Abstract
Failure to take climate change seriously enough has resulted in the world now facing a climate emergency, with rising global temperatures, melting polar ice caps, increasingly frequent and severe storms, floods and droughts, and rising sea levels. Despite being the first country in the world to set statutory carbon emissions reduction targets (in the Climate Change Act 2008), the UK government since 2012 has fallen increasingly behind, even by its own standards. This paper details what this has meant in terms of specific policies and identifies some of the reasons for this policy failure: in particular, a negative attitude towards regulation and a return to a reliance on market forces, plus an overriding concern to continue with ‘business as usual’, in terms of support for fossil-fuel industries and ever-increasing energy demand and supply. Ironically, this has resulted in a situation where radical solutions seem even more necessary and more urgent.
Highlights
Failure to take climate change seriously enough has resulted in the world facing a climate emergency, with rising global temperatures, melting polar ice caps, increasingly frequent and severe storms, floods and droughts, and rising sea levels
In 2018 the Committee noted that progress had been made only in the decarbonisation of electricity generation, where the UK is on course to meet its 2020 target of 30% of its electricity supply coming from renewable energy, compared with 12% in 2011
The renewable energy targets of 12% for heat and 10% for transport were already looking very unlikely to be met, making the overall renewable energy target of 15% by 2020 seem unrealistic. This failure can probably be attributed to: the government’s backtracking on intervention to mitigate climate change, the lack of coordination among government departments, and the continuing reliance on market forces to solve the problem. (The targets themselves are not ambitious enough, anyway, as they allow over 30 years to decarbonise electricity, and beyond 2100 for heat and transport.) The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) (2019b: 11) points to a strategic failure at the highest level: the government is falling increasingly behind because it continually underestimates the scale of the changes required and fails to provide a coordinated approach that will meet its targets
Summary
Failure to take climate change seriously enough has resulted in the world facing a climate emergency, with rising global temperatures, melting polar ice caps, increasingly frequent and severe storms, floods and droughts, and rising sea levels. The Coalition government continued Labour’s policies, and added several new ones, including the so-called ‘Green Deal’ (for increasing domestic energy efficiency), creating a Green Investment Bank, introducing electricity market reform, the Renewable Heat Incentive, and the Renewables Transport Fuels Obligation (DECC, 2011).
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