Last month in a case brought by Joylon Maugham QC’s Good Law project, Client Earth and Friends of the Earth, the High Court ruled that the Government’s net zero strategy was in violation of the Climate Change Act 2008.
The grounds cited were insufficient provision of information on how its policies would contribute to reducing emissions. The judges have ordered the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to prepare a report within eight months providing this information for Parliamentary and public scrutiny. This landmark ruling has not just marked the first time the Climate Change Act had been used to legally scrutinise climate commitment, it has also raised the bar for future net zero policy.
It must be stated the ruling does not involve any legal challenge to the setting of the net zero target, nor to the setting of any carbon budget. So what next – and what if anything changes at local level?
Well Boris Johnson who set out in the foreword to the Net Zero Strategy only last October to ‘lead the world in ending our contribution to climate change’ won’t be around. Neither is it thought will BEIS secretary Kwasi Kwarteng who claimed the strategy as published ‘demonstrates how the UK is leading by example, with a clear plan for the future’, who is being tipped as chancellor in a future Liz Truss administration.
One benefit that can be adduced going forwards from the judgment is the need for greater clarity and concrete understanding as to how we quantify progress towards net zero. The public will be supportive of this, with YouGov data showing that around 70% of the public are aware human activity is heating up the planet, with around 50% tending to believe the Government is not doing enough to reduce emissions.
Yet measures devised to help with bringing down the global temperature increase have suffered from a lack of co-ordination across geography and sectors, a lack of clarity over specific targets and how they will be met and, perhaps most importantly of all, a lack of consistency as the country has cycled through three different Governments in half a decade.
At place level we need to look under the bonnet to identify then quantify the 30% of climate action that can only be achieved through local leadership. There’s been a good few years of running central government as if the power of rhetoric could effect any change on the ground.
Councils will have to move beyond what increasingly seems like vapid gesture politics of declaring climate emergencies and get together their own act – making use of their own property assets and wider public estate, procurement power and ability to convene local economic anchors and the like. And when it comes to the private sector, restoring their trust and confidence in government-run schemes after the home insulation debacle of 2020 is a must.
It should be borne in mind that many councils have set themselves even more stringent 2030 net zero commitments, while in many cases lacking the ability to retrofit their own properties let alone every property in their locality. The mindset has to be that practical answers to this can’t await help from either national Government, BP, big business or China when half of emissions are coming from home heating.
Councils will also have to look at greater collaboration across the sector, bringing back the concept of one-stop shops for residents and aggregating procurement and institutional knowledge. But the greatest need for co-ordination is overcoming supply chain issues which bedevil every area of the net zero economy. It is a wacky net zero battlefield, with competition for funding against rival funds over the same residents with a limited labour market and skills bottleneck.
Indeed, with most funding for net zero at local level coming from BEIS, projects have to be shoehorned to central government timetables and diktat without any local sense of rhyme or reason. An ultimate prize would be the weaning of local government net zero strategies and carbon offset plans away from central funding. This would enable our local leaders to set long-term targets and align skills and supply chain issues that reflect their own good judgment of place needs and priorities.
Jonathan Werran is chief executive, Localis