The UK will have to submit a Carbon Budget Delivery Plan for a second time, after the High Court ruled it to be unlawful in its current form.
Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project have successfully challenged the government’s climate approach again, having previously had the High Court rule the Net Zero Strategy breached the Climate Change Act. That ruling, in July 2022, determined that the strategy did not meet the government’s obligations under the Climate Change Act to produce detailed climate policies that show how the UK’s legally-binding carbon budgets will be met.
This led to government having to revise it and saw it publish the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan in March 2023. However, once more, Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project brought a challenge, claiming it to be unlawful, citing a “damning progress report” from the Climate Change Committee that judged there to be only credible plans for less than a fifth of emissions cuts needed to hit legally binding climate goals.
Once more, the High Court has ruled in favour of Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project – so what was so wrong about the government’s latest climate plan, and what happens next?
Here we are again
The Carbon Budget Delivery Plan should show how the UK will cut emissions by 68% by 2030, its target under international law, and meet carbon budgets on route to net zero, its targets under domestic law.
However, the High Court determined that then Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Grant Shapps, was given incomplete information regarding the likelihood that proposed policies within the plan would achieve their intended emissions cuts.
This, crucially, breached section 13 of the Climate Change Act, under which the Secretary of State is required to adopt plans and proposals they consider will enable upcoming carbon budgets to be successfully delivered.
The High Court also agreed with ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth that the plan’s main assumption all of its policies would hit 100% of their intended emissions cuts was wrong.
Because of this, the Secretary of State was said to have acted irrationally and acted based on an incorrect understanding of the facts.
Further aspects of the judgement included agreement with ClientEarth that emissions savings relied on by the Secretary of State should be adjusted to reflect any shortfalls in savings because of risks and barriers to delivery. Quantified savings for each policy and proposal should represent what officials realistically expect to be achieved. They should not be aspirational targets.
The judge also agreed with Friends of the Earth that the govenrmetn had breached its duty on sustainable development.
Back to the drawing board
The judgement now means the government has to come forward with another revised plan within 12 months, setting out how the UK will meet its legally binding carbon budgets and cut emissions by more than two thirds by 2030.
The UK is currently on track to do neither, showing how crucial it is to get this next plan right. Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project want to see a plan that not only hits national and international targets, but also ensures the substantial economic benefits to be had from the energy transition and building a greener future are felt across society.
Lawyer for Friends of the Earth, Katie de Kauwe, described the government’s climate plans to date as “reckless and inadequate” and said the verdict showed the strength of the Climate Change Act.
Sam Hunter Jones, Senior Lawyer for ClientEarth, said: “This time the court made it emphatically clear: the government cannot just cross its fingers and hope for high-risk technologies and uncertain policies to plug the huge gaps in its plans. No more pie in the sky – this judgement means the government must now take credible action to address the climate crisis with a plan that can actually be trusted to deliver and with numbers that can be relied on.”
Both de Kauwe and Hunter Jones highlighted the opportunities to be had too from strengthened plans that enable a green transition.
“Cutting emissions isn’t only essential to avert the worst of climate breakdown,” explained de Kauwe. “It will create long term jobs in green industries of the future, boost energy security, bring down our bills and end our reliance on costly fossil fuels.”
Hunter Jones, meanwhile, commented: “As its own expert advisors have repeatedly said, the government has a golden opportunity to reduce emissions with actions that will also create jobs, improve services and bring down household bills. Actions such as public transport investment and a home insulation roll-out will create new jobs, lower costs and provide energy security now and for generations to come.”
