2030 is now 2035…. followed by 2040? ……….. towards 2050!

Time is running out. – Owl

“The whole point of setting interim targets is to make it more likely that you hit the main end goal. Presented with a legally binding commitment, the government risks looks incapable of delivering a plan that it can stick to.”

Nils Pratley www.theguardian.com

One can understand why Rishi Sunak sees political opportunity in watering down a few climate policies. Previous soundbites about “the economic opportunity of the 21st century” may be correct in the round, but voters have also noticed that heat pumps are expensive and that the path to net zero by 2050 involves costs as well as opportunities. A strategy that claims, in effect, that net zero can be delivered more gently is not absurd for a party that is miles behind in the polls.

The problem, though, is the one highlighted by the furious reaction from some carmakers, in particular, to Sunak’s flip-flop. Any realistic route to net zero involves winning, and keeping, the broad confidence of businesses that will be overhauling the infrastructure. At one level, hitting the 2050 target requires an enormous public-private effort to rewire the entire economy. The whole point of setting interim targets is to make it more likely that you hit the main end goal. Presented with a legally binding commitment, the government risks looks incapable of delivering a plan that it can stick to.

The former Siemens UK chief executive Jürgen Maier spoke about “a disaster for business confidence and investment” and one can understand why. The phasing-out of sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 was a policy adopted as recently as November 2020, which is hardly another age. Sunak was chancellor at the time.

Manufacturing investment decisions were made on the assumption that the deadline was solid. Veering to 2035 – never mind what the EU is doing – feels perverse when the government is simultaneously throwing subsidies at Mini and Jaguar Land Rover to crank up their electric vehicle ambitions in the UK.

It was a similar story with the offshore wind auction a fortnight ago. In that case, the – still intact – goal is to have 50 gigawatts of capacity installed by 2030, which requires a tripling of what the UK already has. The auction, however, delivered precisely zero bids because the government’s maximum price for contracts was set at an unrealistically low level.

One can grumble about offshore developers’ greed – some have had a spectacularly good ride in the past – but inflation in construction costs was undeniable on this occasion. The government’s inflexible approach also looked counterproductive in its own terms if the 50GW target is to be hit. Developers next year will have a stronger negotiating hand in an auction in which the government is obliged to land more bids. A “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic” approach, to use one of Sunak’s phrases on Wednesday, would have been to try to smooth the bumps in the interests of steady delivery.

On cars again, if one challenge to electric adoption is the lack of charging points, as Sunak said, a legitimate role for government would be to fill the gaps in the network or create the incentives for companies to invest. If the problem, actually, is that the grid infrastructure is incapable of handling mass adoption of electric vehicles by 2030, it would be better to spell out the facts.

Business won’t hate everything in this reset, of course. If a “fast track” to improve connections to the grid is confirmation that decarbonisation of the power sector will happen by 2035, that is significant. The target is immensely demanding from a technical perspective – and more important than, say, what happens with heat pumps.

But consistency in policymaking matters. In attempting to signal pragmatism, Sunak may send the message to business that UK targets cannot be relied upon. An awful lot of foreign capital is required to deliver the investments behind transition. Overseas investors may fairly wonder if more U-turns are coming.

How many people have actually voted for Rishi Sunak? Net Zero

Rishi Sunak has fired the starting gun on the next general election after he announced plans to water down a raft of net zero commitments in a bid to make climate change a fresh political battleground.

Richard Vaughan inews.co.uk

In what the Prime Minister said will be the first in a series of speeches over the coming months setting out his long-term vision for the country, he kicked off his pitch to the people by lighting a bonfire of green pledges in a bid to appeal to the electorate.

Mr Sunak insisted the plans, which included delaying the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars, were to avoid a “backlash” from the public and would not impose “significant costs on working people”.

The announcement, which will also weaken the plan to phase out gas boilers from 2035, sparked an outcry from business leaders, climate campaigners and his own MPs, who believe it drastically undermines the UK’s position as a world leader on climate change.

But speaking from his Downing Street briefing room in front of a podium brandishing the Tory conference slogan of “Long-term decisions for a brighter future”, he claimed previous governments – both Tory and Labour – had sought to get to net zero “simply by wishing it”.

Mr Sunak added: “No one in Westminster politics has yet had the courage to look people in the eye and explain what’s really involved. That’s wrong, and it changes now.

“It cannot be right for Westminster to impose such significant costs on working people, especially those who are already struggling to make ends meet and to interfere so much in people’s way of life without a properly informed national debate.”

As well as delaying the ban on petrol and diesel cars and gas boilers, the Prime Minister scrapped plans to require landlords to meet new energy efficiency regulations.

