Original article by Josephine Moulds , Grace Murray republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Top polling party’s moves to ‘undeclare’ the climate emergency and scrap net zero targets could be a sign of things to come

Reform UK’s disregard of the climate crisis is already taking effect across the country. Since gaining control of 10 councils last May, the party has scrapped vital environmental goals. It has courted support from fossil fuel investors with a promise to “drill, baby, drill”. And its councillors have hijacked public debates with outright climate denialism.

Seven of the councils now controlled by Reform have abandoned important green measures. This includes ditching ambitious net zero targets and withdrawing the declaration of a climate emergency – which could threaten green investment and undermine action taken locally to deal with the crisis.

With Reform leading the polls and more local elections to come this year, what we’ve seen so far could be the tip of the iceberg.

For Lord Adair Turner, co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, the return of climate denial to public debate is “undoubtedly bad news” and presents a major setback for tackling the crisis. “We’ve got to work out how to convince people that there is a real, massive climate problem and that we do have the solutions now, which are available at relatively low cost,” he said.

We’ve been looking at how Reform has treated climate issues at a local level to gauge what might happen if it wins more councils this year – and if it comes to power in 2029.

The ‘global warming hoax’

One of Reform UK’s key campaigning pledges is the scrapping of net zero in order to cut energy bills. West Northamptonshire’s council leader Mark Arnull said: “Every resident who voted Reform UK voted for that and they must be heard.”

Of the 10 new Reform-controlled councils, seven promptly abandoned their climate promises. Of the remaining three, Lincolnshire did not have any significant climate pledges to scrap but Reform leaders there say they have “declared war” on green energy projects; Derbyshire confirmed its commitment to cutting emissions but ditched the objective to “work to address the causes, and adapt to the impacts, of climate change”; and Doncaster – which has a Reform majority but a Labour mayor and cabinet – has maintained its climate pledges.

The Reform councils’ position contrasts sharply with those controlled by other parties. Climate Emergency UK – a campaign organisation for council climate action – says it is not aware of any other local authorities that have scrapped their climate pledges. Across the UK, more than 300 councils have declared a “climate emergency” and many of those are backed up with ambitious net zero targets.

Polling suggests almost three quarters of people in the UK believe climate change is caused by human activity; a study of more than 88,000 climate-related studies found that 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree.

Yet in public debates, some Reform councillors have put forward the opposite view. In Nottinghamshire, councillor Bert Bingham said: “I’ve been involved in sustainability projects for 25 years and I’ve never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax.”

In Kent, Councillor Chris Hespe said: “It is often stated that anthropogenic climate change is ‘settled science’ and that the whole scientific community believes it. However, this is far from the case.”

Outright climate denial has permeated local debate. After Rachael Hatchett, a Green councillor in Derbyshire, spoke up in a debate about solar farms last year, she was heckled by another councillor shouting: “There is no climate change!”

Reform’s claim that scrapping net zero will cut energy bills is also misleading, according to energy experts. Dhara Vyas, chief executive of industry body Energy UK, told Carbon Brief it is “crystal clear what has driven electricity bills up in the UK … it’s the wholesale costs, driven by the price of gas”.

Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Ricketts said Reform’s climate denial would have real-world impacts for Kent’s constituents. Parts of the county are recognised to be at risk of flooding and local authorities have received funding from the Environment Agency to shore up sea walls and maintain other defences.

Ricketts said this money was allocated based on the science and policymaking that Reform criticises: “There are very real effects on the people of Kent by trying to debunk these things.”

Recommended Articles

• Triumph for transparency as court reporter wins battle for private documents
• MPs pledge to investigate toxic gas from animal farming
• Mother vindicated after top judge overturns evidence of parental alienation expert

In Durham, Reform proposed retracting the climate emergency and instead declaring a “care emergency” with a focus on special educational needs. Independent councillor Chris Lines said: “Politically, the rhetoric from Reform was that if you voted against it, you were labelled as someone who didn’t care about young people. Conflating the two issues was frankly appalling.”

Lines is concerned about the impact of these declarations on the economy, pointing to research showing that the low-carbon industry was worth £1.7bn to County Durham in 2021/22. “If I was a business in that growing sector looking to invest in an area, would I really want to come here, given the direction this council is going?”

Not all the debates on net zero have involved outright climate denial. In West Northamptonshire, councillors questioned how feasible climate policies were and raised concerns about their cost – an approach that academics have labelled “climate delay”, which can hinder action on climate change.

