‘It’s not about telling people how to live their lives. I’m not interested in that’ said Keir Starmer of his new target for Britain to reduce its carbon emissions by 81 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035. Really? In that case perhaps he would like to tell us how he does intend to reach his target. If he thinks he can do it without mandating changes to our lifestyle he must have a cunning plan indeed.
His target is very much going to have to involve telling people what cars they are allowed to drive and how they are allowed to heat their homes
Let’s have a look at this 81 per cent target a bit more closely. According to government figures the UK has already reduced its territorial greenhouse gas emissions by 53 per cent compared with 1990 levels. Therefore, if he wants to reach an 81 per cent reduction by 2035 it will mean cutting emissions by 60 per cent on current levels – in just 11 years.
What would that involve? On the face of it a 53 per cent reduction since 1990 sounds impressive. It sounds a lot less impressive when, as the IEA reminds us this morning, a lot of it has been achieved by closing factories and other industrial plants such as chemical works, as well as by the fall in North Sea gas production and reduction in agricultural output. In the 1980s the UK was nearly 80 per cent self-sufficient in food; that is now down to 60 per cent. Britain’s progress towards net zero seems a lot less remarkable when you look at consumption-based emissions, which include those spewed out elsewhere in the world producing food and other products for UK consumers. On that basis, emissions are down 36 per cent.
As for the genuine element of the fall in greenhouse gas emissions, a lot of that is down to the switch from coal to renewables in electricity production. In 1996, UK electricity was 43 per cent coal-powered, 23 per cent from gas, 29 per cent nuclear and zero per cent wind/solar. In 2023 it was coal 1.6 per cent, gas 37.7 per cent, nuclear 17.1 per cent and wind/solar 33 per cent. As can be seen from the above we have become more reliant on gas power as a way of balancing intermittent renewables. Nuclear, the most obvious means of decarbonising the electricity system, is going backwards. Unless there is action in the very near future, by 2035 we will likely be down to just one nuclear power station by then: the yet-to-be-completed Hinkley C. But even if the government could somehow reach its target to decarbonise power entirely by 2030 it still wouldn’t get it close to the new target of cutting overall emissions by a further two thirds by 2035, for the simple reason that electricity generation only currently accounts for 11 per cent of UK territorial emissions.
Even if the government were to finish off Britain’s remaining industry as well as agriculture (which it seems to be having a go at) that still wouldn’t get us to the new 2035 target. Industry accounted for 14 per cent of emissions in 2023 and agriculture 12 per cent. Decarbonise power, offshore all industry and agriculture, in other words, and still we have only reduced UK territorial emissions by 37 per cent on current levels. To reach the new 2035 target we need a further 23 per cent of cuts. And that, inevitably, takes us into areas where consumers very much are involved. It simply cannot be achieved without slashing emissions from domestic transport (29 per cent of emissions in 2023) and buildings (20 per cent).
So, yes, contrary to Starmer’s reassurances, his target very much is going to have to involve telling people what cars they are allowed to drive and how they are allowed to heat their homes. It could mean telling people they cannot fly off on holiday. And even then, it won’t necessarily do the planet much good if a large slice of UK carbon emissions have merely been offshored. Not for the first time, Starmer’s government is being far from honest with us.
Comments