Kemi Badenoch has vowed to repeal the Climate Change Act if the Conservatives win the next election. Under the landmark legislation, which was passed with the almost unanimous support of the Conservative party under David Cameron in 2008, carbon budgets are set for many years beyond the current government’s remit, binding future governments to climate policies, though it does not specify what those policies should be.
The Tory leader says she wants to “scrap those failed targets”. But Ed Matthew, the UK programme director for the thinktank E3G, said: “This is a new low point for Kemi Badenoch as she blows up the Conservative party’s credibility for protecting nature and the climate in her quest to ape the far-right policies of Nigel Farage. This announcement is anti-science, anti-growth, anti-health and anti-nature. It is the kind of policy that Vladimir Putin would be recommending.”
