Climate change blog July 2024 - implications of the new government
Following the results of the general election, David Dale looks at how climate change features in the new government's priorities.
After a lengthy period of uncertainty, it now feels like we have greater clarity looking forwards, with some of the issues that were ‘known unknowns’ until very recently, appearing more settled.
Since the results of the general election we have been trying to get the measure of a new government that has hit the ground running, and we now know – at a high level at least – what the legislative plans are for this Parliament.
The election campaign
The election campaign meant that many ‘business as usual’ meetings and events in the pre-election period had to be put on hold. Like other organisations, ADEPT had already stated what we wanted to see in the parties’ manifestos in our own Manifesto for stronger places. However, in terms of the climate crisis, the election campaign was disappointing with very little time spent debating this crucial issue.
Many of us had feared that Rishi Sunak’s climate reset speech in autumn 2023, when some key net zero targets were pushed back, would herald an era of political polarisation over climate change. But as Becky Willis, Professor of energy and climate governance at Lancaster University, has said in her recent blog for the Green Alliance, when it came to this election “climate was the dog that didn’t bark”.
Professor Willis has researched public opinion on climate change and argues that this is evidence that the Conservatives’ private polling must have confirmed what public opinion research has consistently told us, that there are few votes to be won through an agenda of delaying action on climate change.
Public concern about the climate is high and rising, across all demographics and most political affiliations, the exception being Reform voters. Her conclusion is that “Tory strategists decided to downplay the climate rather than trying to fan the flames of division”.
Other political parties seemed happy to let climate take a back seat too. Labour had already cut its green investment plans by half. In February a significant U-turn had seen the party leadership announce that they would reduce the green prosperity plan from £28bn a year to under £15bn, only a third of which would be new money. Labour had previously promised to spend up to £6bn a year insulating 19 million homes over a decade, but their manifesto stated that they would invest an extra £6.6bn “over the next parliament” to upgrade five million homes over this period. The Liberal Democrats campaigned on water quality as their main environmental issue, and the Green Party campaigned on a broad agenda including social issues.
What did the Labour manifesto say about the climate crisis?
“Make Britain a clean energy superpower to cut bills, create jobs and deliver security with cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero” is one of the five top level ‘missions’ set out in the manifesto. “The climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge that we face. The clean energy transition represents a huge opportunity to generate growth, tackle the cost-of-living crisis and make Britain energy independent once again.” A Green Prosperity Plan and National Wealth Fund will be the means to invest in the green industries and jobs of the future.
Clean power would be delivered by a new publicly owned company, Great British Energy, to direct investment with the aim of doubling onshore wind, tripling solar power, and quadrupling offshore wind by 2030. It would also invest in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and marine energy, and long-term energy storage. Existing licenses for oil and gas production in the North Sea would remain but no new licences would be issued. Similarly, there would be no new licences for coal mining or fracking.
The manifesto set out a reduced Warm Homes Plan and a managed transition with increased private sector investment for accelerating to net zero. Making “the UK the green finance capital of the world, mandating UK-regulated financial institutions….and companies to develop and implement credible transition plans.” On adaptation there was an unspecified commitment to improve flood risk management and resilience more generally.
What was in the King’s Speech?
The King’s Speech on 17th July included over 35 Bills that the government intends to introduce in this Parliament. The new Labour government “recognises the urgency of the global climate challenge and the new job opportunities that can come from leading the development of the technologies of the future” and believes that this green growth can also help tackle the cost of living. Planning reform, house building, investment in infrastructure, a new national green energy company, devolution and better public transport are all seen as enablers to growth.
At the heart of Labour’s plans is Great British Energy, a publicly owned company that will invest in renewable energy, particularly offshore wind. Great British Energy will be capitalised with £8.3bn over the course of the Parliament. Siting its headquarters in Scotland should help the process of a ‘just transition’ away from oil and gas to green jobs.
