Sunak has ‘set Britain back’ on net zero, says UK’s climate adviser

Rishi Sunak making his speech on climate policy last year, which the head of the Climate Change Committee said had left Britain ‘actually trying to recover ground’. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Rishi Sunak has given up Britain’s reputation as a world leader in the fight against the climate crisis and has “set us back” by failing to prioritise the issue in the way his predecessors in No 10 did, the government’s green adviser has warned.

Chris Stark, the outgoing head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said that the prime minister had “clearly not” championed the issue following a high-profile speech last year in which he made a significant U-turn on the government’s climate commitments. The criticism comes after Sunak was accused of trying to avoid scrutiny of Britain’s climate policies by failing to appoint a new chair of the CCC.