U.K. PM Sunak expected to announce delays on country’s net-zero goals

Britain has signalled it is preparing to delay some of its net-zero policies to ease the financial burden on households, with one senior minister saying that “bankrupting the British people” would not save the planet.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will later on Wednesday set out what he called a more “proportionate” approach to hitting net-zero emissions by 2050, with a ban on new gasoline and diesel cars expected to be pushed back to 2035 from 2030.

“For too many years, politicians in governments of all stripes have not been honest about costs and trade-offs,” Sunak said in a statement issued. “Instead, they have taken the easy way out, saying we can have it all.”

Some car companies, which are investing heavily to adapt their plants to launch new electric vehicles, reacted angrily to the news, while some lawmakers in Sunak’s Conservative Party welcomed it as a sensible decision.

Ford U.K. chair Lisa Brankin was scathing: “Our business needs three things from the U.K. government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three.”

Adoption of electric vehicles has been growing steadily, with more than 1.1 million electric cars estimated to be on U.K. roads as of April — up by more than half from the previous year, to account for around one in every 32 cars.

Binding target

Britain was the first major economy to create a legally binding 2050 net-zero target, and emissions have fallen almost 50 per cent since 1990, as coal power plants closed and offshore wind power took off.

Successive Conservative governments vowed to use the historical transformation as a way to reignite economic growth and spur innovation, with many regional politicians competing to attract investment and tout their area’s green credentials.

But Sunak’s government has recently appeared to waver on some of the measures needed to hit the target as the cost of decarbonizing everything from travel to the heating of homes starts to crystallize during a prolonged cost-of-living crisis.

Political bet

With a national election expected next year, Sunak appears to be betting that scaling back some green policies will win over swing voters, even though analysts and environmental proponents argue that improved insulation and new energy sources would prove cheaper for households in the long run.

Other areas that could be up for review are the phased introduction of heat pumps to replace gas boilers in homes, and insulation targets.

The government’s own independent adviser on climate action said in June that Britain was not doing enough to hit its mid-century target.

“We have to adopt a pragmatic approach, a proportionate approach and one that also serves our goals,” Home Secretary Suella Braverman told Times Radio. “We’re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people.”

The government has already revised the car target on several occasions in recent years, setting an initial goal of 2040 before it was reduced to 2035, then 2030.

Pushing the ban back to 2035 would put Britain in line with the European Union.

Urgent need for clarity

Car companies and those who are building new greener technologies say they need exacting, and consistent, targets to spur investment in the infrastructure required to underpin the switch.

Major car groups like BMW, Volkswagen and Stellantis all called for urgent clarity.

Ford said it had spent 430 million pounds ($715 million Cdn) on its U.K. development and manufacturing facilities, with “further funding planned for the 2030 timeframe.”

“We’re questioning what is the strategy here, because we need to shift the mobility of road transport away from fossil fuels towards sustainable transport,” said Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, an industry body.

Chris Skidmore, a former energy minister who led a review of the country’s net-zero progress, said a delay would prevent Britain from taking a lead on the electrification of the economy, warning that jobs and investment would go elsewhere.

Sunak is now having to balance the need to reassure big business with the pressure he faces from his own lawmakers to not do anything that would exacerbate the pressures already being felt from high inflation and stagnant economic growth.