UK: The Climate Change Committee’s progress report will be published this week, after being delayed because of the UK General Election.
The CCC’s progress report to Parliament in June last year set out the risks to meeting the UK’s emissions targets and identified policy gaps and delivery risks.
The report highlighted that the UK was not on track to meet the UK’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the UN process for a 68 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.
At the time Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to Net Zero in his September 2023 speech on Net Zero.
However, the CCC said of the prime minister’s speech it was “not accompanied by corresponding estimates of their effect on emissions, nor with evidence to back the Government’s assurance that the UK’s targets will still be met. This is unhelpful – and the Committee urges the Government to adopt greater transparency in updating its assessment of policy impacts at the time of major announcements.
“Based on the information available, the CCC has made an independent assessment of how these developments will affect plans to meet the targets. We did not have enough information to assess the full effects of some of the proposed policy measures.”
The CCC added: “Other developments since June 2023 have made meeting future targets harder through both the direct impacts of reduced policy ambition and through the Government’s indication that it will loosen certain Net Zero policies.”
You can read how the Conservative government was “loosening” certain Net Zero policies impacts on achieving Net Zero here.
Now the UK General Election has taken place the CCC will publish the 2024 UK Progress Report on 18th July. With a Labour government and a new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, at the helm we will be watching closely what this will mean for the industry.
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