UK Government ignores climate experts at its peril

The failure to agree a new Chair of the Climate Change Committee is just the latest in a series of attempts by the Government to undermine the Committee and misrepresent its work, writes Bob Ward.

The UK Government is continuing to undermine the Climate Change Committee by delaying indefinitely the appointment of its new Chair.

Lord Deben stepped down as Chair in June 2023, having extended his term beyond its original end of September 2022 to allow extra time for the Prime Minister to approve a new appointment. However, the Government decided instead that Professor Piers Forster should take over as interim Chair, while it delayed a permanent appointment. While Professor Forster is widely respected, the absence of a permanent Chair is likely to make it more challenging for the Committee to prepare its advice to Government on the critical Seventh Carbon Budget for the period 2038-2042. The Committee has already commenced work on its advice, which is due to be published in early 2025. Parliament is due to approve the Budget before the end of June 2025.

The selection of the new Chair of the Climate Change Committee must comply with the Governance Code for Public Appointments, and needs to be approved by the Prime Minister. The recruitment process has been overseen by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The Government advertised the role of Chair on 9 March 2023, and expected to hold interviews by June 2023. However, according to a report published in The Observer on 14 January 2024, the recruitment process has ground to a halt without explanation.

I wrote to the Prime Minister on 27 December 2023 to urge him to end the excessive delay in appointing the new Chair of the Committee. I warned him that “the current delay is creating further damaging uncertainty about UK climate policy following your decision to weaken key targets for the transition away from gas central heating and internal combustion engines in vehicles”.

The failure to agree a new Chair is a further indication of the Government’s attitude towards the Climate Change Committee. For the past few months, the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet have been misrepresenting the work of the Committee in an attempt to justify its efforts to weaken climate policies. For instance, on 22 September 2023, Conservative Campaign Headquarters, following the Prime Minister’s speech in which he announced the watering down of key climate targets, circulated a document to journalists that attempted to politicise the work of the Committee.

I wrote to the Prime Minister further to that speech to protest at this unprecedented attack on the impartiality of the independent Committee. I also urged him to speed up the process of appointing a new Chair of the Committee, stressing: “It is most important that whoever is appointed provides excellent leadership and ensures that the Committee continues to offer independent advice and avoids just rubberstamping Government policy regardless of whether it is consistent with the Climate Change Act.”

I finally received a response to my letter from Graham Stuart, the Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, on 9 January 2024, ignoring the points I had made.

On 31 July 2023, the Government issued a press release announcing the granting of new licences for the development of oil and natural gas in the North Sea. It stated: “With the independent Climate Change Committee predicting around a quarter of the UK’s energy demand will still be met by oil and gas when the UK reaches net zero in 2050, the Government is taking steps to slow the rapid decline in domestic production of oil and gas, which will secure our domestic energy supply and reduce reliance on hostile states.”

However, this was false. The Committee has not indicated that the UK will need oil and gas for a quarter of its energy in 2050. In spreadsheets showing details of projected energy demand in its ‘Balanced Net Zero Pathway’ for its advice on the Sixth Carbon Budget, the Committee lists demand for electricity at 622 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2050. It also lists seven other types of energy demand, which, when added up, total 888 TWh. This includes 322 TWh from “Gas demand” and “Petroleum demand”. Overall, “Gas demand” and Petroleum demand” represent 22% of all the demand listed.

The Government has refused to explain the origin of its claim that oil and gas will still be providing a quarter of the UK’s energy in 2050. A spokesperson for the Committee told The Guardian in October 2023: “The data is used from our sixth carbon budget but they used their own calculation to get to that.” The newspaper reported: “It is understood the committee does not endorse the 25% figure.”

Nevertheless, members of the Government have continued to repeat this falsehood. For instance, on 27 September 2023, Claire Coutinho, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, stated on X (formerly Twitter): “We will not play politics with our energy security. Even the independent Climate Change Committee has said that in 2050, we will need oil and gas for a quarter of our energy.”

Even more importantly, the Committee has been explicit that further development of oil and natural gas in the North Sea is incompatible with the global ambition of reaching net zero by 2050. In its latest Progress Report to Parliament, published on 28 June 2023, the Committee stated: “Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero…The UK will continue to need some oil and gas until it reaches Net Zero, but this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields.”

The unmistakable impression that the current Conservative Government has created is that it does not hold the Committee, or indeed expertise on climate change, in high regard. At a time when the Conservatives are lagging far behind in national opinion polls, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues should perhaps remember that a poll by YouGov for The Times on 4 and 5 January 2024 found that just 18% of those surveyed trusted the Conservatives under Rishi Sunak “a lot” or “a fair amount” “to make the right decisions on climate change and the environment”. Perhaps it is time for the Government to start listening to the experts?