Aerial view of the solar panel in solar farm in evening sun light, West Sussex, UK. Photograph: Pavel Babic/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Shortly before Christmas, the former energy minister Chris Skidmore announced he would not be standing again as a Conservative MP.
He was one of a slew of Tory MPs to do so, amid party turmoil and plunging opinion polls. But unlike his colleagues, he was in a unique position to make his views felt. During her brief premiership, Liz Truss had effectively made him the UK net zero tsar, tasked with writing a comprehensive review of the country’s progress towards achieving the legally binding target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.