Government backing for new oil and coal, airport expansion plans and slow progress on heat pumps show that the UK has lost its leadership on climate issues, a government watchdog warns.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) described government efforts to scale up climate action as “worryingly slow”.
It was “markedly” less confident than a year ago that the UK would reach its targets for cutting carbon emissions.
Committee chairman Lord Deben, a former Conservative environment minister, was particularly critical of the government’s policy on new coal and oil projects.
The decision to approve the UK’s first new deep coal mine in 30 years in Cumbria last December was “total nonsense”, he told the BBC.
Lord Deben was also damning about plans for a major new oilfield off the coast of Scotland. Approval for Rosebank, which could produce an estimated 300 million barrels of oil in its lifetime, is expected soon.
“How can we ask countries in Africa not to develop oil?” Lord Deben said. “How can we ask other nations not to expand the fossil fuel production if we start doing it ourselves?”
The UK has set legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, meaning the country will no longer contribute any additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
At the COP26 UN climate conference in Glasgow in 2021 then Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to cut emissions by 68% on 1990 levels by the end of the decade.
The CCC report warned “continued delays in policy development and implementation” meant reaching them was “increasingly challenging”.
The Committee highlighted a “lack of urgency” across government and a “worrying hesitancy” by ministers to lead on the climate issue.
Source: www.bbc.com
