The prime minister needs to step up on net zero

Last year the government – first through Theresa May, and then confirmed by Boris Johnson – committed itself to making the UK a ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emitter by 2050, and put that commitment into law. To reinforce the message, Johnson also won a bid for the UK to host the big climate change conference, COP26, key to getting co-ordinated international action on climate change five years on from the landmark 2016 Paris Agreement. Since then, however, his focus has been elsewhere.

Climate change is an area where the UK’s record is genuinely ‘world-leading’

The UK became the first country to put net zero into law – just as a decade earlier it had been the first nation with legislated climate targets. It has achieved a huge reduction in emissions in the power sector, partly by accident (in the shift from coal) and partly design (ramping up offshore wind). Its governance arrangements – the Climate Change Act 2008 and creation of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) have been successfully exported to countries including Sweden and New Zealand. 

But rhetoric and targets are not enough to deliver net zero

As the CCC has repeatedly warned, however, there is a problem. The UK may have adopted a more ambitious target than the original one in the Climate Change Act – an 80% cut in emissions by 2050, based on 1990 levels – but it is not on track to deliver even that target. That needs to change, as we set out in our report published today.

Net zero does seem to have galvanised Whitehall in a way that the 80% target failed to do (outside the core climate change lead department). The Treasury is doing its own net zero review. The Department for Transport seems – finally – to be jumping on board, having seen emissions reduction from vehicles stall over the past decade. There are now not one, but two cabinet committees dealing with climate change and the government is promising an updated net zero plan next year.

Net zero needs PM leadership, a big hitter minister and effective central co-ordination

But there are a lot of roadblocks on the way to net zero that officials cannot overcome on their own. Only the prime minister can make net zero a real priority across government – but he has yet to put any real impetus behind it. He is yet to make a major speech on climate change. His Cabinet Committee on Climate Change was set up in October 2019, but did not meet until March 2020. Too much heavy lifting is being left to the business secretary, who has to deliver both a domestic plan and a successful COP, all while shepherding business through the worst recession for centuries.

This is an area which cries out for powerful central co-ordination. The government needs a credible plan, which charts a course to 2050 for each of the key sectors: energy, transport, housing,  agriculture and industry – and adds up. Ministers have difficult trade-offs to make and sequencing is key – they already have advice from their Council on Science and Technology, arguing for a ‘systems approach’. They need the machinery to put that into practice.

That means a new net zero unit in the Cabinet Office that can provide ministers with the analysis they need to make decisions, and to co-ordinate a plan that sets out a credible way forward (including how and when future choices will be made) and then oversee its delivery. And it needs the political heft of a top Cabinet Office minister overseeing it, with no departmental interest at stake, who can ‘knock heads together’ and win the political battles. Otherwise we will be left with another classic weak department strategy – full of photos and busy micro-commitments but which fails to measure up or give businesses and individuals the certainty and direction they need to plan.

This applies to climate change mitigation – reduction in emissions – but it also applies to adaptation – getting ready for the impacts of climate change. Over the past year alone we have seen more intense flooding and summer heatwaves in the UK: effective and timely adaptation of our own infrastructure is a key part of national resilience. 

A credible plan will help the UK make a success of COP26

Next year the UK holds the presidency of the G7 and hosts the COP, in Glasgow. Climate action will be its big international priority. If it can point to a credible plan which addresses costs, and shows how to manage a “just transition”, the UK will have made it much more likely it can chalk up a successful COP as the first big outing for ‘Global Britain’. But the government can only do it if it acts now.