UK Conservative Party Vows to Scrap the Climate Change Act
(Bloomberg) — The UK’s opposition Conservative Party plans to scrap the Climate Change Act if it returns to power, the latest indication that the longstanding political consensus on climate action in Britain has shattered.
The act was first passed by a Labour government with cross-party support in 2008 and strengthened under Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May to set a legally binding target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch now says that the emission regulations have become too burdensome for consumers and are hurting economic growth.
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“Under my leadership we will scrap those failed targets,” Badenoch said in a statement Thursday. “Our priority now is growth, cheaper energy, and protecting the natural landscapes we all love.”
The message is at loggerheads with the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, which asserts that cutting emissions will drive economic growth. To try and fulfill a plan to rapidly decarbonize the power system by 2030, the government aims to drive tens of billions of pounds a year of investment into technologies such as wind power, carbon capture and storage, and miles of new electric grid.
British consumers in recent years have reeled from natural gas costs that soared when Russia cut supplies to Europe. Wholesale prices are still more than double pre-pandemic levels.
“Whilst still-rising domestic energy prices in Britain are rightly a cause for concern, the data is very clear – it’s our exposure to volatile global gas prices that are the cause, not net zero commitments,” Luke Hatton, researcher in energy economics at the Centre for Environmental Policy & Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, wrote in a statement. “Ditching the Climate Change Act and maxing out the North Sea’s reserves will only maintain our exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices, which remain three times higher than before the energy crisis.”
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