Taking over the reins: The climate post election

The UK has set ambitious climate targets, which, if successful, will mean the country will reach net zero by 2050, producing greenhouse gas emissions equal to the emissions removed from the atmosphere. 

More than 140 countries have made similar commitments, including the world’s biggest polluters – the US, China, India, and the European Union. And in the last decade, for the most part, the world has talked a good game when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. But action is more important, and the UK is one of many countries thought to be veering from the course in the last few years. 

With 26 years left to achieve the UK’s 2050 target, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008, warned in July that despite the UK having met all of its targets until this point, it is not on target to meet its 2030 target of reducing emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and in turn, is in danger of not achieving net zero within the legally binding timeframe. 

The CCC’s report stated: “Now only six years away, the country is not on track to hit this target despite a significant reduction in emissions in 2023. Much of the progress to date has come from phasing out coal-generated electricity, with the last coal-fired power station closing later this year. We now need to rapidly reduce oil and gas use as well.” 

It added: “Emissions reductions across most sectors will need to significantly speed up to be on track to meet the UK’s climate targets in the 2030s, and therefore the long-term target of net zero by 2050. Emissions reductions will need to outperform the legislated Fourth Carbon Budget for the UK to be on a sensible path to achieve its 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution.” 

Dr Darrick Evensen, a senior lecturer of environmental politics at the University of Edinburgh, tells Holyrood that the past decade of climate policy under the Conservatives has been “stop-start” and described its approach as “by default, not by design”.  

“There have been commitments and then rollbacks, and so it [the approach to reducing emissions] feels very disjointed. I think that is the main characterisation of it. 

“As we have seen different prime ministers, there has been this constant back and forth. For example, Boris Johnson had more of a commitment to climate targets and clean energy infrastructure and investment [than Rishi Sunak]. This back and forth has disincentivised investment from places like the clean-energy industry because they don’t know what is going to be happening in the future. And that’s a concern because these projects often take a long time.” 

Climate U-turns made by Sunak were seen by many as attempts to close the gap with Labour ahead of the general election this summer. In September last year, the government confirmed it would push back the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars – a concern, with transport being the country’s biggest polluter – and the phasing out of gas boilers. This prompted furious   condemnation from the automobile and energy industries, which had been planning for the transition for years. 

Sunak also came in for criticism when he approved the development of the largest untapped oil and gas field, Rosebank, in September last year. His government argued that development would add to the country’s energy security amid turbulence due to global conflict.  

Then-energy minister Claire Coutinho added that the move was also necessary because the country “will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero”, despite the government investing heavily in renewable power. 

In the CCC’s July emission reduction report, it stated that “the damage of these rollbacks can be limited by quickly reinstating these policies,” and recommended the removal of the exemption of 20 per cent of households from the 2035 fossil-fuel boiler installation phase-out, addressing the gap left by removing obligations on landlords to improve the energy efficiency of rented homes, and reinstating the 2030 phase-out of new fossil-fuel car and van sales.  

Since Labour’s landslide victory at the polls in July, it has said it intends to reinstate the ban on new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. However, energy minister Ed Miliband told The Telegraph weeks before the general election that his party will not scrap the Tories’ 2035 target to ban new gas boilers, instead focusing on financially incentivising households to install heat pumps. 

Miliband also confirmed that Labour – as part of its stripped-back Green Prosperity Plan, which the party says will make the UK a clean energy superpower by 2030 and create 650,000 jobs – will not grant any new oil and gas exploration licences.  It has also committed to increasing the windfall tax  on energy company profits from 75 per cent to 78 per cent while extending it by a year until 2030.  

Evensen says that despite the ban on new exploration, drilling for gas, in particular, will be essential in the UK’s progress towards net zero.  

“While Labour is not granting new licences for oil and gas, they recognise maintaining the licences that we have now as an important component. Even until 2050, it will be important in the energy system.  

“The CCC has estimated that in 2050, in a net zero scenario, we will be using about two-thirds of the amount of natural gas that we are using today. A lot of that would be used to generate hydrogen and then the carbon dioxide would be sequestered through carbon capture and storage. There’s definitely a demand for it.”  

Friends of the Earth Scotland just transition campaigner Rosie Hampton emphasises to Holyrood the importance of no further oil and gas licences, arguing that the continuation of drilling will slow down the development of renewable energy infrastructure in the UK.  

“Labour promised voters a change in energy policy away from the Tories’ reckless drill-every-drop approach,” she says.“It is crucial that the new UK Government must not green-light any new oil and gas fields. Every new barrel of oil that comes out of the North Sea worsens climate breakdown, and delays climate solutions like renewable power.” 

