A recent ruling by the high court declared the latest UK approach to achieving net zero emissions illegal, presenting another setback for the UK government’s endeavours to counter climate change. Judge Clive Sheldon upheld four out of five grounds for legal challenge following a judicial review launched by campaign organisations of the most recent UK climate initiative, which was introduced in March of the previous year.
The scheme outlines the UK’s plan of action on how to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions, to fulfil its own binding legal obligation to lessen global warming. Groups such as ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth, and the Good Law Project argued that the updated governmental strategy was illegal as it failed to provide sufficient information on the risk evaluation of policies not being implemented. The court jointly evaluated three claims made by these groups.
These organisations also questioned the viability of reliance on expensive technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which haven’t been successfully demonstrated on a large scale. “This ruling signifies that the government must now prioritise believable actions to tackle the climate crisis, with a plan that can be relied on to deliver,” says Sam Hunter-Jones, a senior lawyer at ClientEarth.
Reacting to this ruling, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero claimed that the UK could take “considerable pride in its climate change track record” further noting that “the court’s judgement didn’t find fault with the detailed strategies deployed”. The judgement follows a significant ruling in July 2022 wherein the high court found the previous governmental policy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as unlawful, citing a lack of adequate information on achieving the target as aligned with the Climate Change Act.
The UK catapulted to the fore, becoming the first major economy in 2019 to equip itself with a legally binding net zero target. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in the previous year, retrospectively cancelled a number of eco-friendly strategies, including the gradual elimination of gas boilers and new petrol and diesel cars. He has drafted laws promoting additional oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
The Climate Change Committee, the UK’s climate overseer, expressed “low confidence” in the wake of Mr Sunak’s proclamation last year over Britain’s likelihood of achieving its net-zero objectives.
Former head of the Climate Change Committee, Chris Stark, communicated to the Financial Times earlier this month that the curtailing of green policies by Mr Sunak is a contributing factor as to why the UK is losing ground in green investment to other nations.
On Friday, Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow secretary for net zero, expressed that the recent ruling marks a new nadir for the current government, referring to them disparagingly as a “clown show”. He pointed out the unlawful nature of their plan, not once, but twice, arguing that such repeated oversteps demonstrate their incompetence in executing on behalf of the UK.
In response, the government is predicted to produce a new climate report that abides by the court’s directives within the forthcoming year.
This year has proven challenging for farmers across the UK due to an unusual volume of rainfall, resulting in widespread flooding of farmland. Global warming, which reached an all-time high in 2023, has increased evaporation from bodies of water leading to increased precipitation in certain regions on a global scale.
Scotland made the decision in the previous month to scrap its legal objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, surpassing the rest of the UK’s aim, which is a 68 per cent reduction by 2030 from 1990 levels.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024