Tories vow to scrap UK’s landmark climate legislation

The Conservatives have announced plans to replace the UK’s world-leading climate legislation with a strategy for “cheap and reliable” energy.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap the Climate Change Act, brought in by the last Labour government in 2008, which committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80% by 2050, with five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track to the goal.

Under Theresa May’s premiership, the Conservatives increased the ambition of the Act to cutting greenhouse gases to zero overall, known as “net zero”, by 2050.

But as the rift between political parties on the right and left over climate grows, Ms Badenoch has announced plans to “scrap the failed targets”, and replace the Climate Change Act with an energy strategy that puts “cheap and reliable energy as the foundation for economic growth first”.

The Tories’ environmental focus will be on prioritising, enhancing and preserving the natural environment, the party said.

Condemnation

The move was quickly met with condemnation from environmental groups who painted it as “political suicide” and a “monstrous act of economic and environmental vandalism”.

Ms Badenoch has previously said it is “impossible” for the UK to meet its net zero targets and pledged to scrap them and “maximise extraction” of oil and gas in the North Sea.

Reform leader Nigel Farage has also vowed to fast-track North Sea oil and gas licences and scrap net zero targets if the party wins the next election, claiming it will save £30 billion a year.

The Tory announcement comes just hours after Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who passed – with near-universal support from MPs – the landmark climate legislation in the same role as part of Gordon Brown’s Labour government in 2008, doubled down on clean energy and pledged to permanently ban fracking at his party’s conference.

World first

When the Climate Change Act was introduced, it was a world-first for climate legislation, although many countries have since followed suit and nations agreed the world’s first comprehensive treaty to curb global warming in Paris a decade ago.

Scientists warn the world must cut rapidly emissions to zero to prevent global temperatures rising to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which worsening sea level rises, severe storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and the collapse of natural systems such as coral reefs will occur.

But political division has grown both internationally and domestically over the measures needed to tackle climate change, even as the costs of clean energy have plummeted and the impacts of rising temperatures such as heatwaves and wildfires have become more severe.

The Conservatives claimed the Act has forced ministers to bring in regulations that pushed up energy bills, hit growth and supported wood-burning power stations such as Drax, and shifted British industry abroad.

While UK emissions have halved since 1990, global climate pollution has increased and countries such as China have not followed Britain’s lead, the party said.

‘Red tape’

Ms Badenoch said: “We want to leave a cleaner environment for our children, but not by bankrupting the country.

“Climate change is real. But Labour’s laws tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions.

“Previous Conservative governments tried to make Labour’s climate laws work – they don’t.

“Under my leadership we will scrap those failed targets.

“Our priority now is growth, cheaper energy, and protecting the natural landscapes we all love.”

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, added: “Despite our efforts, emissions around the world are rising.

“When things aren’t working, we should say so.

“Our priority will be to make energy cheap, double down on innovation and protect nature.”

Friends of the Earth chief executive Asad Rehman said: “For a mainstream political party to turn its back on the science in a desperate race to the bottom with those being bankrolled by discredited billionaires and dirty business, who want to stop climate action because it threatens their profits, is political suicide.

“Climate change is not some theoretical threat, we can see it out of our windows, in our flooded communities, in the excess deaths from extreme heat and in the supermarkets with rocketing food price increases.

“Far from being the party of business, it will position the Conservative Party as has-beens alongside a motely alliance of climate denialists, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists who want to ignore the killer floods, droughts, storms and wildfires that are threatening our future.”

‘A monstrous act’

Ed Matthew, UK programme director for the independent climate change think tank E3G, said: “The Climate Change Act was a world first for the UK government and has cleaned up our air, created hundreds of thousands of jobs in clean energy, saved households hundreds of pounds on their energy bills, and increased investment in measures to protect people from flooding.

“Repealing this Act would be a monstrous act of economic and environmental vandalism and sends a clear signal that the Conservatives care far more about the profits of oil and gas companies than they do about the British people.”

Richard Benwell, chief executive of the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition of environmental groups, said scrapping the Act would be an act of “national self-harm”.

He warned: “Cheap fossil fuel futures are a mirage.

“The real route to lasting security is in homegrown clean power, not burning more fossil fuels.

“Without binding climate law, ministers will be free to trade away our future – and it is nature and the poorest communities that will pay the price.”

Liberal Democrats’ net zero spokesperson Pippa Heylings said: “We are still living in the shadow of the Conservatives’ abject failures, which put up bills and left the UK vulnerable to Putin’s Russia in the midst of an energy crisis.

“Liberal Democrats have a plan to cut bills in half over a decade by investing in clean, cheap renewables. That’s the level of ambition we need from this Government and for that matter, the opposition.

“The reality is that investing in renewables is the greatest economic growth opportunity in this century and will protect the planet for future generations. The Conservatives’ refusal to acknowledge this, and their failures, shows that they are only interested in following Farage, not leading Britain.”

The Green Party called the move “embarrassing”.

Green MP Carla Denyer said: “Kemi Badenoch is taking the Conservatives even further down the path to irrelevance with this through-the-looking-glass idea.

“The vast majority of the British public want to see action to secure a safe climate for our children and grandchildren, and Britain’s green economy is booming.

“It’s embarrassing that Badenoch is ready to trash the progress this country has made towards a safe and healthy future, even under Conservative governments, just to satisfy the demands of her party’s donors in the fossil fuel industry.”