But there were significant doubts over the existence of several other policies Mr Sunak scrapped, namely a meat tax, a frequent flyer tax, “compulsory car sharing” and plans to force households to have seven recycling bins.

Plans to raise household grants for heat pumps from £5,000 to £7,500 were widely welcomed, however.

The decision to delay the ban on new diesel and petrol cars and gas fired boilers was met with significant unease from industry.

The Government’s own Climate Change Commission warned the UK has a “legal obligation to meet its net zero 2050 target” and a “commitment to hit the interim emission reduction targets” already in law.

“Today’s announcement is likely to take the UK further away from being able to meet its legal commitments,” the commission’s chair, Piers Forster, said, before adding: “This, coupled with the recent unsuccessful offshore wind auction, gives us concern.”

The Conservative Environment Network, which represents around 150 Tory MPs, warned Mr Sunak his watering down of green policies risks reputational damage for the Tories.

Director Sam Hall said: “This was an unnecessary speech that risks damaging the Conservative Party’s hard-won reputation on environmental issues.”

Labour’s shadow Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, said the speech was an “act of weakness from a desperate, directionless Prime Minister, dancing to the tune of a small minority of his party”.

“Delaying the phase out of petrol and diesel cars will add billions in costs to families and damage investor confidence in the UK, as we have seen from the furious business reaction today,” he added.

The National Housing Federation said scrapping targets to insulate homes would lead to people facing higher bills “for years to come”.

Chief executive Kate Henderson said: “It’s hugely disappointing to see the Government row back from its commitments to net zero, particularly on improving the energy efficiency of our homes.

“Making homes more energy efficient is a win-win, not only helping to save our planet, but also boosting our economy by creating jobs and, crucially, saving money,” she added.

“Rishi likes to jump on his little jet. I don’t have a car, I don’t fly on planes.”

Robyn Vinter www.theguardian.com 

In the opinion of Claire Savage, the manager of the Ironstone Miner pub in Guisborough, the prime minister’s plan to water down net zero commitments that he says impose a direct cost on consumers is disingenuous.

And she is not alone in thinking that. Savage lives in the constituency of Simon Clarke, the Tory MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who said on Tuesday that his constituents did not support the rollback.

The former levelling up secretary, who served under Liz Truss, posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Our climate is changing dramatically. The UK has carved out a world-leading role delivering net zero in a market-friendly way that will deliver clean, secure energy and thousands of jobs in deprived communities like Teesside. My red wall constituents overwhelmingly support it.”

And he appears to be right. Plans that could include delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and watering down the phasing-out of gas boilers were not popular among those grabbing lunch in torrential rain on Wednesday.

For 17-year-old Jack McDougall, a college student, there needs to be a more holistic approach to tackling net zero: he said the commitments the prime minister was rolling back on were already not enough.

“It’s naive just to say we need to invest in more electric cars because in more deprived areas affording them is an issue. Mitigating climate change is really important so we need more investment, and wider investment, rather than less.”

McDougall, who is studying geography, added: “I’m going to spend my life being affected by this. The damage is already being proven by the wildfires we’re seeing.”

Joanne Powell, who works at a local accountancy firm, agreed but added that better infrastructure would incentivise more people to buy electric cars, rather than banning petrol cars. She said: “The main problem with the take-up of electric cars is that there aren’t enough charging points. Things are not going to get better until they install more.”

Green industry is growing on Teesside, where Europe’s first lithium refinery was given the green light last month.

It will start production in 2027, using materials imported from Australia, and is expected to have an annual production capacity of 50,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium chemicals, enough to provide batteries for 1m electric car batteries.

“In the north-east in general, more jobs are needed,” said Amy Leach, a criminology student. “It’s worth investing to create those jobs.”

Sunak’s move is designed to shore up support among those who voted for the Conservatives in 2019. But a new poll of 4,000 voters by Public First for the centre-right thinktank Onward shows it could backfire.

According to the poll, the target of reaching net zero by 2050 is overwhelmingly popular with voters, including Conservative ones, 49% of whom say they support it while only 20% oppose it.

The individual policies Sunak will roll back also poll well: 35% of respondents said they supported the plan to phase out gas boilers by 2035, compared with 27% who opposed it. Meanwhile, 38% supported ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, with only 31% opposed to the move.

Sunak’s announcement came as a poll by the campaign group Green New Deal Rising found that most people wanted the UK government, fossil fuel companies and wealthy people to pay more for climate action measures.

