Climate Watchdog: UK 'Too Slow' To Hit Net Zero Targets

The government's own climate watchdog has said it is losing confidence in the UK's ability to reach net zero after a slew of failed targets and "missed" opportunities

- JON STONE

In a "damning assessment" released yesterday the Climate Change Committee (CCC), led by Tory peer Lord Deben, said government departments had ignored key recommendations and were being "too slow" to act. "In a crucial period for delivering progress, key departments did not deliver on recommendations made by the committee last year," it said.

Labour described the CCC's findings as "by some distance the most damning indictment of a government since the climate change committee was established in 2008" - while the Tory chair of parliament's environmental audit committee said it was "concerning reading".

Lord Deben, the committee's chair, warned that ministers were squandering opportunities to take climate action "more cheaply and more easily" and urged government to "regroup".

The committee warned:

• Planning laws must be reformed so green infrastructure can be built
• The rate of tree planting needs to double by 2025
• There can be no net expansion in airport capacity
• Ministers need a strategy for decarbonising heavy industry
• Electrification of transport such as vans is "off track"
• Renewable electricity generation is off target
• Heat should be pump installations are at "one-ninth" of where they should be

Seven priority recommendations made to the business department by the committee last year remain unachieved, while Defra and the communities department "failed to achieve any of the priority recommendations made by the committee in 2022," the CCC said.