TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham has successfully secured a judicial review of the UK Government’s decision to push back target dates on some of their net zero policies, with a hearing scheduled for later this year.
The naturalist and television host’s legal challenge confronts Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s rollback of measures intended to achieve the UK’s net zero emissions target by 2050. This legal confrontation arises from the government’s decision to postpone the ban on new diesel and petrol cars, diminish the phase-out of gas boilers, and eliminate mandatory energy efficiency upgrades for homes.
Mr. Packham said: “The pledges which the government abandoned were important parts of the UK’s plan to reach net zero in order to ameliorate the effects of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss which threaten life on our planet.
“Notably, they, unlike some of the other parts of that strategy, were actually quantifiable, they were directly measurable in terms of carbon management. To abandon them without having comparable quantifiable measures in place was reckless and dangerous.
Government Rollback ‘Cannot Be Lawful’
Carol Day, a solicitor from Leigh Day, the firm representing the TV star, said: “Mr. Packham will argue that it cannot be lawful for the government to abandon carefully thought-out policies designed to achieve net zero targets without having other measures in place … It would make the government’s report to Parliament under the Climate Change Act nothing more than a snapshot in time.”This development follows a previous legal climate confrontation for Mr. Sunak’s government in February, where Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth, and the Good Law Project brought the government before the High Court, challenging what they deemed a “weak and inadequate” climate action plan.
That marked the second instance these organisations have legally contested the government’s approach to fulfilling its legally binding climate objectives. After successful legal pursuits in 2022, the High Court found the government’s climate strategy violated the Climate Change Act 2008, ordering a revision of its climate action plan.
Last September, Mr. Sunak delayed and reversed several green policies, such as phasing out fossil fuel vehicles and gas boilers, and setting energy standards for rentals.
Pro-Net-Zero Models ‘Hopelessly Unrealistic’
Speaking to The Epoch Times in February, climate researcher and commentator Ben Pile said the models that pro-net-zero groups often develop to help simulate what the UK’s energy infrastructure will look like a decade or more into the future, rely on technologies such as hydrogen storage and carbon capture and storage, which “do not even exist as commercially-viable applications yet.”Mr. Pile criticised such organisations for their “hopelessly unrealistic” assumptions about the pace and scale of technological deployment.
He also suggested that these models, which often inform crucial political and government decisions, are flawed and ideologically driven.
“Neither the models nor the organisations that produce them are fit for purpose,” Mr. Pile added, “and they seem likely to be driven by their commitments to the green ideological agenda, not the public’s or country’s interest.”
Reacting to Mr. Packham’s successful application, a spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We strongly reject these claims and will be robustly defending this challenge … We are the first major economy to halve emissions and have one of the most ambitious legally binding emissions targets in the world, having over-delivered on every carbon budget to date.”
“We are committed to meeting our legal net zero commitments and families will now have more time to make the transition, saving some people thousands of pounds at a time when cost of living is high.”
