Rishi Sunak to announce UK shift on net zero

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Rishi Sunak is to unveil the UK government’s new plans on net zero on Wednesday, after signalling that Downing Street is set to delay key green commitments.

Following reports about the government’s plans to push back targets for phasing out petrol cars and gas boilers, Downing Street said the prime minister would give a speech and take questions on Wednesday afternoon.

On Wednesday morning he organised an emergency cabinet phone call to discuss his plans, according to government insiders.

The reported moves are part of an apparent shift to water down the country’s net zero goals over the next decade.

The move has already stoked controversy with industry, although home secretary Suella Braverman dismissed current targets on Tuesday as “arbitrary”, “totally unrealistic and punitive”. 

Car manufacturers have invested in electric vehicle manufacturing on the basis of Britain’s current pledge to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 — a policy that is now in doubt.

Downing Street has not denied a BBC report that the changes being considered include pushing back a planned ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 until 2035. 

Lisa Brankin, chair of Ford UK, said the existing 2030 target for cars was a “vital catalyst to accelerate Ford into a cleaner future” as she highlighted the company’s £430mn investment in its UK electrification development and manufacturing facilities.

“Our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three,” Brankin said.

People briefed on Sunak’s thinking told the Financial Times they also expected the government to soften a plan to ban the installation of new household gas boilers from 2035.

Sunak said on Tuesday evening, after the BBC report, that “no leak” would deter him from “telling the country how and why we need to change”.

The apparent move to delay net zero policies comes as the government, which is lagging far behind in the polls, is seeking to make the cost of green policies an electoral issue and highlight the difference with Labour.

The pivot has sparked a fierce backlash from some automotive industry figures, environmental campaigners and Conservative MPs, but has been welcomed by net zero sceptics in Sunak’s party. 

Braverman told the BBC on Wednesday that ministers should not treat environmental goals as “straitjackets” or risk targets that “ruin people’s personal budgets” in light of cost of living pressures.

“We’re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people,” she said, insisting that moves to curb carbon emissions needed to be taken in a more “sustainable . . . mature . . . pragmatic way”.

Sunak has promised more “realism” and a “proportionate” state approach to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 — an overarching target that he said he would not abandon.

In a veiled swipe at Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, who announced many of the government’s most ambitious net zero targets, Sunak added: “For too many years politicians in governments of all stripes have not been honest about costs and trade-offs.”

However, Tory MPs who have championed the green agenda lashed out at proposals to water down the timetable for green pledges.

Former COP26 president Sir Alok Sharma told the BBC that resiling from the climate action agenda would leave the planet “on life support”.

Sir Simon Clarke, former cabinet minister, said on social media that it was in the Conservatives’ “environmental, economic, moral and (yes) political interests” to “lead on this issue rather than disown it”.

Conservatives on the party’s right flank joined Braverman in welcoming the shift. Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, chair of the net zero scrutiny group, said delaying bans on new fossil fuel cars and oil and gas boilers would be “positive news for UK consumers”.

Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and several environmental groups have criticised proposals to scale back the UK’s net zero pledges.