Planning reform is likely to be one of the most controversial of the Bills. Ministers say that reform is needed to simplify and speed up the consenting process to enable the delivery of the 1.5 million new homes promised in the manifesto as well as the infrastructure needed for economic growth. The government is likely to face strong opposition from some local authorities and residents as it sets house building targets and drives through developments in parts of the green belts around towns and cities.
The English Devolution Bill will give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities, supporting local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities. The Better Buses Bill will give local authorities the power to take control of local bus services.
The King’s Speech contained little about the environment more generally other than water quality, where the Water Bill is a response to the ongoing controversy about polluted waterways and privatised water companies. The regulator, Ofwat, will be given powers to put underperforming water companies into special measures and impose personal criminal liability for water bosses and powers to ban bonuses if environmental standards are not met. Nature, however, only gets a small reference, with a promise to “use development to fund nature recovery”, mainly through the biodiversity net gain mechanism by which developers must restore and improve habitats as part of the planning consent process. Although wider biodiversity loss and nature recovery was not included for new legislation, Ministers say that they will retain the targets set in the Environment Act passed by the last government.
What has the government done already?
Among the early examples of rapid government action on climate change are:
- Overturning the ban on onshore wind generation by removing restrictions on the construction of turbines.
- Approving nationally significant infrastructure planning applications for three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers. These three sites in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk will together deliver about two-thirds of the solar energy installed on rooftops and on the ground in the whole of last year. These developments are strongly opposed by some residents, councils and MPs, and are a good indicator of how the tensions between devolution and local autonomy on the one hand, and mission-driven government on the other, will play out across the country.
- Appointing Chris Stark, the former CEO of the Climate Change Committee, to head a Covid vaccine-style taskforce aimed at delivering clean and cheaper power by 2030. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said the centre would work with energy companies and regulators and would be the first of its kind in Whitehall.
- Withdrawing its legal defence of the decision by the previous government to allow a controversial new coalmine in Cumbria. The new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, has accepted there was an “error of law” in the decision to grant planning permission for the mine in December 2022. Consequently, the government will not now be defending legal challenges by Friends of the Earth and other campaigners and has instead informed the court that the decision to grant planning permission should be quashed.
What should we expect next?
The day after the King’s Speech the Climate Change Committee published its latest progress report to Parliament, laying bare the huge amount of work that now needs to be done to meet legally binding emissions targets. According to the CCC, roadmaps currently in place only offer credible solutions for dealing with around one-third of the UK’s total greenhouse gas output, well behind where policy needs to be at this stage in the transition process.
The CCC has set out 10 priority recommendations including:
- Make electricity cheaper
- Reverse recent policy rollbacks on fossil fuel boilers and vehicles
- Remove planning barriers for heat pumps, electric vehicle charge points and onshore wind
- Introduce a comprehensive programme for decarbonisation of public sector buildings
- Ramp up tree planting and peatland restoration
- Publish a strategy to support skills in sectors which need to grow or transition and in communities that may be adversely impacted
- Strengthen NAP3 so that adaptation becomes a fundamental aspect of policymaking across all departments and other national policy objectives.
The Committee will publish its advice on the Seventh Carbon Budget and an updated Path to Net Zero early in 2025.
Looking to the future
We face a busy time ahead. At a national level there is now a sense of climate leadership and clear policies that have been absent for some time. This should help put the UK back on track for its net zero target. However, we know that national policy alone is not enough to deliver on the ground, and it remains to be seen how this translates into an effective framework for place-based climate action.
ADEPT is working with the LGA and other partners in the sector and with the Climate Change Committee to take this forward. We are contributing to the work that the LGA has commissioned Local Partnerships to do, to develop the ‘ask’ of Government to allow Local Government to support them in the delivery of their manifesto. Through the Blueprint Coalition we are contributing to discussions being led by London Councils and UK100 about a potential framework of statutory duties for local authorities’ climate action. We will publish updates on these initiatives in future blogs.
Further information
Author
- David Dale, ADEPT Policy Officer
