As the Guardian notes this morning:
The government is failing to enact the policies needed to reach the UK's net zero targets, its statutory advisers have said, in a damning progress report to parliament.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) voiced fears that ministers may renege on the legally binding commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, noting “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery”.
Lord Deben, the chair of the committee and a former Conservative environment secretary, said the government had set strong targets on cutting emissions but policy to achieve them was lacking. “The government has willed the ends, but not the means,” he said. “This report showed that present plans will not fulfil the commitments [to net zero].”
I always presumed there would be climate backtracking. The future is, after all, a very distant country as far as most politicians are concerned, even though those of us old enough to remember 1994 will appreciate just how recent that seems to be, and the equivalent time period going forward is all we have in which to deliver the exceptional change demanded of us. In that context, the failure is staggering and makes the many others of this seem less significant (but by no means insignificant) as a result.
What can we do about a government that is in denial of climate change, as many of us always thought it to be? Very little, except boot them out.
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Mendacious Fatberg was on R4 wittering on about electricity market reform (and reducing electricity hills). If MF was serious (he ain’t) the quickest route would be via renewables. The joke is that the Brits cooked up the auction/Contract for Difference approach for funding renewables (& which has been adopted across EU) but have failed to bring on enough in the way of auctions. Add to this network operators that are feral with respect to renewables and you have the situation you have. None of this stuff is hard, it just needs a gov that has some level of focus – as opposed to the toddlers that now run the show.
It is now obvious COP 26 was a completes sham and our only alternative is mass protest.