The Brexit's Aftermath on Climate Change & Energy

One of the most significant consequences of climate change that is currently threatening human security and resource scarcity is migration (Hristova & Chankova, 2020). Migration is not a challenge that is being faced in the modern world only, the latter existed since the 1990s. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest impact of climate change (among others) could be on human displacement with millions of people migrating from one country to another (International Organization of Migration, 2008). This very particular problem was exacerbated around the world including the European nations in general and the United Kingdom in particular, and it gained further momentum after 2004 (Sedelmeier, 2014).

On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom announced the most shocking news in the history of world politics: its affirmative departure from the European Union after holding a public referendum and having a slim majority of the British citizens voting in favor to leave the EU permanently (Suárez Sutil, 2021). Just like any divorce, the political breakup also required a series - in this case, years - of negotiations, debate, and discussions until reaching a mutual settlement. For Britain, this has been quickly known as “Brexit” - the combination of two words: Britain and exit referring to the ongoing negotiations for the UK’s departure from the EU that lasted over four years (Garrett, 2019) – and eventually, (towards the end of the negotiations) the Brexit deal. The biggest chunk in terms of why Brexit took place was migration. This was reinforced by Becker & Fetzer (2017) during the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society at the University of Bristol when both noted in their study that the headline of the EU referendum debate was concentrated on the uncontrolled migration following the 2004 EU enlargement to Eastern Europe.

Despite this political UK-EU split, both parties still have net-zero carbon emission targets to achieve by 2050 in order to attain what they pledged during the Paris Agreement in 2015, and recently with the UK-hosted COP 26 in 2021 in Glasgow. Additionally, this sort of commitment has been clearly iterated in the new EU-UK trade agreement where both parties reassured their continuous cooperation to achieve their climate targets as planned (Gabbatis, 2021).

The series of negotiations came to an end by December 2020, and by January 2021 the UK was officially out of the EU (Sandford, 2022). Now that over a year passed by it is time to explore whether Britain really kept its promise and still has climate change as one of its top priorities or whether plans started deviating from the “Green Brexit”. This research aims to shed light on the impact of Brexit on climate change, not only on a global level – particularly in the EU – but on a local/national level too in the UK. This paper will examine the costs and benefits of the post-Brexit era, specifically in terms of climate change. This will be achieved through answering the following research question: To what extent does the United Kingdom have climate change at the core of its priorities in the post-Brexit era, both, locally and globally?

Case

Climate change is causing an ongoing existential threat for the entire ecosystem, and its major trigger is the human being, specifically human activities such as burning fossil fuels as well as the excessive depletion of resources, mainly natural (water, oil, soil, carbon…) and human resources (migrants and migration) (IOM, 2008). According to the former US Vice-President, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., climate change is causing extreme political instabilities around the world, resulting in conflicts and civil wars like the Syrian war that started in 2011 as one of the consequences of the Arab Spring movements. Such conflicts caused many refugees to escape from their motherlands and run toward Europe, which stemmed from political as well as economic instability (Johnston, 2017).

For Britain, migration was one of the main reasons that caused its departure from the European Union (Podobnik, Jusup, Kovac, & Stanley, 2017). However, the British EU phobia started ever since the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC) - which was later known as the European Union - in 1973, and two years later the government called its first public referendum (Schenk, 2021). According to Schenk (2021, p. 168), the “key issues included the contribution to the annual budget, the directives from the European Commission over various aspects of British economic and social life, the free movement of people into the UK from other member states and the powers of the European Court of Human Rights”. Once again, migration was on the list, but the latter was not as major as was the case in 2016. Back then, 64% of the voters supported the EU membership, but the relations between the UK and the EU remained controversial (Mueller & Robins, 2021).

