Tory plans to scrap Climate Change Act dubbed ‘desperate’ and ’embarrassing’

The legislation, brought in by the last Labour government in 2008, committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 and had five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track.

That was then boosted by Conservative prime minister Theresa May’s pledge to cut greenhouse gases to zero by the same date.

But under Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s plans the party would “scrap the failed targets”, and replace the Climate Change Act with an energy strategy that puts “cheap and reliable energy as the foundation for economic growth first”.

Richard Benwell, chief executive of the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition of environmental groups, said scrapping the Act would be an act of “national self-harm”.

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He warned that “cheap fossil fuel futures are a mirage” and said that without a binding climate law, ministers will be able to “trade away our future”.

Friends of the Earth chief executive Asad Rehman said: “For a mainstream political party to turn its back on the science in a desperate race to the bottom with those being bankrolled by discredited billionaires and dirty business, who want to stop climate action because it threatens their profits, is political suicide.

“Climate change is not some theoretical threat – we can see it out of our windows, in our flooded communities, in the excess deaths from extreme heat and in the supermarkets with rocketing food price increases.

“Far from being the party of business, it will position the Conservative Party as has-beens alongside a motley alliance of climate denialists, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists who want to ignore the killer floods, droughts, storms and wildfires that are threatening our future.”

Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said there is no way to lower bills or improve energy security by prolonging the dependence on gas, adding: “Keeping households hooked on gas – which we will have to import at global prices from countries such as Trump’s America and Qatar – will only increase the profits of global firms and increase the misery of people unable to afford the sky-high prices.”

And Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF, said: “It would be a devastating blow for nature, for household finances, and farmers on the front line of climate change.”

Tessa Khan, executive director of environmental organisation Uplift, said the North Sea is now like “a pinata at the end of a kids’ party – it doesn’t matter how many times you hit it, you’re not going to get much more out of it”.

She said: “Why is Badenoch siding with the profiting oil and gas companies, the anti-science agenda of Nigel Farage, who wants to destroy the UK’s renewable energy industry and its thousands of jobs, or Donald Trump, who thinks climate change is a ‘con job’.”

Energy Secretary Mr Miliband said: “This desperate policy from Kemi Badenoch, if ever implemented, would be an economic disaster and a total betrayal of future generations.

“The Conservatives would now scrap a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour Government with Conservative support 17 years ago.

“This anti-jobs, anti-worker, anti-young-people lurch is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at a culture war which the British people do not want.

“This Labour Government will not let the Conservatives or Reform tank our country’s clean energy economy, which is booming thanks to this Government’s clean energy superpower mission.”

Liberal Democrats’ net zero spokesperson Pippa Heylings said: “We are still living in the shadow of the Conservatives’ abject failures, which put up bills and left the UK vulnerable to Putin’s Russia in the midst of an energy crisis.

“Liberal Democrats have a plan to cut bills in half over a decade by investing in clean, cheap renewables. That’s the level of ambition we need from this Government and for that matter, the opposition.

“The reality is that investing in renewables is the greatest economic growth opportunity in this century and will protect the planet for future generations. The Conservatives’ refusal to acknowledge this, and their failures, shows that they are only interested in following Farage, not leading Britain.”

The Green Party called the move “embarrassing”.

Green MP Carla Denyer said: “Kemi Badenoch is taking the Conservatives even further down the path to irrelevance with this through-the-looking-glass idea.

“The vast majority of the British public want to see action to secure a safe climate for our children and grandchildren, and Britain’s green economy is booming.

“It’s embarrassing that Badenoch is ready to trash the progress this country has made towards a safe and healthy future, even under Conservative governments, just to satisfy the demands of her party’s donors in the fossil fuel industry.”