Chris Stark: We need action not words to tackle climate change

It took an incendiary tweet about wood-burning stoves and a slow news day to finally get people talking about climate policy. When an architecture firm posted earlier this month that “wood-burning stoves have now been banned by the Scottish Government,” it ignited a row on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter where large parts of Scotland’s political debate continues to be conducted. The “ban” appeared to be news not only to owners of wood-burning stoves but many of the country’s MSPs. 

Just a few weeks earlier, Chris Stark, the outgoing chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), had rebuked the government, saying the 2030 target for reducing carbon emissions was “beyond what is credible” and therefore not likely to be met. It was the first time the CCC, which advises both the UK Government and the devolved administrations, had said a target would not be achieved amid concerns over the limited progress being made on reducing emissions associated with housing, in particular. The target has since been ditched.

Like much of the eye-catching stuff on social media, the truth about wood-burning stoves turned out to be a bit more complicated: the government is indeed banning them but only in new-builds. Much of the heavy lifting when it comes to heating in homes – stripping out gas-fired boilers in ageing tenements, for example – has yet to begin. 

“It’s not that important in the grand scheme of things,” Stark says when asked about the row. “We are once again focussing on something which is less important than the bigger challenge which is how over several decades we decarbonise every building in Scotland, including those in rural constituencies.” 

In the six years that Stark has led the CCC, he has not shied away from offering criticism of government when it has fallen short. While he still believes the Scottish Government will achieve its ultimate goal of reaching net zero by 2045, he has recently voiced concerns over both the now scrapped 2030 target and failure to produce an updated climate change plan, something net zero secretary Mairi McAllan has put at the door of the UK Government, rather than the one of which she’s part. 

Yet Stark is clear that while the government in Edinburgh talks a good game on climate change, its actions are failing to live up to the rhetoric. He contrasts the SNP’s performance unfavourably with the Conservatives, despite net zero becoming a “culture war issue” at Westminster.

“The Conservative government find themselves in a position of having to speak to people who don’t want to talk about climate change but knowing they still need to build the policies,” he says. “It contrasts with Scottish ministers who have been rather more reluctant to develop the climate change policies at all but are more happy to talk about climate change. It’s definitely a different dynamic.”

McAllan has used a speech given by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in September as evidence the UK Government is rowing back on its environmental commitments, making it more difficult for the Scottish Government to meet its own. But Stark says that while Sunak’s speech proved to be an important juncture in the debate due to the way his comments were interpreted, the measures announced did not amount to a significant watering down of the UK’s green agenda. 

“In recent years [climate change] was very closely associated as a political priority with Boris Johnson’s administration. His departure has left a vacuum and Liz Truss and now Rishi Sunak have understandably tried to define themselves with different agendas to varying degrees of success. That has left a vacuum which has been filled by the sorts of people who for a long time said we shouldn’t try at all to tackle this issue. They’re having more traction at the moment because they’re the only ones talking up this discussion at all. We lack real political leadership in this area.

Net zero secretary Mairi McAllan | Alamy

“I think Rishi Sunak’s speech was quite a moment. It was in the wake of a by-election won by the Conservatives in Uxbridge [Johnson’s former seat] that was billed as a referendum of sorts on environmental policies with the extension of the ultra low-emission zone… The narrative was that this was a climate election of some sort…”

But Stark says far from being a major U-turn on environmental policy, Sunak’s speech was “perfectly sensible”.

“He was talking about the need for pragmatism, the need for taking the country with him on the need to act on climate change, all of which I very much agree with. The story that was heard, however, was that he was rowing back. I know from contacts in other countries that diplomacy around this definitely got the message the UK was stepping back from its climate ambition. When you actually look at what the prime minister has done with policy, we haven’t changed many of the policies at all. Even the things he did row back on weren’t major policy steps.”

But while Stark is clear that Sunak’s September speech didn’t amount to a major re-casting of government policy, the CCC has nevertheless been critical of both Scotland’s governments when it comes to the pace of change on tackling carbon emissions. Last year, two years on from hosting the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the CCC’s outgoing chair Lord Deben, a former Tory environment minister, said the continued backing for fossil fuels alongside airport expansion and slow progress on heat pumps had caused the UK to lose its position as a world leader on the environment. 

“If you look backwards, you see both the UK and Scotland have done quite well in reducing emissions,” Stark says. “But climate leadership is about having the next batch of policies to decarbonise transport, industry or farming – that’s where we see the gap. Our point about leadership is that we’re not out in front on those areas anymore. That’s where we’re going to stumble on hitting our future targets because we’ve done the job of decarbonising electricity first.” 

