Sunak’s Net Zero Reversal is No Big ‘Green’ Deal

Had you watched the response to Rishi Sunak’s net zero announcement on Wednesday, September 20th, without tuning in to the speech itself, you’d be forgiven for expecting wind turbines to be scrapped and for all the stops to be pulled on the mining and burning of coal. Some Tories are so dismayed they are even discussing forcing a vote of no confidence in their leader. To say this is an overreaction would be an understatement; almost nothing has actually changed.

So what’s new? New petrol car sales are still going to be banned. This will now take place in 2035 rather than 2030. But it is irresponsible to ignore the fact that the new deadline remains five years more ambitious than the original 2040 target. Britain, then, will still be ahead of other European countries on this measure, such as France. Yet the plan is still too ambitious and will inflict much damage.

The same goes for the sale of new oil boilers, the ban on which will now take place in 2035 rather than 2026. While some homes will now be exempt from the mandate, most will still have no choice but to switch to heat pumps. Those in favour of the net zero transition should also be cheering on a 50% increase in grant payments to make this change.

On his broader desire to decarbonise Britain by 2050, Mr. Sunak could not have made it more clear that, again, he has not changed one bit. Climate change, he said, is “one of the biggest challenges we face,” so “we must reduce our emissions.” The prime minister added that “hard choices” will still have to be made to reach net zero because he is not “abandoning any of our targets and commitments.” On the contrary, he stressed that he is “proud that our country leads the world on net zero, with the most ambitious 2030 target of any major economy.”

Mr. Sunak said these changes had been made in order to spare the taxpayer “unacceptable costs.” He described the previous deadlines as ambitions, “but there’s nothing ambitious about simply asserting a goal for a short-term headline.” Not that this view has stopped the Conservative Party from doing exactly that—offering talk but no action—for more than a decade on crime, immigration and contentious social issues, to name just a few.

And just as the approach to net zero at home remains effectively unchanged, so too does the Tory commitment to supporting poorer countries reach low-carbon targets. In the same month that Mr. Sunak signed off the biggest one-off financial contribution to a fund for tackling climate change, despite schools in this country being at risk of collapsing, he said the government is “as committed as ever to helping developing countries.”

It is a sorry illustration of Britain’s political system—particularly of the so-called Conservative Party—that one week there is effectively no backlash to its joining a costly, EU-focussed programme against the interest of the taxpayer, and the next there is an establishment furore over the slight shifting of some goalposts for a wider scheme that remains very much in place. In fact, “sorry” just doesn’t cut it.