UK Government Climate Action

11 Apr

We often ask ourselves - what is the solution to climate change?

Advice pinpoints us to things that we can do as individuals, like smaller picture actions such as eating a plant-based diet, driving an electric car or composting our green food waste. However, we can feel frustrated that we aren’t seeing tangible bigger picture actions from the government, with the ‘solution’ often relying on laws and governance.

Government planning and preparation for climate action and resilience needs to come first to drive us to become less reliant on greenhouse gases. With steps such as switching the grid’s energy to renewables and offering grants to make homes more efficient, laws and guidelines need to be drawn and investment needs to be made.

So, as reported by the Climate Change Committee (the CCC), if the government are still “strikingly unprepared” for climate change, then what actions have they made so far? And what else do they need to do?

The UK’s initial plans

In 2010, the UK Government announced its plans for countering Climate Change. Initially, they continued the Renewable Energy Development and began the Carbon Trading Floor Price Mechanism. A Green Investment Bank was also announced to support emerging green technologies and investments.

By 2012, however, there were more and more budget breaks for fossil fuels, and DECC were championing a gas-first strategy as a bridge to decarbonisation.

In reality, this slowed down the rate of decarbonisation. By 2015, it was announced that the UK would continue fracking and was abandoning the zero-carbon building policies while privatising the Green Investment Bank.

The Green Deal and ECO

In light of the success and demand of the Feed in Tariff Scheme, the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) was introduced. The schemes were attempts to privatise and reduce government investment in energy-efficient measures.

The aim of the Green Deal was to make a step-change in carbon reductions across the UK housing stock – ‘a revolution in British property’ (DECC, 2011: 10).

It represented a substantial change from the previous policy in several ways. Particularly, the move from public subsidy (An obligation for energy companies to give out energy-saving measures) to a privately financed loan scheme tied to the building and paid back through energy bills.

The Green Deal was also intended to finance more expensive energy efficiency measures compared to what was previously available. However, the Treasury insisted that loans should be offered at commercial rates of interest (around seven per cent), which made the scheme unattractive and limited the funding. The scheme also underestimated the importance of non-financial barriers to household retrofitting, this included factors like whether the property was in a conservation area. In addition, landlords had little incentive to use the Green Deal, this excluded just over 15 per cent of the total housing stock (CRESR, 2013).

Take-up of Green Deal loans were disastrous, and delays in setting up the programme led to drastic cuts in household investment, with cashback incentives mainly used for boiler replacements (Shankleman, 2013). Rosenow and Eyre (2012) suggest that the Green Deal might only deliver a quarter of the carbon reduction of previous schemes. There is projected to be a major reduction in the rate of key low-cost insulation measures, such as loft insulation, with negative implications for both carbon reduction and the insulation industry.

UK Parliament declares a ‘Climate Emergency’ (May 2019)

The proposal for declaring a ‘Climate Emergency’ was passed without a vote. This demonstrated the will of the Commons but did not legally oblige the Government to act.

The Environment Secretary acknowledged the ‘Climate emergency’ in response to comments from the opposition, however, this was never formally declared.

The declaration of an emergency was one of the key demands put to the Government by the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR), in a series of protests during 2018 and the spring of 2019.

Click here to read our handy article on Pressure Groups and about their ability to invoke change.

Climate Change Act (2050 Target Amendment)

In the summer of 2019, the Climate Change Act was updated to set a target for the country to become Net Zero by 2050. Previously the target had been an 80% reduction in CO2 over 1990 levels.

This change was strongly influenced by the 2018 report from the IPCC which made clear that setting a target to limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels was no longer enough. Limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C may enable us to reduce some of the likely damage.

The IPCC made it clear that countries across the world, including the UK, needed to do more.

The Ten Point Green Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution (November 2020)

An unexpected new approach from the Government was set out, aiming to build back better, support green jobs, and accelerate the path to net zero. This involved:

1. Advancing Offshore Wind

2. Driving the Growth of Low-Carbon Hydrogen

3. Delivering new and advanced nuclear power

4. Accelerating the shift to Zero Emissions Vehicles

5. Green Public Transport, cycling and walking

6. Jet Zero and Green Ships

7. Greener Buildings

8. Investing in Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage

9. Protecting our Natural Environment

10. Green Finance and Innovation

Although this was welcomed as a step in the right direction, the plan was also criticised for not going far enough. Critics supported the much more radical proposals in ‘The Green New Deal’, much of which was summed up in The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill. This was tabled by Green Party member Caroline Lucas MP. The bill was drafted by scientists, legal experts, ecological economists and environmentalists, and is designed specifically to reverse the climate and ecological breakdown we're facing.

The Bill requires the UK to take responsibility for its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions, to actively restore biodiverse habitats, and to stop the damage of our natural world through the production, transportation, and disposal of the goods we consume.

The 2022 Climate Change Risk Assessment and Climate Change Committee Monitoring Framework

The Climate Change Committee published its independent assessment of Climate Risk in 2021. The Government responded to this by publishing its own Climate Change Risk Assessment in 2022.

This document considered 61 UK wide climate risks and opportunities and prioritised 8 risk areas for action in the next two years.

These were:

· Risks to the viability and diversity of terrestrial and freshwater habitats and species from multiple hazards

· Risks to soil health from increased flooding and drought

· Risks to natural carbon stores and sequestration from multiple hazards

· Risks to crops, livestock and commercial trees from multiple climate hazards

· Risks to the supply of food, goods and vital services due to climate-related collapse of supply chains and distribution networks

· Risks to people and the economy from climate-related failure of the power system

· Risks to human health, wellbeing and productivity from increased exposure to heat in homes and other buildings

· Multiple risks to the UK from climate change impacts overseas

Many of these issues are relevant to the current National Adaptation Programme which needs to be rewritten in 2023.

In June 2022, the independent Committee on Climate Change published their monitoring framework document which included an assessment of the UK’s progress in reducing emissions across 11 sectors.

The overall message on progress so far is that it is falling behind the policy ambition and needs urgent attention.

To envisage how the EU and the government’s climate strategy and climate action shape our future, click below and head to ‘Future Projections’.

Return to 'Tackling Climate Change in the UK’

Sources:

· A brief history of climate change - BBC News

· A European Green Deal | European Commission (europa.eu)

· Climate change in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

· David Cameron promised the greenest government ever – and failed. Now Theresa May is following his lead | The Independent | The Independent

· Dentons - The UK's approach to climate change – and how the construction industry can help achieve net zero targets: an overview

· DIRECTIVE 2001/77/EC Renewable electricity — European Environment Agency (europa.eu)

· N. Stern ‘A Blueprint for a Safer Planet’ 2009 Bodley Head, London

· newbook.book (legislation.gov.uk) (Climate Change Act 2008)