Conservatives announce plans to replace Climate Change Act: comment

"Trump may have rowed back on responsibility for tackling climate change, but the rest of the world is clearly moving in one direction with renewables investment booming, EV sales up and the clear risk of being left behind.

“Being a net zero sceptic essentially means you don’t believe in solving climate change. The science is clear that reaching net zero emissions is the only way to bring balance back into our climate, stop climate change and prevent the many harms that the UK, its people and the wider world faces from getting ever worse. The UK is facing another bad harvest after the third worst on record last year, threatening our ability to feed ourselves and pushing up prices for families on supermarket shelves by hundreds of pounds.

“The UK as with many other countries has made good progress, already cutting its emissions in half, and in doing so we’ve built a huge offshore wind industry which is employing thousands of people in places like Grimsby and Hull. Their work is insulating the UK from international gas markets that have driven up the cost of energy bills so much in the past few years."

Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources: “The Conservatives’ plan to repeal the Climate Change Act is an exercise in double-speak that exemplifies why the British people have lost trust in politicians.

"The most egregious example of this – and there are several – is the claim that ‘replacing’ the Climate Change Act (CCA) will engender economic growth, when it is quite clear that the policy certainty delivered by the CCA has been a major magnet for the foreign investment that has, according to CBI Economics, meant that the ‘net zero’ economy in the UK grew by 10% over 2023-24, far faster than the rest of the economy.

"The Conservatives seem hell-bent on destroying the major growth engine of the UK economy – in the name of economic growth. With such mis-statements they are absolutely not fit to be entrusted with the UK economy.”

Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, UCL Institute of Sustainable Resources: “The striking fact is how few major UK businesses support scrapping the Climate Change Act. The reason is simple.  

"Business knows that climate change is a real and pressing problem; that the future lies in low carbon energy and related innovation; and business values clarity and certainty within a firm legal framework.  

"Scrapping a far-sighted Act, that was passed with huge bipartisan consensus, opposes all those realities.”

A background briefing on the Climate Change Act is available to download here.