Campaigners issue warning over revised net-zero strategy - 'this isn't just some sort of wishy-washy requirement'

Environmental campaigners are considering taking the government back to court over its "lacklustre" energy and climate policy.

Friends of the Earth is poring over the new revised net-zero strategy, published on Thursday morning, to see if it still fails to meet legal obligations to cut carbon emissions.

The campaign group - along with ClientEarth and the Good Law Project - took the government to the High Court last year over its original flagship climate plan, and won.

The government has billed its new strategy, published in response to the court case, as a plan to boost energy security and the economy, lower bills and cut carbon.

The 30-page Powering Up Britain document contains a raft of measures covering offshore wind, nuclear and green hydrogen, though many had already been announced previously.

The commitments include:

• A £20bn commitment to invest in controversial technology to capture climate-heating carbon dioxide from the air and store or use it elsewhere - already announced in this year's spring budget

• A pledge of £160m for port infrastructure to help expand offshore wind - announced in 2021

• A reminder of existing £5,000 grants towards heat pump insulation - and an extension of the scheme to 2028

• A new £30m pledge to help boost manufacturing and supply of heat pumps in the UK

• More details on existing plans to establish Great British Nuclear, an agency designed to revive the nuclear industry

• More than £380m to improve the number of electric vehicle charge points

• Confirmation of £240m funding for green hydrogen projects, announced last year

• A commitment to insulate 300,000 of the poorest performing homes

• An extra £10bn capacity for UK Export Finance, to increase exports from green industries

The government hopes the policies will leverage significant private investment, to the tune of £100 billion by 2030.

Katie de Kauwe, a lawyer with Friends of the Earth, told Sky News they are "looking very carefully at this revised strategy and seeing whether it does stack up or whether it is indeed just kicking the can down the road.

"But under the Climate Change Act, sections 13 and 14 do require plans and policies to enable upcoming carbon budgets to be met.

"So this isn't just some sort of wishy-washy requirement. This is something that is hard-edged."

UK 'not trying to compete with US'

The strategy largely glosses over recent calls to lift a de facto ban on onshore wind, which is politically contentious but can provide cheap energy and is quick to build. It also keeps quiet on ongoing oil and gas licensing in the North Sea.

Although the government was legally obliged by the High Court to publish a revised net zero strategy by the end of March, multi-billion dollar investments in green technology in the US and the EU have also underlined the need for a bold rethink of UK policy.

The chancellor Jeremy Hunt played down suggestions that the UK was trying to compete with Washington or even follow its lead.

Writing in The Times, he hit out at "massively distortive subsidies" in the US and said that instead the UK would do things "the British way".

"We are not going toe-to-toe with our friends and allies in some distortive global subsidy race.

"With the threat of protectionism creeping its way back into the world economy, the long-term solution is not subsidy but security," he said.

But according to Josh Burke, senior policy fellow on climate change and the environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the lack of a "long-term, economy-wide investment plan" in the announcement "undermines investor confidence and prevents the UK from leading the green race".

"Instead of grasping this historic moment the government has been left trailing behind the [US's] Inflation Reduction Act and is currently failing to capitalise on the opportunities a green transition will provide," he said.

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Some companies have already said they are considering withdrawing from the UK to focus on projects in the US because of multi-billion dollar tax incentives unveiled by President Joe Biden.

Others have warned they need a level playing field to compete on the world stage.

The UK start-up, Naked Energy, has invented an innovative device for collecting warmth from the sun and turning that into heat and hot water for large buildings such as hotels and hospitals.

Christophe Williams, the company's chief executive, said the government must support homegrown manufacturing.

"The technologies to help with the energy transition are out there," Mr Williams told Sky News.

"But they need more raising of awareness, policy support and financial support to get them on buildings, to get businesses and communities saving money and doing it in a cleaner way."

The 'Cinderella part of the package'

Proponents argue that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is important in the transition to cleaner energy.

But others warn it will allow continued use of fossil fuels, undermining efforts to leave oil and gas in the ground.

Dr Peter Connor, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at the University of Exeter, said: "Easily the best funded plank of this policy initiative is Carbon Capture and Storage, £20bn for a technology which has previously proved to be great at sucking in money with little to show in terms of large-scale reduction of carbon entering the atmosphere. This is a commitment to maintaining the status quo of burning fossil fuels."

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Other scientists said plans to insulate houses to make them more energy efficient were inadequate.

Professor of international and climate change politics at The University of Manchester, Matthew Paterson, called the retrofit scheme the "Cinderella part of the package".

"300,000 homes to retrofit is laughably limited given how big the challenge is of the UK's leaky homes," Mr Paterson said.

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