The climate action tracker has this to say about the uk. The tory party policies are identified as particularly poor in relation to climate change
climateactiontracker.org/countries/uk/
The UK is currently projected not to achieve its own medium-term climate targets, with government projections showing it will not achieve the emission reductions required to comply with its fourth (2023-2027) and fifth (2028-2032) carbon budgets.
The significant progress made in the decade since the passage of the UK’s landmark Climate Change Act legislation is expected to stall in the 2020s, vividly demonstrated by the only slight deviation of the planned policy emissions trajectory, from that representing current policies in the graph above. There has been a dearth of new significant climate policies announced in recent years which, if left unaddressed, will leave the UK missing its medium and long-term emission targets. The government must ratchet up its climate policies now to ensure the necessary rapid emission reductions over the following decade.
In the ten years since the passage of the Climate Change Act in 2008, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have fallen by 28% and it has provided the foundation for the coordination and advancement of climate action in the UK, including a projected phasing out of coal fired power plants by 2023.The legislation was updated in 2019 to include a net-zero 2050 emissions target, with the UK becoming the first major economy in the world to legislate such a target.
The UK’s five-year carbon budgets, formulated under the original Climate Change Act legislationwere originally set in order to comply with the previous 2050 goal of an 80% reduction below 1990 levels.This means the UK’s climate policies will need to be strengthened significantly to ensure the UK meets its long-term net-zero target. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) did not recommended changes to these budgets, but rather that the government overachieve them. However, the Committee did note it would reconsider whether legislative changes would be necessary to strengthen the fourth and fifth carbon budgets when it delivers its advice on the sixth budget period (2033-2037) in 2020.
The CCC has asserted that net-zero emissions by 2050 constitutes the UK’s ‘highest possible ambition’. It states that Scotland should set a net-zero GHG target of 2045, and that Wales should set a 95% reduction below 1990 levelsby 2050 to reflect their respective circumstances. In a review of what will be required to reach the net-zero target, the CCC highlighted the lack of a plan for decarbonising UK heating systems, the lack of progress in developing carbon capture and storage capability, the failure to meet afforestation targets, and that the current 2040 target for banning fossil fuel vehicles is too late.
With a general election scheduled for December 2019, the UK has a chance to decide whether it will match the urgency conveyed by parliament’s declaration of a climate emergency in May 2019 with more ambitious climate policies.
The UK Labour Partyhas pledged £250 billion to drive its plansfor a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’, while recently committing to a 2030 phase out of fossil fuel vehicle sales and £3.6bn for a national charging network. These policies alone would make the UK a climate frontrunner with no other major developed country yet committing to such ambitious actions.
This is in contrast to the Conservative Party which has announced only a limited number of climate-related policies in their election manifesto, including £9.2 billion for improving the energy efficiency of schools, hospitals and homes, and a brought-forward ban on gas-boilers in all new homes from 2020. An announced ban on fracking was subsequently criticised for not being permanent. Many other parties, including the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, and the Greens, have made action on climate change a high priority in their election campaigns.
As a result of sustained political pressure from the activist group Extinction Rebellion, the UK Parliament decided to establish a ‘citizen’s assembly’ on climate change. This group of 110 citizens representative of the general population will meet over four weekends in early 2020 to discuss what policies they would like to see implemented to reach the UK’s net-zero 2050 emissions target.
Although the UK is set to leave the EU by early 2020, it has committed to continue working with the EU, aligning and, where possible, going beyond the EU’s climate and energy ambitions. The UK’s current targets are more ambitious than what was required under the EU effort sharing legislation, so there is no expectation of a weakening of climate policy ambition as a result of leaving the EU.
The government’s current 2030 target of a 57% reduction in GHG emissions below 1990 levels is rated as ‘Insufficient’, for limiting warming to below 1.5°C. Under the EU’s effort sharing regulation, the UK is expected to reduce GHG emissions that are not covered by the EU emissions trading scheme by 37% below 2005 levels by 2030.