A total of 60% of the public thought increasing taxes or ending subsidies for fossil fuel companies, rather than making cuts in other areas of UK spending, should be used to deliver the international climate funding the UK has promised.

At the Ironstone Miner, a Wetherspoon’s pub named after the industry that supported the town – and left its scars on the land – Savage said she felt there was a need for a more international view.

She said green technologies themselves were far from perfect and a big concern was the impact on people who lived and worked in the areas where minerals used for electric cars were mined.

“What about the people who are left with big holes in the ground and environmental problems? Aren’t we ruining the environment by digging up places?” she said. “I’m not against [net zero investment], not at all. I just want them to do what’s best for everyone, to do good.”

Pollution from treated and untreated sewage is the greatest threat to river biodiversity, causing more damage than runoff from farms, according to research.

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com 

There is a need for more regulation of water companies and improvements at their treatment plans to protect rivers, say the authors of the study.

The research from the University of Oxford was released on World Rivers Day. No river in England passes tests for chemical or biological pollution, and government targets to improve the water quality in rivers will not be met.

“Improvements to wastewater plants should be implemented along with more regulations. These efforts are crucial in safeguarding the integrity and safety of our rivers – fundamental elements of both ecosystems and human wellbeing,” said the lead author, Dr Dania Albini, of Oxford’s biology department.

Treated sewage released by water companies into rivers and raw effluent that is dumped in rivers via storm overflows is the primary driver of increased nutrients, algae and sewage fungus in rivers, according to the study.

Sewage discharge radically alters plant, animal and microbe communities and increases the abundance of harmful species. While runoff from farmland has negative impacts on river water quality, the research reveals that sewage discharge into rivers has a greater impact on water quality and the animals and plants that live in rivers.

The findings were published in the journals Global Change Biology and Ecological Solutions and Evidence.

Albini said: “Our study highlights the disproportionate impact that sewage discharge has on river quality, presenting an urgent need for a comprehensive action plan targeting the sewage discharge problem.”

Sewage from households and businesses is treated by water companies at treatment plants and then discharged into rivers. Raw sewage is also discharged via storm overflows, but this should only take place in exceptional circumstances. Water companies are at the centre of a criminal investigation by the Environment Agency and an inquiry by the financial regulator Ofwat into failures in the way they run their treatment plants.

James Wallace, of the UK-based charity River Action, said: “This important research demonstrates yet again the damage from unregulated water companies and agriculture. In addition to the catastrophic impact on wildlife from nutrient pollution, the public should be aware that sewage systems do not remove dangerous bacteria such as E.coli and intestinal enterococci from treated sewage.

“When will the government make water companies and farms clean up their act, especially in places where human lives and sensitive protected habitats are threatened?”

Separate research by Dr Leon Barron, part of the Environmental Research Group at Imperial College, which involved hundreds of samples taken from 14 waterways in Greater London over three years, reveals that 21 compounds were detected that posed a potential risk to the environment in freshwater ecosystems. The pollutants included antibiotics, pain medication and pet parasite medications, which contain neonicotinoids.

The study showed that water companies’ treatment plants and combined sewer overflows, which release raw sewage and runoff, were the main sources of chemical risks to rivers overall.

The team found that smaller rivers feeding into the Thames were most affected by wastewater pollution.

The research compared sampling taken during Covid lockdowns with those taken when society opened up again. Barron, a senior author of the research, said it was the largest study of a heavily urbanised river system and provided uniquely detailed insights into London’s water quality.

Guy Woodward, a professor of ecology in the department of life sciences at Imperial, and a co-author of the paper, said: “This … picks up on several [chemicals] that are at potentially harmful concentrations for wildlife, but which have seemingly been overlooked in traditional surveys of our water quality in urban areas at this resolution.”

Anyone heard of the four “worrying” tax and regulation proposals our jet setting PM is scrapping in his “New Approach to Net Zero”?

Are they actual policies?

Or are they just “Red Herrings”,  argumentative fallacies? – Owl

Rishi Sunak, from the official record of his “New Approach to Net Zero” speech:

“The debate about how we get to Net Zero has thrown up a range of worrying proposals and today I want to confirm that under this government, they’ll never happen.

The proposal for government to interfere in how many passengers you can have in your car.

I’ve scrapped it.

The proposal that we should force you to have seven different bins in your home.

I’ve scrapped it.

The proposal to make you change your diet – and harm British farmers – by taxing meat.

Or to create new taxes to discourage flying or going on holiday.

I’ve scrapped those too.

We will never impose these unnecessary and heavy-handed measures on you, the British people but we will still meet our international commitments and hit Net Zero by 2050.“

How? – Owl