Due to the nature of the Climate Change Act, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will likely face challenges to any u-turns on net zero policy he makes, according to critics.
Last week, naturalist, TV presenter and environmental campaigner Chris Packham announced that he would legally challenge Mr. Sunak’s decision to change the government’s timetable to phase out motor vehicles and gas boilers.
In September, the prime minister said the sale of new fossil fuel cars will not be phased out in 2030 but in 2035 and that only 80 percent of gas boilers will need to be phased out by that date instead of 100 percent.
At the time, he said that “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.”
A government spokesperson told The Epoch Times that it is “on track to deliver our net zero commitments set out in law.”
However, experts warned that without changes to the Climate Change Act 2008, which requires the government to set a legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, it will likely see legal challenges.
The UK is one of the very few countries to tie net zero objectives into law with a statutory obligation.
The TV presenter Chris Packham sent the PM a legal letter sent on his behalf by environment lawyers at the law firm Leigh Day.
Mr. Packham, who is well-known for presenting BBC nature programmes, said he believed the prime minister was “acting illegally” in changing the policy. He added that it contravened the UK’s commitments under the Climate Change Act, which says the government must be clear on how it will meet its carbon budget plans.
He said the decision had been made without any public consultation, and without informing parliament or the Climate Change Committee—the government’s carbon budget advisors. Mr. Packham added he would apply to the High Court to challenge this in a judicial review.
Climate Change Act
Lord Peter Lilley, a cabinet minister in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and Sir John Major, who was among just five Parliamentarians to vote against the Climate Change Act in the Commons in 2008.Lord Lilley, who now sits as a peer in the Environment and Climate Change Lords Select Committee, told The Epoch Times that he asked at the time what the legally binding act targets meant.
“I asked what that meant. If that we waited until 2050 and if the target hadn’t been met, we then put all the energy ministers and prime ministers in the intervening period on trial and put them in jail,” he said.
“It obviously wasn’t because there were no penalties,” he said.
“Making it legally enforceable means the court can be brought in if the government’s not making the term long route,” he said.
“The Climate Change Act does strap the government in fairly tightly it’s got if a court case is brought against it,” he added.
“New court cases pending, they’ve [the government] now published enough information, that information allegedly shows that the targets won’t be met,” said Lord Lilley.
Lord Lilley added that he believed that if the bill was brought forward today, far more people would voted against it, but there would still be a majority in parliament for it.
Though he added that what “Rishi Sunak has done is significant, simply because it’s suddenly opened up the whole issue and it’s now legitimate to look at it from a cost-benefit point of view.”
“Which is the original reason I voted against the Climate Change Act in the first place was because the cost-benefit document produced by the government showed that potential costs were twice the maximum benefit,” he added.
CCC
The Climate Change Committee (CCC), which was created as part of the Climate Change Act, advises the government on emissions targets and reports to parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.It does not have the power to force the government to follow its recommendations, but its advice is highly influential.
“We remain concerned about the likelihood of achieving the UK’s future targets, especially the substantial policy gap to the UK’s 2030 goal. Around a fifth of the required emissions reductions to 2030 are covered by plans that we assess as insufficient,” it said.
“Recent policy announcements were not accompanied by estimates of their effect on future emissions, nor evidence to back the government’s assurance that the UK’s targets will still be met. This is unhelpful,” it added.
The CCC “urged the government to adopt greater transparency in updating its analysis at the time of major announcements.”
Lawfare
Independent climate researcher Ben Pile, co-founder of Climate Debate UK, criticised some eco “lawfare” as “just another example of the Green Blob, trying to circumvent democracy in whichever way it can.”“Whatever you think of Sunak, what the democratic government is attempting to do, is being straight with the public about for the first time in about 20 years, in the weakest way possible,” he told The Epoch Times.
“We are just heading for a conflict where The Climate Change Act is going to be identified as the problem,” he said.
“The more they the more they do it the more likely there’s going to be an argument to repeal it because it’s taking power away from governments and parliament,” he added.
A spokesman for Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told The Epoch Times by email: “We are on track to deliver our net zero commitments set out in law, and are taking a fairer and more pragmatic approach to meeting them, easing the burden on hard-working businesses and families.
“Households will have more time and flexibility to make the transition, ensuring they can switch to electric vehicles when it suits them, and easing the boiler phase out will save some families thousands of pounds at a time when the cost of living is high.”
The Epoch Times contacted Leigh Day and Friends of the Earth for comment.
