Cop out? Why Britain is cooling on climate action

Résumé détaillé

Britain’s prime minister Andy Burnham arrives in Turkey for this week’s Cop31 climate change summit just as green issues appear to be sliding down his country’s agenda. While…

Britain’s prime minister Andy Burnham arrives in Turkey for this week’s Cop31 climate change summit just as green issues appear to be sliding down his country’s agenda.

While Burnham is at the summit, his deputy, the UK’s first secretary Louise Haigh, will chair a meeting in Downing Street about targets for electric vehicle sales. Burnham would probably have recused himself from the meeting even if he wasn’t out of the country, as his wife, Marie-France van Heel, advises an electric car charging company.

It is believed Haigh is limbering up to impose deep cuts on government-mandated industry targets for electric car sales, a flagship policy for cutting Britain’s emissions. Under existing rules, 80 per cent of all new car and 70 per cent of all new van sales must be electric vehicles by 2030, with petrol and diesel sales phased out completely by 2035.

Haigh reportedly plans to have the 2030 target slashed, which will be a relief to what remains of the car manufacturing industry in the English midlands and north where Burnham’s Labour government hopes to win back support from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

The expected move on electric cars comes just weeks after the British government approved the Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea, to the chagrin of environmentalists. Meanwhile, UK chancellor of the exchequer, John Healey, cut energy department spending by about £3 billion (€3.6 billion) in last month’s budget to pay for more outlay on defence.

As a result, UK taxpayer funding is being scaled back for previously-vaunted schemes to subsidise heat pumps, boiler upgrades and solar panels for British homes. Healey also cut funding for carbon capture projects by £700 million, pulling the rug from beneath yet another one-time totem of UK government policy to combat climate change.

Meanwhile, Burnham’s government is preparing to make a decision on Rosebank, an oilfield prospect in the North Sea, where there is an effective UK government ban on licences for new drilling.

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