Sunak’s bonfire of green vanities

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak blindsided his own party and the opposition this afternoon with a radical overhaul and delay to many of Britain’s net zero targets including extending the deadlines on the banning of petrol and diesel cars as well as gas boilers.

The Prime Minister was forced into holding the surprise No 10 press conference following overnight leaks by the BBC that he was considering – and due to announce later this week – the watering down of the UK’s more ambitious green targets because of the lack of democratic debate but also public pressure over costs and timings. The leaks were enough to send the Westminster rumour mill into overdrive, with some pundits even suggesting the leaks may have come from Tory ministers or a civil servant hoping to destabilise the government.

Sunak moved swiftly to address the rumours. Within hours he had pulled together an emergency conference at which he stressed that it was now time for the government to be honest with the public about the full financial costs of its promised environmental policies: for example, the PM said installing a heat pump in the average terraced home in Darlington could cost households upwards of £10,000. 

Interestingly, the PM added that he had been concerned for some time that many of the more extreme measures, admittedly brought in by prior Conservative PMs, had been overly ambitious and that politicians – himself included – had been on “autopilot” in accepting them. 
Instead, Sunak said he wanted future targets to be “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic.”

To achieve that aim, he has scrapped the ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2030, pushing the deadline forward until 2035, although the law will still allow second-hand buying and selling after that date. 

The transition from gas boilers to heat pumps will also be extended to combat the “unacceptable costs” of speedy installation of new technology, he said.  There will also be an exemption scheme and no household will be forced to transition to a heat pump or insulate their home. Some households will also be offered higher subsidies on their boiler upgrades – up by 50 per cent to £7,500.

At the same time, Sunak also made it clear that he was still committed to reaching net zero by 2050. Indeed, he made the point that the UK was already leading the world in reducing carbon emissions and that these new deadlines merely brought the UK into line with other countries such as Germany, Italy, the US and Canada. And, because the UK was so far ahead of every other country in the world, we can afford to dilute some of the more stringent and arbitrary commitments but still reach net zero by the deadline. 

It was not fair, he said, that the British people should bear the huge costs of electric cars and heat pumps – many of which do not work properly – when the UK only accounts for less than one per cent of all global greenhouse emissions. 

Yet even more important than Sunak’s extension of the car and boiler deadlines were his commitments to increasing – and improving Britain’s poor grid infrastructure – and to other forms of carbon-neutral power generation such as the backing of Sizewell C and a decision soon on a short-list of manufacturers to start building Small Modular Reactors.  

Sunak made clear that the government would never force citizens to adopt supposedly climate-friendly ways of living. Placing a firm emphasis on democratic choice and consent, Sunak said the government will not force anyone to eat less meat, to carpool or impose punitive taxes on air travel to discourage flying. 

As expected, such a U-turn brought criticism from all over – see the Hound – including his own party with one Tory MP calling it a massive mistake that will backfire. Both the former prime minister Boris Johnson and ex-environmental minister Zac Goldsmith came out guns blazing about the changes, with Goldsmith calling for a general election now. 

But Sunak’s policy turn presents the biggest problem for Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer. How will Labour fight the PM’s claim that fulfilling these car and boiler targets will hurt the average car driver and homeowner? Sunak’s bonfire of green measures is unlikely to win him the next election but he’s just made it a lot tougher for Starmer to fight.

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