In politics, timing is everything. Last week the government set out its strategy for meeting its net zero carbon targets: this came a year later than expected, and less than a fortnight before the UK finds itself front and centre on the global stage as host of the Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow.The long-awaited climate blueprint covered wide-ranging “net zero” ambitions from renewable energy and electric vehicles to carbon capture and electric heat pumps – and yet still offered too little, if not entirely too late.It falls short in two crucial areas: ambition, and government funding. Critics say the carbon savings set out in the paper will not get the UK close to its net zero goal by 2050, and that without the funds might fail to meet even this limited ambition.
Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, said the success of the government’s net zero plans would rely on ministers putting in place major and at times expensive policy changes.Timing is crucial in the race to tackle the climate crisis too – but one can’t help wondering whether the countdown to Cop26 meant officials didn’t have the time to put together policies with the depth, detail and Treasury buy-in to meet the deadline, despite a year’s delay. Delays beget further delays, and in the context of the climate crisis, the truism that winning slowly is the same as losing is all too apt.
The government hopes that alongside its plan to end the UK’s contribution to global heating it will create up to 440,000 jobs and “unlock” £90bn in private sector investment in the next decade alone. But it could all be at risk if the “how?” at the heart of the UK’s climate plans remain unanswered.
If the government hopes to meet its targets, time taken today on the details of tomorrow would be well spent. Take nuclear power: the ambition to bring forward investment in a new generation of nuclear reactors is almost 20 years old and has been wildly delayed. In the latest net zero strategy, the government vowed to secure a final investment for one large-scale nuclear power plant by the end of the parliament, but offered no new way to achieve this challenge.Legislation for a new funding framework to meet the challenge of eye-watering upfront costs for nuclear is expected to emerge “very shortly”, according to one Whitehall source, but did not do so in time for the net zero strategy.For households, the upfront cost of new low-carbon heating and insulation represents a challenge on a far smaller scale than the nuclear dilemma – but one with major cumulative implications for the UK’s climate goals, and in need of a coherent plan.
theguardiansource :theguardian
