After a bumper fortnight of big news and big events in Westminster, MPs must be hoping they can catch their breath next week in the countdown to Easter recess.
Yet for those still digesting the Budget, Boris Johnson’s Partygate evidence and the signing of the UK-EU Windsor Framework on post-Brexit trade, there’s another course of controversy due to arrive as the Commons rises for its break on Thursday.
That’s the day pencilled in Whitehall and ministerial diaries as “Green Day”.
It’s unclear if Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps is a fan of the US post-punk band of that same name (his cousin Mick Jones was in The Clash, after all).
But Thursday is when he is expected to deliver the long awaited detail of Government policy on how to meet the UK’s statutory target of having net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
And with Joe Biden’s massive $369bn investment in green energy sending out a loud message that he didn’t wanna be an American idiot on climate change (in contrast to Donald Trump), the British Green Day is a chance to prove we’re not falling behind in the global clean tech arms race.
Thursday happens to be the last possible moment in the parliamentary calendar for Shapps to meet another hard deadline after a High Court judge last year gave ministers until the end of March 2023 to set out their climate change plans.
More than three months after former minister Chris Skidmore handed his Net Zero Review to No 10, a formal response will be issued. A new Green Finance Strategy should give details of carbon capture, use and storage schemes (CCUS). Plans for more new modular nuclear power reactors are anticipated too.
The problem is that both of these are novel technologies that won’t make a real dent in our emissions output for many years – and maybe not in time to hit the UK’s 2035 target for a fully decarbonised power system.
And after so many false dawns, it’s not surprising that environmentalists are reserving judgement on Shapps until they see the colour, and quantity, of his money.
Jeremy Hunt’s recent Budget boasted £20bn in carbon capture funding, only for it quickly to emerge that no new money would appear this side of the next general election. Just as disappointing, the Chancellor didn’t fast-track any of the £6bn earmarked for home energy insulation either.
Some suspect that the apparent lack of urgency is down to Rishi Sunak worrying too much about any backlash from a hard core of Tory backbench climate sceptics and from MPs in farming constituencies who fear extra costs.
Earlier this month, it emerged that Thérèse Coffey’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was one of the worst offenders in failing to develop green policy, lagging a staggering 24 per cent behind its official target. The Department of Transport had a gap “considerably over five per cent” too.
Leaked documents pointed out that the statutory Climate Change Committee had “criticised the ‘glacial progress’ in reducing emissions from agriculture”. But it’s unclear if Coffey would do anything to upset the Tories’ farming support by limiting livestock herds, mass tree planting and cutting fossil-fuel-based fertilisers.
The Green Alliance think tank this week revealed just how far off-track the Government really is. Although ministers had announced policies to cover 87 per cent of the cuts needed by 2032, just 28 per cent of these have policy frameworks in place for actual delivery. More than a third of policies needed to achieve our emissions reductions are stuck at consultation stage.
Yet the political and financial upsides of taking action are obvious to many inside and outside the Tory party. David Cameron’s decision to cut the “green crap” by curbing onshore wind and by gutting energy efficiency subsidies is still costing us all dear.
The Carbon Brief website calculated this week that UK energy bills are £9.8bn higher than they would have been if Cameron hadn’t U-turned on his early enthusiasm for saving the planet. That’s a huge sum that could have been saved for all of us over the past decade. Thanks to a lack of a Government incentives or support, the number of UK homes getting loft or cavity wall insulation actually fell last year.
And just as the former Tory leader proved a false prophet on the environment, Big Oil’s false profits from Putin’s war in Ukraine underlined the political dangers of failing to get a grip on climate change policy.
If cheaper bills weren’t enough, there’s also the sheer self-interest for Tory MPs in avoiding the mass immigration that will stem from the climate emergency. The latest report by the Onward think tank argues ministers need to prepare for such rises – possibly with new visa schemes.
Of course, the most serious news of the past week wasn’t Boris Johnson’s grilling over Partygate or even the Brexit breakthrough for Northern Ireland. It was the UN’s latest warning of the summary of scientific evidence that the world is in peril from global warming.
Secretary general António Guterres put it well when he said the world is walking on thin ice but that ice is melting. All governments need to do more to match their lofty ambitions with real action.
Sunak has at least shown some seriousness in creating a brand new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Having taken on his backbench rebels on Brexit and won, he could show similar strong leadership over the biggest issue of all – not least by backing Skidmore’s calls for 10-year planning timeframes and faster policies.
Yet the problem may lie in Sunak’s own political outlook rather than any skills at party management. He is fundamentally a small-state Conservative, while this crisis requires big money, big regulation (to drive private investment) and big planning freedoms for onshore wind.
Joe Biden has shown a vibrant capitalist economy can rise to the challenge with the right political will. Sunak often says he should be judged by what he does, not what he says. With Green Day set to be judgement day for his green credentials, we’ll find out the truth soon enough.