Alan Graves, the Reform UK leader in Derbyshire, said: “We do not deny that the climate is changing… The council continues to support practical, affordable measures that cut waste, improve efficiency, and reduce costs for residents.”

Responding to whether climate denial had spread in local councils, he said he could only speak for Derbyshire but that they weren’t focusing on “culture-war labels”.

Graves added: “We do not remove policies for ideological reasons. Where we have amended plans, it is because they were vague, unfunded, sometimes unfounded or undeliverable. Our responsibility is to be honest with the public about what can realistically be achieved within local government budgets.” Reform UK and the other councils mentioned did not respond to requests for comment.

A familiar playbook

Reform UK has proudly borrowed slogans from Donald Trump’s campaigns in the US. At a recent council meeting in Durham, Reform councillor Kyle Genner painted a vivid picture of the county’s “dilapidated and deprived estates … the joblessness … the lack of dignity and hope”. He urged his fellow councillors to support the reindustrialisation of the county – including the extraction of coal, oil and gas – to “make Durham great again”.

“I’m clearly not Donald Trump,” he said. “But I do like the idea of ‘drill, baby, drill’. I do like the idea of ‘jobs, baby, jobs’.”

Reform are in the climate denial camp and the Conservatives have moved into – not climate denial, but saying they want to get away from net zero

Lord Turner

The Reform leader of the council, Andrew Husband, said this local debate held a national significance. “It’s telling the North Sea oil and gas producers, ‘Don’t give up just yet’. We’re preparing County Durham for a Reform government in 2029 so we can hit the ground running. Simple as that.”

Back in Kent, former Reform councillor Fothergill said it was “ridiculous” the county was not exploiting its abundance of gas, coal and mineral resources.

In further echoes of the Trump administration, Reform councils across the country are erasing the words climate and environment from cabinet roles, committee names and planning documents.

Where Trump set up the Department of Government Efficiency spearheaded by Elon Musk, Kent county council introduced its own Department of Local Government Efficiency, or DOLGE.

Andrew Husband speaks during the Reform UK County Durham Conference last FebruaryIan Forsyth / Getty Images

Kent’s first head of DOLGE, Matthew Fraser Moat, highlighted what he said were “several, maybe tens of millions of pounds” wasted on the county’s declaration of a climate emergency. In September last year, he said this spending should be stopped, “given that there is no discernible benefit to the world’s climate from all of [Kent county council’s] efforts over the last seven years”.

Weeks later, Kent’s council leader said Reform had saved the county £32m over four years by “undeclaring the climate emergency”, and a further £7.5m by scrapping the county council’s transition to electric vehicles.

Fraser Moat, however, told the Financial Times this month that the Reform council “had not actually made any cuts”. ​​The DOLGE team reportedly expected to find vast amounts of waste but didn’t. Fraser Moat has since stepped down from the council’s cabinet, saying his comments were the result of a “lapse of judgement” and that his words had been twisted.

Blocking the bulldozers

Across the country, Reform-controlled councils have opposed solar projects. In Durham, the party has abandoned a plan to install solar panels on council buildings, which aimed to save the council money on energy bills.

In Lincolnshire, Reform councillor Sean Matthews told the BBC about a new solar farm development: “I’m going to do whatever I can to stop it, and that does include laying in front of those bulldozers.”

While it may not always stray into the outright climate denial Hatchett faced in Derbyshire, Ricketts said Reform’s opposition to solar is largely political. “They know that resonates with one part of their base that don’t want solar farms built on fields, but also with the other part that are anti-climate change measures.”

Time and again, the environmental issues raised in local councils came back to party politics. Independent councillor Ian McCord welcomed West Northamptonshire’s move to scrap net zero targets. “Those that are crying into their tofu and quinoa forget that they lost the May election,” he said.

This has shifted the debate on net zero across the political spectrum. Lord Turner said: “Reform, obviously, are in the climate denial camp but the Conservatives have moved into, not climate denial, but saying they want to get away from net zero.

“It’s a bit ironic that, in the face of catastrophic weather events around the world, we are losing [the cross-party] consensus. I’m under no illusion that we’re facing a more tricky situation than we were five or 10 years ago.”

This story was updated on Wednesday 25 February 2026 to reflect the fact that Nottinghamshire county council has not rescinded its climate emergency declaration.

Reporters: Josephine Moulds and Grace Murray
Environment editor: Rob Soutar
Deputy editor: Chrissie Giles
Editor: Franz Wild
Fact checker: Ero Partsakoulaki
Production editor: Alex Hess

TBIJ has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.

Original article by Josephine Moulds , Grace Murray republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.