Ambitious plans are needed to get UK back on track to net zero

Climate Change Committee says new government will have to take bold action on transport, buildings, industry and agriculture decarbonisation

The UK is off-track on its journey to achieve net zero, says the Climate Change Committee, whose latest pessimistic assessment is that only a third of the emissions reductions required to achieve the country’s 2030 target are currently covered by credible plans. There is a positive story in that the country’s emissions are now less than half the levels they were in 1990, but the committee points out this is largely due to the phase out of coal and the ramping up of renewables.

Unveiling its 2024 UK Progress Report, the committee warns that the plans put in place from the previous government will not deliver enough action. The committee says there is now a need for an ambitious action not just in the energy sector, but also across transport, buildings, industry and agriculture.

The Climate Change Committee is an independent non-departmental public body, formed under the Climate Change Act to advise the United Kingdom and devolved governments and Parliaments on tackling and preparing for climate change.

A call to end confusing messaging

The Climate Change Committee, drew attention to what was an ambivalent position on decarbonising the economy held by the Conservative government, and calls on the new Labour administration to provide clarity.

The committee states: “The committee has drawn attention to the damage done by the previous government’s policy rollbacks. These have increased the gap between the UK’s plans and its targets, leaving us further off track. The broader messaging, both domestically and internationally, also caused significant uncertainty about the country’s commitment to net zero. The committee urges the new government to address this, with a clear commitment to the net zero transition, backed with rapid policy action and a sharp-eyed focus on removing barriers.

“Polling shows that the UK public has no appetite for climate division. Until last year, as well as showing domestic leadership, successive UK governments had played a leading role in international climate diplomacy and could fairly claim to have accelerated action worldwide. The committee hopes the new government will take the opportunity of COP29 in November to re-establish UK leadership on the global climate stage.”

Now is the time for ambitious action

Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the committee, said: “The country’s 2030 emissions reduction target is at risk. The new government has an opportunity to course-correct, but it will need to be done as a matter of urgency to make up for lost time. They are off to a good start. Action needs to extend beyond electricity, with rapid progress needed on electric cars, heat pumps and tree planting. The transition to net zero can deliver investment, lower bills, and energy security. It will help the UK keep its place on the world stage. It is a way for this government to serve both the people of today and the people of tomorrow.”

Much of the low carbon technology needed is already available, says the committee. Yet almost all its indicators for the scale-up and roll-out of that technology are off-track, with rates needing to significantly ramp up. By 2030:

• Annual offshore wind installations must increase by at least three times, onshore wind installations will need to double and solar installations must increase by five times.
• Approximately 10% of existing homes in the UK will need to be heated by a heat pump, compared to only 1% today.
• The market share of new electric cars needs to increase from 16.5% in 2023 to nearly 100%.

The Climate Change Committee has produced a list of actions including making electricity cheaper, reversing recent policy rollbacks, and ramping up tree planting and peatland restoration.

The committee will publish its advice on the Seventh Carbon Budget and an updated Path to Net Zero early in 2025.

10 steps

The Climate Change Committee’s recommendations

• Make electricity cheaper. Removing policy costs from electricity prices will support industrial electrification and ensure the lower running costs of heat pumps compared to fossil-fuel boilers are reflected in household bills.
• Reverse recent policy rollbacks. Remove the exemption of 20% of households from the 2035 fossil-fuel boiler installation phase-out, address the gap left by removing obligations on landlords to improve the energy efficiency of rented homes and reinstate the 2030 phase-out of new fossil-fuel car and van sales. The damage of these rollbacks can be limited by quickly reinstating these policies.
• Remove planning barriers for heat pumps, electric vehicle chargepoints and onshore wind.
• Introduce a comprehensive programme for decarbonisation of public sector buildings.
• Effectively design and implement the upcoming renewable energy CfD auctions. Ensure funding and auction design for the Sixth and Seventh Allocation Rounds are appropriate to deliver at least 50GW of offshore wind by 2030.
• Accelerate electrification of industrial heat. Strengthen the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to ensure that its price is sufficient to incentivise decarbonisation and that support is available for a rapid transition to electric heat across much of industry.
• Ramp up tree planting and peatland restoration. Tree planting must be scaled up in the 2020s for abatement to be sufficient for later carbon budgets and net zero. There must be no more delays to addressing the barriers to delivery.
• Finalise business models for large-scale deployment of engineered removals. Finalise and open to the market the business models for engineered removals.
• Publish a strategy to support skills. Support workers in sectors which need to grow or transition and in communities that may be adversely impacted.
• Strengthen National Adaptation Programme 3 (NAP3) with a vision that sets clear objectives and targets and reorganise government adaptation policy.Adaptation must become a fundamental aspect of policymaking across all departments and be integrated into 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.
Climate Change Committee 2024 UK Progress Report 

Climate Change Committee on surface transport

Extract from the 2024 UK Progress Report

The government confirmed the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate in October 2023 (ST01). This sets minimum EV sales targets for each manufacturer, rising from 22% in 2024 to 80% in 2030 for cars (10% to 70% for vans). The mandate was codeveloped by the Department for Transport, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Irish Department for Infrastructure. It came into force in Great Britain at the start of 2024, while Northern Ireland has recently signalled its intention to join.

The mandate imposes strong financial incentives for delivery, which should help build on market progress to date to give confidence to delivery of a large share of the abatement required from the surface transport sector.

The number of EVs being sold continues to grow, but their share of the overall new car and van market has not sped up as expected and many manufacturers will require substantial growth in their monthly EV sales totals to reach their mandated targets this year. The mandate does include some provision for manufacturers to borrow against future overperformance or against overperformance on the accompanying non-ZEV emissions standards. There is therefore a risk that the mandate’s targets may not be met in the early years.

In September 2023, the UK government announced that the 2030 end-of-sales date for new internal combustion engine vehicles was being pushed back to 2035 (ST02 and ST03). While the direct impact of this on emissions is relatively small, given that the original plan would still have allowed emitting hybrid vehicles to be sold during this period, the mixed signals it sends to consumers and investors could be more impactful. The risk is that the public and automotive companies perceive a weakening of government commitment to the EV transition, which could undermine consumer confidence and/or jeopardise some inward investment relating to EV manufacturing or charging infrastructure.

Electric vehicles are expected to be significantly cheaper to own and operate over their lifetimes than petrol or diesel vehicles within the next few years (in some segments of the market, this is already true), so any undermining of their roll-out will ultimately increase costs to motorists.

Various developments this year, including the continued delays to local transport plan guidance, the inconsistency of the revised roads policy statement with emissions objectives and the redistribution of some HS2 funding to road-building schemes have further weakened the policy landscape around transport demand. Most actions in this area feature in the CBDP’s list of unquantified policies and plans, but current policies and plans are insufficient for us to have confidence in them delivering substantial additional abatement.

In August 2023, the Welsh Government published its National Transport Delivery Plan. This builds on its Roads Review, emphasising that scheme development should focus on minimising emissions, rather than on increasing road capacity or vehicle speeds. The national 20 mph speed limit also came into effect in Wales in September 2023.