Teresa May will legally commit to a net zero target

In the wake of her recent resignation announcement, Prime Minister Teresa May is keen to leave a legacy behind. Just this week she has confirmed legislation which will set out a pathway to net zero by 2050, although critics have wanted it lacks substance and could be little more than a ‘gesture’.

The current UK policy is to cut emissions by 80% by the year 2050. Teresa May wants to take this a step further by targeting ‘net zero’ in the same timeframe. This would include not only decarbonising things like transport and energy supply, but also offsetting carbon emissions through carbon capture and tree planting.

While putting such a plan into law is certainly a bold move by the PM, it’s been criticized by Friends of the Earth for lacking an attached action plan. They warned that it’s nothing more than ‘cynical gesture politics’ if it’s not backed with the finances and policies to move it forward.

Right now, the legislation is in early stages, with various hoops to jump through before becoming enshrined in law. It’s likely that it will take some time to implement, probably after the departure of Mrs May and once Brexit is resolved.

In early May, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommended a net zero target for 2050, claiming this could be done at no added cost from previous estimates. They said that, if other countries followed suit, there was a 50/50 chance that the planet could stay below a 1.5C temperature rise by the turn of the next century.

According to the BBC , the CCC said it would be difficult to hit net zero any time before 2050, but that it was a reasonable target as long as it was backed by government policy and funding. Lead author, Chris Stark, told the BBC,

“This report would have been absolutely inconceivable just a few years ago. People would have laughed us out of court for suggesting that the target could be so high.”

The chancellor is not a fan of May’s net zero legislation, claiming that it could cost the UK more than £1tr to implement. He has written to the Prime Minister saying that this legislation would lead to less money for hospitals, schools and the police.

Number 10 have refuted the claims, saying that the plan will cost no more than the UK’s existing plans for greenhouse gas reductions. A spokesperson for No 10 is quoted in the Guardian as saying,

“There are a lot of figures out there on this issue that don’t factor in the benefits or consider the costs of not doing this. The costs related to meeting this target are whole-of-the-economy costs, not a fiscal cost, and so it’s not really right to frame it as a trade-off for public spending.”

Labour are showing their support for the policy, with the shadow chancellor, John McDonnel, openly criticising Hammond. He is reported by the BBC as saying,

"We are facing a climate emergency and Philip Hammond clearly doesn't get it. The Tory party is way overdue in adopting a target already put forward by Labour, and now the chancellor is creating obstacles to prevent the action we desperately need to take."

The CCC report had noted that there would be a significant cost to policy implementation, estimated to be tens of billions of pounds each year. They projected that the investment required to reach net zero could reach 1 – 2% of national wealth by the year 2050.

They have further honed their original estimates, putting forward a figure of £50bn a year to implement the policy. However, the Financial Times reports that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) believes it will cost more; around £70bn a year.