The Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps has announced new plans to achieve net zero but the strategy has drawn criticism from environmental groups and scientific experts.
The UK government says the “ambitious” plans are to scale up affordable, clean, homegrown power and build “thriving” green industries in Britain. It continues that the strategy aims to boost the country’s energy security and independence, and reduce household bills for the long term and achieve net zero.
Amongst the measures announced in the plan are a commitment to Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCS), investment in the offshore wind industry, new green hydrogen production projects, the announcement of Great British Nuclear, planning process reform, expanding energy efficiency support, investment in electric vehicle charging points, a £30 million Heat Pump Investment and an extra £10 billion capacity to boost exports.
However, the announcement has faced a mixed response, with criticism from both scientific experts and environmental groups.
Dr Chris Jones, Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester, said: “This latest government energy strategy is a weak response to the UK’s energy security and zero carbon energy needs.
This latest government energy strategy is a weak response to the UK’s energy security and zero carbon energy needs.
“The positive measures – on renewables, industrial carbon capture and storage (CCS), heating and insulations – are underpowered. The regressive measures on fossil fuels won’t make any real impact on our bills and energy security, but they are enough to downgrade the UK’s role as a leader in tackling climate change.”
The new strategy was created after the High Court ruled the government’s existing plans were not enough to meet its climate targets.
A central pillar of the new plans is carbon capture and storing CO2 beneath the North Sea. However, the effectiveness of this strategy has been questioned by environmental organisation Friends of the Earth – who along with ClientEarth and Good Law Project brought the legal case against the previous plan.
Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, described the idea of CCS as a solution as “fanciful”, stating fossil fuels can never be green.
Commenting on the announcement, Childs said: “Ministers should be scaling up and accelerating the race to net zero, but these plans look half-baked, half-hearted and dangerously lacking ambition.
Ministers should be scaling up and accelerating the race to net zero, but these plans look half-baked.
“Instead of the nationwide insulation programme urgently needed to fix our heat-leaking homes, they’ve simply re-branded an existing scheme that will only reach a fraction of the properties that need improvement.
“Yet again, onshore wind has been ignored despite being cheap, plentiful and popular with the public – and crucial for meeting our climate targets. These announcements will do little to boost energy security, lower bills or put us on track to meet climate goals.”
Contrastingly, Professor Stuart Haszeldine, Chair of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh, described carbon capture and geological storage as an “essential technology” to decrease future carbon emissions from industry and enable the recapture and storage of CO2 greenhouse gases from historical and future hard-to-catch dispersed emissions.
The UK Climate Change Committee (UKCCC), the UK’s independent climate advisers, recommends carbon capture as a way to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere. This week (27 March), the UKCCC also said there is a “striking” lack of climate preparation from UK government.
A key part of the new plan is the announcement of the UK’s first carbon capture site in Teeside, which is being developed by SUEZ recycling and recovery UK.
We have been pressing ahead with our carbon capture project at Teesside, submitting a planning application earlier this year.
Commenting on the announcement, John Scanlon, Chief Executive Officer for SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, said: “We have been pressing ahead with our carbon capture project at Teesside, submitting a planning application earlier this year, and welcome today’s announcement that additional projects will be brought into the East Coast Cluster by 2030.
“This creates an opportunity to broaden the mix of projects included in Track 1 Phase 2 for the East Coast Cluster to include live energy-from-waste projects, which are key to early delivery and progress.
“With our proven, reliable operational track record at Teesside and our prime location on the planned route of the East Coast Cluster pipeline, we’re ideally placed to be one of the first projects to supply carbon to the Cluster for storage, helping the UK towards its net zero goal.”
The government has also rejected a call to end the export of British plastic waste within the next four years. A review of the UK’s net zero plans, carried out by Tory MP Chris Skidmore and published earlier this year, recommended that the government move to end the export of UK plastic waste by 2027.
Instead, the government has said that while it hopes to reduce the UK’s dependency on waste export and process more plastic domestically, it disagreed with the target.
This week, during an evidence session for the environment, food and rural affairs (EFRA) committee, the chair asked the Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey about a potential ban on exports of plastic waste.
Coffey replied that there is a “legitimate role” for exports; however, she said government has committed to banning exports to non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries and will consult this year on the time frame to implement a ban.
