An influential government body gave what amounts to strong support Thursday to one of the main planks of the new British government’s plans to revitalize the economy: a crash program to accelerate efforts for dealing with climate change.
In a report to Parliament, the Climate Change Committee, a statutory body that monitors progress on the reduction of greenhouse gases in Britain, warned that the country was “not on track to hit” a 2030 interim target of reducing emissions by 68 percent compared with 1990 levels. Britain is legally required to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
“The new government will have to act fast to hit the country’s commitments,” the committee said.
Speeding up the building of wind farms and solar farms is precisely what the new government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants to do. He also hopes to hasten other measures like replacing natural gas boilers in homes with electric-powered heat pumps.
Mr. Starmer is betting that tackling climate change will not only help protect the environment but stimulate what has been a stagnant British economy.
The new government has already signaled its intentions by quickly approving three large solar farms whose developers were seeking a green light.
On July 9, Ed Miliband, the energy and net zero minister, appointed Chris Stark, who had been chief executive of the committee until April, to a new position leading the clean energy push. Mr. Miliband is also changing planning rules that have effectively prevented the building of land-based wind farms in England.
“They have really done some quite good things in their first 10 days,” Piers Forster, the committee’s interim chairman, told reporters during a news conference, referring to the Labour government.
The committee, which says it is independent, criticized the previous Conservative government, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, for signaling “a slowing of pace” on measures like the shift to electric vehicles and the adoption of heat pumps. The government also “gave inconsistent messages on its commitment” to the steps needed to achieve net zero, the committee said.
Britain has been considered a pacesetter in climate law, having passed in 2008 a climate change act with binding targets. The committee, which was established under that legislation, said Britain had met its previous targets and was about halfway toward the goal of net zero.
The committee also estimated that Britain had achieved a substantial 4 percent reduction of emissions last year, when Mr. Sunak was prime minister. It credited that gain to several factors, including relatively high natural gas prices, which reduced consumption, and greater imports of electricity from France, which produces large amounts of low-carbon nuclear power.
However, it said much of what had been achieved in the past was a result of the phasing out of coal in electric power generation.
“We now need to rapidly reduce oil and gas as well,” the committee said.
It made a series of recommendations intended to discourage consumption of fossil fuels and stimulate additional use of electric power, which is forecast to be the main form of clean energy in the future. Among them: cutting electric bills, which would encourage greater use of electricity and the purchase of heat pumps, which Britons have been slow to adopt. The panel suggested removing some items from electric bills, including moving some costs of subsidizing renewable energy to either gas bills or the general government budget.
The committee also recommended tightening various requirements that Mr. Sunak had loosened, including reinstating the date for ending the sales of fossil fuel powered cars in Britain by 2030.
Environmental groups, who had criticized the Conservative Party for jeopardizing what they said had been Britain’s leadership role in the effort to curb climate change, found much to applaud.
“This report provides a clear path to victory,” Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, said in a statement. “Now the new government just needs to deliver.”
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