Conversely, in 2016, a second public referendum was held among which 51.9% (17.4 million people) voted to leave the EU as opposed to 48% (16.14 million people) who supported the EU membership (Somai & Biedermann, 2016). Unfortunately, that was not what then Prime Minister (PM) David Cameron was expecting to see. Disappointed by the results, the Conservative PM resigned on 11 July 2016, and as a result, he was replaced by Theresa May two days after (Hutton, 2020). In theory, May, like Cameron, was among the advocates of the “Remainers”, but since she was elected as Cameron’s successor, she had an obligation to fulfill towards the British citizens, and that is to guarantee a green and smooth Brexit without jeopardizing any of the Britons’ interests (Andrew, 2019). However, the reality was far from the truth, and unfortunately, PM May resigned on 23 July 2019 after failing three times to exit from the EU with a deal. Thus, she was replaced by a pro-Brexit prime minister, Boris Johnson the next day. Johnson is famously known for his “get Brexit done” and “taking back control” slogans. He promised a clear exit from the EU, and he successfully went through a series of negotiations till he eventually achieved to leave the most powerful European bloc of the twenty-first century, but this time with a deal – something that Theresa May failed to accomplish – on Christmas Eve 2020. Despite the Brexit’s architect’s success story, the aftermath is still contested, specifically regarding the impact of the leave on climate change, both for the UK and the EU (Andrew, 2019).

With respect to climate change, the post-Brexit era carried some opportunities as well as some challenges from economic, social, and environmental aspects. Starting with the post-Brexit benefits, as soon as Theresa May was elected, she created the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which was the merging of two departments: Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS) – which had managed the UK’s annual ￡4.7 billion research budget - and Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The fact that the “Climate Change” was abolished from the title created many concerns about the possibility of “watering down the climate language and weakening the environmental regulations” (Castelvecchi, 2016). However, a climate change policy expert at the London School of Economics (LSE), Bob Ward, reassured us that the United Kingdom’s second female prime minister was aware of the significance and urgency of climate change, and she will not lower the environmental standards, especially that she appointed Greg Clark, a former science minister, to lead the newly merged department (Castelvecchi, 2016). Furthermore, Fankhauser (2016) - LSE professor and the Co-Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change - assured that the new department will create a stronger basis to decarbonize the British economy, hence, turn the UK into “a global leader in the low-carbon economy”.

Moving on to the environmental benefits – which is cross-cutting with the financial benefits - according to Boris Johnson, the famous political uncoupling gave back the control to the British people (and government) and the “ability to shape a better environment as [they] achieve net-zero by 2050” (Open Government Licence, 2022). On that note, two financial institutions are leading the way in the post-Green Brexit: The Bank of England (BoE) and the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI) (The Financial Times Limited, 2021). BoE is addressing climate-related threats while maintaining monetary and financial stability (BoE, 2022). As for CGFI, the latter is shifting investments away from risky activities that will highly likely harm the environment such as coal-fired power and deforestation, and encouraging instead less harmful projects such as sustainable agriculture and renewable energy (Caldecott, 2021).

Furthermore, the fact that the climate change conference (COP 26) was hosted by Glasgow in 2021 was a great opportunity for the prime minister to portray the “Global Britain Strategy” – the post-Brexit era - and to show the world leaders UK’s crucial role in bringing climate change under control and “keeping 1.5 alive” (referring to the 1.5o C target) (O’Grady, 2021), demonstrating that the UK has the technology to be recognized as an international leader in climate change by a) phasing out the use of cars with hydrocarbon internal combustion engines by 2035, b) ending the use of coal-fired power stations by 2030, and c) planting trillion trees to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 to name a few (WION, 2021).

Johnson also mentioned in his ‘A minute to midnight moment’ COP 26 speech about the finance gap of the one hundred billion dollars fund that the industrialized countries pledged during the 2015 Paris Agreement to help the developing countries by 2023 (originally pledged to be funded by 2020) “to help the rest of the world to move to green technology”, channeling finance towards adaptation - especially for the less developed countries that are already dealing with the consequences of global warming - and shedding light on the importance of private-public collaborations especially with the multilateral development banks to make the right investments and efficient/green financing (WION, 2021). ?However, when one listens to Johnson’s speech, s/he realizes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, the prime minister surely has the rhetorical means to display the benefits of Brexit on climate change, but it could be argued that his plans could be too ambitious and far-fetched and most of them do not have policies to be reinforced.