Figures published last year by the Scottish Government showed greenhouse gas emissions were 49.9 per cent lower in 2021 than the 1990 baseline but still short of the 51.1 per cent target. It was the eighth time in 12 years the government had missed its own legally binding target. While the 2030 target of reducing emissions by 75 per cent has now been dropped, Stark remains hopeful that the ultimate 2045 goal of becoming net zero can still be achieved. 

He also says it’s not fair for the government to blame its UK counterpart for its failure to produce an updated climate change plan, given most of the policy areas covered are devolved to Holyrood. Last year, McAllan delayed publication of the plan and has since refused to give a date for when it is to be published short of confirming that it will be put before parliament ahead of a legally binding deadline. 

“My strongest criticism of what the Scottish Government’s done recently is that we’ve only had statements rather than proper plans and actions put in place,” Stark says. “It’s the plans and actions that matter in the end. If anything, if they were worried about what the UK Government was doing on climate, that should accelerate the Scottish plan. There’s a convenience to blaming the UK Government when most of the policy issues now sit with Holyrood.

“It’s absolutely true that we will need a UK-wide environment for things like energy supply and energy policy… but when it comes to things like decarbonising buildings or rolling out electric vehicles, these are mainly Scottish issues and have been for some time. I think the lack of a plan is a real problem and I don’t buy the argument that it’s because Rishi Sunak has changed his views. If you look at what Rishi Sunak has actually announced, policy changes haven’t been that great from Number 10. We’re in a position where the gap, I’m afraid, is at a Scottish level.” 

If climate policy is unlikely to dominate the debate in the run-up to this year’s general election, then in Aberdeen at least, the future of the oil and gas industry is. Stark says it’s difficult for a government which believes in net zero to be the true defender of the North Sea, as the SNP has sought to do in recent months.

Asked if a party that cares about the climate can also be the voice of the oil and gas industry, he says: “It’s clearly difficult. We have several parties having a go at that, with the SNP changing their view on it quite a lot recently… The Greens, as you would expect, have been rather more consistent on this than the other parties. From my perspective, it’s not really a one or the other thing – what we need is an actual transition.

“That means having more of a focus on what needs to come next. We are definitely going to have oil and gas for some time yet; we can’t just switch that off. People who work in that sector need to be able to have a role to play in the net zero economy in the future. What we lack is the sort of grown-up politics that can discuss this kind of stuff properly and advocate for the right steps without getting trapped in the either / or discussion we’ve had about oil and gas.” 

A former director of Energy and Climate Change at the Scottish Government, Stark will leave his position with the CCC at the end of the month to become chief executive of the Carbon Trust, a consultancy firm. While he says his as-yet-unnamed successor is in place, he expresses frustration about the UK Government’s failure to appoint a replacement for Lord Deben who left the organisation at the end of June last year after staying in post for an additional year. Former Conservative universities minister David Willetts had been reportedly lined up as a replacement, but no announcement has yet been made. 

“I don’t know if politics has held that up, but the need to agree with every devolved government and the UK Government a single person is extraordinarily tricky. It’s clearly not a good signal – I really wish we had a chair installed by now. Had we done it sooner in the process, I think it would have been easier. [Lord Deben] served 10 years and then was given an extra year because the process to replace him hadn’t yet begun.

“It’s that extra year that has meant that, if I’m right on these political difficulties with a general election on the way, it’s extremely difficult for those governments to agree with each other. Had we done it sooner, I think it would have been easier but clearly it sends a poor signal of priority.” 

In the six years that Stark has led the Committee, there has been no shortage of evidence about the changing nature of our weather and the growing impact the human race is having on the natural world. From devastating forest fires in Europe and North America to deadly floods in Asia, there is no doubt that the environmental changes that many had thought to still be decades away are with us in the here and now. But if the threat from climate change is growing, it has nevertheless been pushed down the international agenda, first by the war in Ukraine and now by the threat of a growing conflict in the Middle East. Is he optimistic that the world can still come together to avert the worst impacts of a warming climate?

Flooding in Brechin after Storm Babet | Alamy

“I tend to try and avoid the word ‘optimism’ because I’m more of a pragmatist really. I am positive rather than optimistic we will do this. The reasons to make the transition to a lower carbon economy are largely economic now – they’re not environmental. In the end, economics win. 

“I feel very positive about achieving net zero and that’s something I never would have been able to say when I started this job six and a half years ago. We have moved on leaps and bounds but I also feel that in recent years it has become a lot harder to make the arguments. Overall, we need to take the long view – we are going to make progress. I leave this job thinking things are in a better place than when I started and that’s not a bad place to be.”