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A high-profile UK parliamentary committee has criticised the government for having “no co-ordinated plan” for achieving its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in a public rebuke ahead of the UK-hosted international climate summit in November.
The government had still not outlined how it intended to achieve the net zero target, which was set in 2019, lacked a joined-up system for monitoring progress and was not doing enough to ensure that new investments were made with climate goals in mind, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee said.
“Government has set itself a huge test in committing the UK to a net zero economy by 2050 — but there is little sign that it understands how to get there and almost two years later it still has no plan,” said Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC.
The international climate summit, known as COP26, “is a few months away; the eyes of the world, its scientists and policymakers are on the UK — big promises full of fine words won’t stand up”, she said.
The report comes on the heels of the chancellor’s Budget, which green groups criticised as lacking in climate ambition. Despite a handful of climate pledges, which included changing the Bank of England’s mandate to incorporate green goals, the Budget lacked the broad programme of plans and investments that campaigners said were needed to accelerate decarbonisation.
The PAC report said the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) — which has overall responsibility for achieving net zero emissions — should publish its decarbonisation strategy as a matter of urgency, by September. That should include plans for key sectors, such as housing and transport, it said.
“At present, there is no co-ordinated plan,” the PAC’s report said.
“A clear timeline” of milestones and expectations should be set, and Beis should also develop metrics that sectors would use to regularly report on their progress, the report said. At present, there was “no single place where information is brought together” to monitor progress.
The committee has asked the Treasury to explain within two months how it planned to ensure that government departments adequately considered and reported on the climate and environmental impacts of policy decisions — something it said they were not doing sufficiently.
All fiscal stimulus packages and infrastructure proposals should be “stress tested” against net zero, the PAC added.
Much of the UK’s emissions reductions to date have come from switching from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. Achieving net zero will require significant changes in the housing and transport sectors, where eliminating emissions is expected to be much more difficult and complicated.
The PAC said the government had not engaged adequately with the public about the “substantial” changes that individuals would need to make, such as replacing home boilers that run on fossil fuels or switching to electric vehicles.
A “key challenge” will be supporting those employed in sectors that do not have a place in the net zero economy, it added.
In a separate report on Friday, the Beis committee said the government had not outlined clearly enough how it would measure the success of COP26, and should identify specific ambitions and measures of success.
Richard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a think-tank, said: “These reports will make uncomfortable reading for a prime minister proclaiming climate leadership — one saying he doesn’t have a plan at home, the other that he doesn’t have a vision internationally.”
A government spokesperson said: “It is nonsense to say the government does not have a plan when we have been leading the world in tackling climate change, cutting emissions by almost 44 per cent since 1990 and doing so faster than any other developed nation in recent years.”
The department has said it plans to publish its net zero strategy before the November COP26.
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