Flipping the Brexit coin towards the EU gives a different version of the story. To start with, 80% of Britain’s environmental policy has been profoundly Europeanized, playing a leading role in protecting the environment. The EU’s role has been to push the UK faster than it would have gone had it not been outside the EU (Dundas, 2019), and now the million-dollar question is how will the UK be able to perform with its environmental policies outside the EU? Furthermore, with the UK’s departure from the EU, the tension between both parties was exacerbated, specifically between the French and British governments over migration across the English borders as well as fishing permits (Sandford, 2022). In addition to that, in the UK, tighter immigration rules - after the freedom of movement ceased to exist - caused a shortage of people to fill jobs, and the situation got more complicated after the pandemic. As a result, the EU citizens had no longer the right to move to the UK to work, and vice versa. In addition to that, according to Sandford (2022), as of January 2022, the UK introduced some import controls on European goods, causing delays in border checks and supply chain issues.

Methodology and Key Results

This research adopted a qualitative analysis approach, and it is mainly based on secondary research. Secondary resources provided desk reviews and case study examples of post-Brexit agreements/policies that were made public by newspapers, articles, official documents, or other published sources that prove climate change is at the core of the UK’s priorities. Three case study examples of how climate change is being perceived post-Brexit are presented, with a close-up look at the 1) UK Environment Act 2021, 2) UK Climate Change Act 2021, and 3) UK-EU Trade Agreement.

After its departure from the EU by December 30, 2020, the UK Environment Act has been adopted by the government on 9 November 2021 - the very first major environment act in Britain’s history since 1995. According to Burns & Gravey (2021), despite having achieved this major milestone, there are some doubts about the UK environmental policy, specifically on the governance gaps and the policy and the latter’s ambitious language. Although the new Secretary of State, Michael Grove, committed to a “Green Brexit” by collaborating with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to establish a new environmental governance body for England and Northern Ireland - the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) - and despite “the best efforts of the environmental movement”, OEP seems to be relatively weak in terms of properly holding the government accountable and it lacks full independence (Burns & Gravey, 2021).

Another major ambiguity with this policy is the role and status of the environmental principles - such as the precautionary and proximity principles - that were preserved in the EU agreements, to be fully neglected by the UK government. However, it was a bit of relief when such principles were indeed addressed in the Environment Governance and Principles Bill 2018, though they were not referred to in any policy statement. There were also the mixed signals the UK government was projecting through the environment act where it set long-term targets to improve the air, water, nature, and waste by end of 2022, and yet it refused to set more determined targets for air quality in line with World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidance. These sorts of ambiguities should be clarified, and the targets set should be put into action/mechanism if the UK wants to speed up its climate agenda (Burns & Gravey, 2021).

However, it is hard to deny that even before Brexit, the UK could be considered an international leader in climate change policy. A good example is the UK Climate Change Act – the second case study example - that sets one of the most demanding climate targets in Europe, a legally binding net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) target for 2050 (Jordan, 2021). Internationally speaking, the UK showed time and again its genuine commitment to climate change, be it under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or the 2015 Paris Agreement, and recently with COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021. However, since the UK climate policies derived chiefly from European rules, several UK policies that were reinforced by the EU law ceased to exist after the transition period. As a result, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) - which until January 2021 addressed GHG emissions from UK-based factories – has been replaced with a UK Emissions Trading System (UK ETS) just weeks before the end of the transition period.

The final case study example is the Brexit deal itself to emphasize the importance of climate change. The latter was, therefore, incorporated into a mutual legally binding UK-EU trade agreement that came into force on May 1, 2021 – after having the EU lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor (660 votes to five, and with 32 abstentions) and finalized the deal on Christmas Eve 2020 (France24, 2021). However, the EU stated through its president of the Assembly, David Sassoli, that they “will not accept any backsliding from the UK government… you cannot have the advantages of EU membership while being on the outside”. Reinforcing Sassoli’s statement, the EU Chief, Ursula von der Leyen added that the agreement had “real teeth”, meaning that for any breach or divergence from the UK government, there will be severe consequences (France24, 2021).

