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Achieving net zero carbon emissions in the UK is likely to be much easier and cheaper than previously thought, and can be designed in a way that quickly improves the lives of millions of people, said a senior government adviser.
Chris Stark, executive director of the Committee on Climate Change, the UK’s independent legal adviser, said costs had fallen rapidly in recent years and previous estimates that moving to a low-carbon economy would cut trillions of GDP were wrong. .
“In general, the cost is surprisingly low, it is cheaper than we thought last year when we did our evaluations. Net zero is a relatively low cost throughout the economy, ”he said. But that depends on the action now. You can’t just sit on your hands and imagine it’s just magically going to be cheaper. “
Renewable energy prices have plummeted in the last decade, putting solar and wind power at a lower cost than fossil fuels in many countries, sparking a global clean energy boom. The International Energy Agency said this week that there was record growth in renewable energy installation in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices.
When the UK Climate Change Act was passed in 2008, the government estimated that the cost of reaching its then target of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 would be around 2% of GDP during that period. Now, costs are expected to be well below that and will likely fall further.
The Climate Change Committee will set the costs and benefits of going to net zero, and will provide advice on the UK’s next carbon budget, in early December, postponed from this summer due to the coronavirus crisis. Stark said the government was not yet doing enough to meet the legally binding goal of net zero emissions by 2050 and that it needed to come up with a coherent strategy.
“I don’t see any particular problems [in decarbonising the economy] What I see is an absence of a plan, ”he told The Guardian. “We have to get to the point by the beginning of the next decade where every new investment, every new car, every new truck, every new furnace, every new plant and machinery for a company – that must be zero carbon by then, or at the same time. Less have a plan to become zero carbon. The biggest challenge I see at the moment is that we don’t have a plan that looks like that for the UK at the moment. “
In some sectors, going to zero carbon will represent cost savings. Electric cars, for example, will be cheaper to drive than gasoline or diesel vehicles. Over time, the same is likely to be true for low-carbon home heating, after the cost of the switch. But so far, the main mechanism to pay for the switch to a low-carbon economy has been rising energy bills, which fall disproportionately on the poorest people.
“There is a beautiful opportunity for the Treasury to put good policy around this so that we get that kind of cheap, just transition that we all want to see,” Stark said. “The other side of the coin is that if we don’t put those steps in place, this is going to be a pretty difficult transition. Grouping costs on the electricity bill is a regressive step, so we need to think about broader mechanisms to drive the investment we need to get to net zero, and we need to think about who can recover those costs.
Ministers are under increasing pressure to propose a net zero plan as the UK prepares to host the next UN climate summit. Cop26, which would have taken place this week in Glasgow had the Covid-19 crisis not forced a postponement, is one of the last opportunities for the world to get on track to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to maintain the increases. global temperature to no more than 2 ° C above pre-industrial levels, and preferably no more than 1.5 ° C.
Ahead of the summit, now rescheduled for November 2021, all countries are expected to submit detailed national plans, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), to make stringent reductions in emissions over the next decade. This is a requirement of the Paris agreement, as the national commitments presented in 2015 would bring the world to 3 ° C of heating.
To prepare for next year’s talks, Boris Johnson and UN Secretary-General António Guterres will co-host a virtual meeting of world leaders on December 12 to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris agreement. The hosts expect heads of government to make commitments to net zero by mid-century, which many leading nations have already done, and agree to present their NDCs in the coming months.
Johnson was due to reveal a 10-point plan to hit net zero this week, but the Guardian understands this has been postponed to an unspecified date. Points will include green housing grants for insulation, an expansion of offshore wind power, advancing the phase-out of gasoline and diesel cars until 2030, investments in carbon capture and storage and nuclear power, and measures to restore the environment. natural.
“For us to be a good Chairman of Cop26, we need to have a strong set of national plans to reduce emissions here in the UK. So I think there is a possibility that Cop26 next year will be a celebration of how fast we are moving, “Stark said. “If we don’t put these plans together, we won’t have that kind of moment and the UK will have a hard time hosting that summit.”
A government spokesperson said: “We seize every opportunity to build on the UK’s fantastic track record in tackling climate change as we rebuild greener from the pandemic. Last month, the prime minister outlined ambitious plans to build enough offshore wind capacity to power every home in the UK by 2030, which is just part of his 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution to be set later this year. year “.
