Amp X responds to the Prime Minister's weakening of key Net Zero commitments

The UK watering-down climate policy on the eve of Zero Emissions Day 2023 is ironic at best.

On 20 September, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his government’s decision to adopt a “new approach to achieving net zero”. In his speech, the PM maintained that the forthcoming policy shift was focused on the country’s long-term stability, rather than short-term concerns. He announced his government’s adoption of “a more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach to meeting net zero”. Whether this will result in a short-term improvement in the opinion polls remains to be seen, but the reaction from businesses and industries that genuinely do make investments with a focus on long-term revenue stability has already been hard to miss.

In the USA, Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided $369bn to subsidise the expansion of green technologies from renewable power to electric vehicles. In February, the EU unveiled its Green Deal Industrial Plan – a response to the IRA and to Chinese subsidies for green technologies – with ambitious plans to boost skills and training to re-skill workers in new technologies, to create a European Sovereign Fund to invest in emerging tech, including €225bn of loans and €20 billion of grants for investments in renewable energy or decarbonising industry.

The UK can’t be expected to match the US, China and the EU in terms of spending power, but it doesn’t need to. It had already positioned itself as one of the leading nations in the fight against climate change – the first country in the world to legally commit to ending climate change through its 2008 Climate Change Act. It provided rational, evidence-based policy-making and a favorable regulatory framework for the development of and investment in clean technologies. Arguably, the PM’s recent policy shift seems like a setback for the UK’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions. Petrol and diesel cars last 17 years on average, so banning their sale in 2030 would mean that the last cars sold before the ban would be off the road by our net-zero target date of 2050. Pushing the ban back to 2035 means that those cars will still be on the road in 2050, making it more difficult to hit the legally-binding target.

Central-heating boilers last 10 to 15 years, so banning the sale of gas boilers from 2035 meant that they would be out of the system by 2050. This announcement means that there will still be gas boilers on the network by then, making it challenging to hit the net zero target.

The message from the PM's announcements seems to be that the UK is still committed to achieving net zero targets by 2050, but is going to postpone taking action on it. Numerous reports, studies and Government publications have highlighted the consumer cost-savings from a clean energy system where energy prices aren’t intrinsically driven by volatile oil and gas prices. As the government has emphasised the cost of rolling out a consistent net-zero policy as the basis for this u-turn, it is important to point out that the cost of not tackling climate change will be greater on our environment and society, as experts estimate this decision will cost UK tenants up to ￡8 billion over the next decade.

Amp X has been calling for, and will continue to call on the UK government to provide tangible and long term commitments towards net zero by pushing forward the adequate policy and regulatory framework to mitigate carbon emissions and provide space and funding for innovative solutions helping accelerate a clean energy transition.??