From a climate change perspective, the new Trade and Cooperation agreement’s (TCA) preamble acknowledges the significance of global cooperation to address shared interests, including climate action. The agreement explicitly recognizes climate change as an existential threat to humanity, hence, it encourages both parties to cooperate despite their political split. One way to achieve the latter could be by linking the EU ETS with UK ETS. Such cooperation could help both parties to achieve high and faster results of net-zero emissions, especially since they both enhanced their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): EU commits to at least 55% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030, whereas the UK commits to at least 68% reduction (Wachowiak, 2021). In sum, it could be argued that the TCA is optimistic in its language, but the agreement lacks concrete action plans and/or clear mechanisms on how joining the forces of both parties can be beneficial and how it can take place accordingly.

Analytical Conclusion

Climate change is undoubtedly the defining trend of the twenty-first century, and migration is one of its severe consequences with a multiplier effect causing political instabilities, resource scarcity, high unemployment rate, and economic recession to name a few. Brexit’s driver was not only the migration, but the latter was one of the fundamental parts of the Brexit vehicle after then prime minister David Cameron held the infamous public referendum in 2016.

?Just like any phenomenon, Brexit too had its benefits and challenges, both locally and globally (EU). Some of the costs of the UK’s separation from the EU are related to governance and enforcement; the Court of Justice of the European Union – the only legal entity that can sanction EU member states had they failed to be compliant with the EU obligations – became inactive to the UK starting December 30, 2020. Therefore, although the targets set in the UK’s Climate Change Act are legally binding, there will not be an external authority enforcing its implementation anymore as was the case pre-Brexit.?This is why scientists and environmentalists have governance gaps at the forefront of their concerns (Jordan, 2021).

Furthermore, Johnson’s “Global Britain Strategy” or “take back control” plan seems to be backfiring UK’s economy a few months after the transition period, where the EU exports to and imports from the UK dropped by 14.3% and 35.4% respectively (Wachowiak, 2021). Similarly, Wachowiak (2021) added that “the toxicity of Brexit has evidently seeped into all areas of EU-UK cooperation, including globally shared interests”. The latter was very evident during the G7 Summit that was hosted by Boris Johnson in Cornwall in June where – although not explicitly an agenda item – the tension around the Northern Ireland Protocol dominated the summit. The G7 Summit demonstrated that Johnson has no intention of isolating EU-UK cooperation on global issues post-Brexit.

On the other hand, it is still not clear what Johnson’s intentions truly are, especially since the UK withdrew its membership from the European Environment Agency (EEA) following its departure from the EU on 31 January 2020. This could have been easily incorporated into the TCA because EEA’s membership is open to non-European countries too, hence, remaining an EEA member could have been a cost-effective way for the UK to exchange environmental information and analysis among its 38 member states, share data with them on GHG emissions, and “collaborate on automated monitoring using satellites such as Copernicus” (Jordan, 2021).?

Overall, it is still not clear if “Green Brexit” is the genuine UK plan to act as an international leader in climate change, or whether Johnson is simply using the climate card to sell his points to the world leaders with no actions in return. COP 26 could have been the ultimate momentum for the UK to cooperate with the EU post-Brexit, but this was not the case, the spirit of cooperation was not highly visible during the climate pact in Glasgow, and it was even more disappointing – even though COP 26 was the only conference which coal was mentioned - to see countries (starting with India) changing their climate language last minute from “phasing out coal” to “phasing down” (Russel, 2021), leaving the president of the climate pact, Alok Sharma, in tears at the end.

If the United Kingdom wants to truly show the world its power in the climate game, its government needs to show more evidence in three main aspects: coordination, investment, and planning. Without these pillars, UK’s policies, no matter how ambitious and convincing they are, will be only considered as marketing tools, and the Green Brexit will turn eventually into a blue one. ?