VIP suites at Heathrow and Gatwick, accepting 14 stays worth more than £24,000 after resigning as prime minister.
Theresa May accepted donations in kind worth more than £183,000 for the use of the VIP Windsor suite at Heathrow Airport a staggering 44 times
Tory Party HQ also accepted a £12,500 cash donation from London City Airport Ltd just days after it won the 2019 election, according to the Electoral Commission’s records, while Heathrow Airport Ltd made a “non-cash” donation worth the equivalent of £1,680.00 to the party in October 2022. It did not respond to questions about what the donation actually was.
A further six Conservative MPs have accepted gifts worth almost £7,000 in total from London City Airport Ltd since 2019. Orpington MP Gareth Bacon declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that he received tickets to sporting fixtures worth £1,849 from the airport last year, which is the closest to his constituency.
Tory MPs Nigel Evans, Robert Neill, Paul Scully, Kevin Hollinrake and Gagan Mohindra also declared that they had accepted tickets to sporting events from the airport.
London City had an application to increase the size of its terminal refused by Newham Council in July, but has appealed the decision.
Operators of British airports including Heathrow and Gatwick, as well as the Airport Operators Association (AOA), also sponsor the Future of Aviation All-Party Parliamentary Group of MPs by donating £10,000 a year to pay for its secretariat.
Karen Dee, the chief executive of AOA, recently wrote that she had been “working with MPs on the Future of Aviation All Party Parliamentary Group to lobby the prime minister and chancellor to allow airports to establish arrivals duty-free stores and to restore VAT-free shopping for international tourists”.
[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.
