In 2019, the UK became the first G7 country to legislate for net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. At the time, I was the cabinet minister who signed this into law. We did so knowing that taking action to tackle the climate crisis was supported by all the major political parties. We had no time to waste. It had been the Conservative party in opposition under David Cameron that had backed the Climate Change Act more than a decade earlier because we argued that climate action was more important than political divisions. As a result, the UK’s internationally renowned framework of carbon budgets has seen our emissions more than halve since 1990.
Britain has long been viewed as a clean energy leader across the world. We pioneered the first successful emissions trading scheme, followed by the contracts for difference model for funding renewable energy projects that made the North Sea into one of the largest windfarms in the world. A few weeks after delivering the net zero bill, I helped to secure the UK’s bid to host Cop26 in Glasgow. There, more than 80% of countries followed our lead and committed to a net zero target.
Climate and clean energy leadership has created jobs, growth and regeneration. The impact has been transformative. For the first time, wind power now makes up the largest source of our electricity. Coal, which used to make up more than 40% of our power when I was first elected as an MP in 2010, will from next year be consigned to the history books. Our economy has grown by 80% since 1990, and at the same time our emissions have halved. When I signed net zero into law, I always viewed our plan as a mainstream, even conservative, vision. One of the legacies of Cop26 is the growth in clean energy markets across the world. Elsewhere, the Inflation Reduction Act in the US and the green deal in Europe have committed to at least a decade of support for green industries.
Yet the UK now risks falling ever further behind in the net zero race. We have seen Rishi Sunak decide to prioritise new oil and gas expansion at a time when our fossil fuel industries are in rapid decline and will become stranded assets within decades. His decision to renege on net zero means the UK has scaled back on measures that would have saved households £8bn a year in lower energy costs. It has cost us the ability to lead in new technological markets and risks losing Britain the greatest economic opportunity in a generation.
Worse still has been an extremist rhetoric that frames net zero policies as an imposition. This false narrative is the product of both ignorance and deliberate misinformation. Nobody has ever been told that they must remove their boilers or replace their petrol cars. The energy transition is a transition – an act of shifting from the past towards the future. Previous Conservative governments understood that change was inevitable and needed to be carefully managed and incentivised, as the net zero transition ought to be.
Sunak’s decision instead to side with climate deniers and to deliberately politicise the energy transition is perhaps the greatest tragedy of his premiership. It has cost us not just environmentally but also economically. It is a decision that will also cost votes, including those in my own constituency. For the first time, I cannot vote for a party that has boasted of new oil and gas licences in its manifesto or that now argues that net zero is a burden and not a benefit. Instead, like many others who know that we have neither choice nor any more time, and need to tackle the climate crisis now, I have decided that the Labour party is best placed to achieve economic growth and the green industrial revolution. Net zero is one of its five key priorities, and for this reason I will be voting Labour at this election.
Labour’s policy platform is sensible and mainstream. And as I found from speaking to thousands of people across the country during my Net Zero review, it is what the public wants and what business needs. It is potentially the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetimes – and the UK can’t afford to miss out. We could be delivering greater energy security from homegrown energy rather than foreign-owned fossil fuels, reducing energy bills through cheaper and more sustainable renewables, and securing billions in private investment that could transform our communities. It’s time for a new government to recognise and embrace that opportunity to deliver jobs, face the future and be proud of what the UK can and will achieve.
Chris Skidmore is a former Conservative energy minister
