Benny Peiser: The Changing Climate Of UK Climate Policy

Andrew Foster, Local Transport Today

Climate change hasn’t been quite the driving force in transport policy that many expected it to be when the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008. But with transport close to ousting the power sector as the biggest source of UK carbon dioxide emissions, the legislation’s influence on the transport sector seems likely to grow. Assuming, that is, that the Government follows the advice of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which recommends the five-year carbon budgets to put the UK on the right trajectory to 2050. The Liberal Democrats’ presence in the coalition Government ensured that the CCC’s advice on the fourth carbon budget (2023-2027) was listened to. But how will the Conservative Government respond this summer to the CCC’s recommendations on the fifth carbon budget, covering 2028-2032, and whose central scenario envisages a 50 million tonne (42%) reduction in transport sector CO2 emissions in 2030 compared with levels today?

Prominent critics of the Climate Change Act seem to come mainly from the right of the political spectrum. They point to the rising energy costs associated with the policies, or the damage that wind farms do to the landscape. Many also believe that the dangers of man-made CO2 emissions have been oversold. Last summer Fraser Nelson, editor of the The Spectator magazine, wrote that energy and climate secretary Amber Rudd was preparing a “proper Tory plan” for how to take the climate agenda forward. “The Climate Change Act was written by Ed Miliband and we’ve been playing by his rules ever since,” said Nelson. “Yet it gives the Government the power to set a new target, if there have been ‘significant developments’ in scientific knowledge or European policy.”.....

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