Tackling climate change
While reports show emissions in the UK are reducing and the UK has won praise for environmental initiatives, it has been criticised for the lack of a clear strategy for implementing the Paris Agreement.
Amber - The UK's actions are ambiguous
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Erik Solheim, the Executive Director of UN Environment, praised Britain for its work to combat plastics pollution, commenting: “this support from the UK government...is such an inspiring step in the right direction.” However, in June 2018 the chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee criticised the UK for failing “to spell out its plans for the 4th and 5th Carbon Budgets”, and questions remain about the 2016 decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Analysis
Ten years ago, the UK adopted the Climate Change Act, one of the first comprehensive frameworks on climate change globally. Since then, the UK has made significant progress on emissions targets with the Committee on Climate Change noting that in 2017, overall emissions fell by 43% in relation to 1990s base levels, the most substantial emissions reduction in the G7. The UK also provides significant funding – over £1bn of its Overseas Development Assistance in the current financial year – to combat climate change, including to the Climate Investment Funds, the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund.
However, there is significant room for improvement in UK policy. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)12, for example, calls on states to “rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies” and phase out harmful subsidies. Estimates by the International Monetary Fund show that the UK still grants significant subsidies for petroleum, coal and natural gas, which, in 2015, were estimated to be worth over $30bn. SDG Goal 7, meanwhile, calls for states to substantially increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. According to the UKSSD coalition, it looks unlikely that UK will meet its target of 15% by 2020.
The Paris Agreement requires states to log their Nationally Determined Contributions agreement with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Currently, the UK does this through the European Union, but the BEIS Committee have raised concerns around the uncertainty over how this will work once it leaves the EU.
And the UK has come under fire for the 2016 decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The then chair of the Energy and Climate Change committee questioned the decision: “I am astonished at the Prime Minister's decision to abolish DECC. DECC's disappearance raises urgent questions. To whom falls the central statutory obligation, contained in the Climate Change Act 2008, to reduce the UK's carbon emissions by 80% from their 1990 baseline?”