While Labour will continue to allow drilling in areas that already have licences, its Green Prosperity Plan centres around delivering a clean power system by 2030, which will require doubling onshore wind, tripling solar power and quadrupling offshore wind capacity in the next six years.  

The investment will be generated through Labour’s flagship Scottish-based GB Energy. The new government will invest £8.3bn of funding into the new publicly owned corporation throughout this parliament. Among its key functions will be to develop clean energy projects through its partnership with   the Crown Estate, which is expected to drive up to £60bn in private investment into UK renewable projects. 

The government says that, along with other green investments including the Warm Homes Plan, “650,000 high-quality jobs” will be created, 69,000 of them in Scotland.  

However, Labour has received criticism for the lack of information around GB Energy and Hampton remains sceptical about the organisation and its aims. She argues the corporation should function to bring “energy production back into public hands”. 

“If it doesn’t do this, it is just a continuation of the status quo and will allow profiteering energy companies to carry on with business as usual. The deliberate ambiguity around GB Energy means it is hard to judge when it will be functional, where it will be located or whether it will be creating jobs for offshore energy workers or investment managers.     

“GB Energy could be the driving force for transforming our energy system and should be built upon with a package of measures, alongside a green industrial strategy, that will ensure that people are supported through this change.” 

Evensen points out that if the required investment to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind capacity is achieved, the government faces a difficult task transporting this energy to all areas of the UK amid what he describes as a “bottleneck system”. 

“Wind farms, for example, are experiencing curtailed production because of a lack of grid infrastructure. We need more substations, high-tension transmission lines, and one of the major things that would help is a subsea interconnector from Scotland to England, which has now been approved and will go forward.” 

He continues: “We will need more infrastructure that increases the transmission of electricity because there are projects that are finalised now that simply do not have grid connection. There’s a backlog in the system.” 

Labour has also pledged to improve energy efficiency in homes and will invest £6.6bn over this parliament, which doubles existing planned state investment. The new funding will be used to upgrade five million homes and, in turn, cut the cost of energy bills. The Warm Homes Plan will offer grants and low-interest loans to support the purchase of new insulation, solar panels, batteries and low-carbon heating systems.  

Evensen says: “This is a clear funding avenue on these goals which seem to be well aligned with the things that the CCC is saying is lacking in terms of being able to deliver a clean-energy transition to meet the climate targets.” 

The government has also pledged to invest in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and marine energy, as well as shoring up the UK’s ability to produce nuclear power by extending the life of existing plants and completing two new reactors at Hinkley Point C. 

Nuclear energy is a contentious issue, and every construction, even plants that are being built on existing sites, can take decades due to long siting processes and legal challenges. Evensen agrees that Labour’s idea to extend the existing lives of operational sites “is the right thing to do” and essential for Labour’s plans. 

“A nuclear power plant has a little over two gigawatts of generation capacity, whereas a good-sized wind turbine produces somewhere between five and 10 megawatts. That’s the rate of capacity, but the turbines are running at a capacity rate of 30 per cent and that’s not even accounting for the curtailed production.  

“That means you need to build well over 1,000 wind turbines to be the equivalent of a nuclear power plant.” 

However, with the recent delays to the two new reactors at Hinkley Point announced by EDF pushing the completion dates to 2029 and 2031, analysts have suggested delays to achieving clean energy by 2030 are almost inevitable.  

Josh Buckland, partner at the consultancy Flint Global, called Labour’s target “incredibly challenging” and thinks even before EDF’s announcement it was likely that gas-fired power plants would have to plug the gap in generating capacity. Tom Edwards, senior modeller at Cornwall Insight, agrees that fossil fuels will have to make up the diminishing nuclear capacity, adding that there will be periods when wind-generated power will meet the country’s needs, but it will only be “intermittent”.  

Despite a Labour party official saying that  “the party’s plan for clean power by 2030 is not dependent on the delivery of Hinkley C”, Evensen strongly doubts Labour will hit its target.

“There’s no chance. All the projects would have to be approved by now and the money would have to be committed. I almost freak out when I think there are only six years to achieve this. There will inevitably be some delay. 

“Looking long term, you can achieve the 2050 goal even if you don’t make the 2030 targets, but it will make it incrementally harder. Doubling onshore wind, tripling solar power and quadrupling offshore wind capacity is going to be a massive challenge, but the grid expansion is also key. We plan to have five times as much transmission and distribution in the next six years than in the last 30 years.  

“We are looking at a huge amount of investment and building, and some of the projects will be held up by challenges and community concerns, while some completed projects are currently being held up by lack of grid connection.”