Badenoch defends vow to ditch climate law branded ‘catastrophic mistake’ by May

Kemi Badenoch has defended her plan to scrap world-leading climate legislation which has been criticised as a “catastrophic mistake” by Tory former prime minister Theresa May.

The Conservative Party leader said it was “nonsensical” to stick with the Climate Change Act, which was brought in by the last Labour government in 2008 and committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80% by 2050, with five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track towards the goal.

Baroness May of Maidenhead, as she is now known as a peer, increased the ambition of the Act while in office to cutting greenhouse gases to zero overall, known as “net zero”, by 2050.

She called Ms Badenoch’s plan to repeal the Act a “retrograde step” that shattered a 17-year consensus between the UK’s main political parties and the scientific community.

“To row back now would be a catastrophic mistake for while that consensus is being tested, the science remains the same,” Lady May said.

But Ms Badenoch hit back by saying the real error would be to retain the Act.

She told the PA news agency: “The catastrophic mistake is stopping drilling oil and gas in the North Sea while importing oil and gas of the North Sea from Norway.

“A catastrophic mistake is losing chemical industry, manufacturing industry, ceramics. We are de-industrialising. That needs to stop.

“We are bankrupting our country, but we’re not making any headway with improving our environment.

“I was a minister in the government. I saw those plans. I know they don’t work. Nothing is getting better.

“If something is not working, you don’t cling on to it because it has a nice name. You stop it, you fix it, and you get a better plan.”

She continued: “We have a situation now where the net zero plans, the Climate Change Act, means that it’s going to take us 340 years to meet a target set for 2050. That’s nonsensical. We are the only party calling this out.”

Ms Badenoch’s proposal, announced ahead of her party’s conference starting on Sunday in Manchester, was met with dismay from senior Tory figures including Lady May and Conservative peer Lord Alok Sharma.

Lady May said: “I am deeply disappointed by this retrograde step which upends 17 years of consensus between our main political parties and the scientific community.

“For nearly two decades, the United Kingdom has led the way in tackling climate change, initially with the Climate Change Act in 2008 and again in 2019 when we became the first G7 country to legislate to get to net zero by 2050.

“To row back now would be a catastrophic mistake for while that consensus is being tested, the science remains the same. The harms are undeniable.

“We owe it to our children and grandchildren to ensure we protect the planet for their futures and that means giving business the reassurance it needs to find the solutions for the very grave challenges we face.

“Ultimately, it is innovation and investment that will take us forward but that can only be achieved by providing consistency and showing a clear determination to stick to the long-term path of reducing emissions, achieving net zero and protecting our planet for future generations.”

Lord Sharma, who is a former Cop26 president and served as business secretary and now chairs the UK’s Transition Finance Council, said: “Thanks to the strong and consistent commitment of the previous Conservative government to climate action and net zero, the UK attracted many tens of billions of pounds of private sector investment and accompanying jobs.

“This is a story of British innovation, economic growth, skilled jobs and global leadership – not just a matter of environmental stewardship.

“Turning our back on this progress now risks future investment and jobs into our country, as well as our international standing.

“The path to a prosperous, secure and electable future for the Conservative Party lies in building on our achievements, not abandoning them.

“Voters, especially younger people and those in key marginal seats which we need to retain or win back, expect serious, coherent and forward-looking policies from the Conservative Party.

“Our legacy is one of global leadership.

“We should not squander this for the sake of short-term political expediency.”

However, shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho defended the Conservatives’ plan, insisting that the Government needs to “put cheap electricity first” as “electricity prices are too high”.

Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, she said: “Some of that is because of the Climate Change Act, which creates this very rigid budget and makes ministers choose these decisions, which are going to make them poorer.

“So we need to repeal that and we need to rethink our energy strategy, to put cheap electricity first.”

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called the move “desperate” and said it would be an “economic disaster”, while the Liberal Democrats said it showed the Tories were interested only in “following Farage”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has also vowed to scrap net zero targets if the party wins the next election, claiming it will save £30 billion a year.

When the Climate Change Act was introduced, it was a world first for climate legislation, although many countries have since followed suit and nations agreed the world’s first comprehensive treaty to curb global warming in Paris a decade ago.

Scientists warn the world must cut rapidly emissions to zero to prevent global temperatures rising to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which worsening sea level rises, severe storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and the collapse of natural systems such as coral reefs will occur.

But political division has grown over the measures needed to tackle climate change, even as the costs of clean energy have plummeted and the impacts of rising temperatures such as heatwaves and wildfires have become more severe.

The Conservatives claimed the Act has forced ministers to bring in regulations that pushed up energy bills, hit growth and supported wood-burning power stations such as Drax, and shifted British industry abroad.

While UK emissions have halved since 1990, global climate pollution has increased and countries such as China have not followed Britain’s lead, the party said.