The climate crisis is not an existential threat, it's happening right now.
These pushbacks on net zero policy included delays on the ban on the sale of new fossil-fuelled cars, scrapping plans to require landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties, significantly weakening plans to phase out the installation of gas boilers and an affirmation of support for new oil and gas in the North Sea. Every one of these actions goes against what experts and scientists tell us we need to do in order to have a future we can live in.
Sunak said that he's doing this to support people, to save us all money and that none of this is “watering down” our climate commitments. He said he wanted a “properly informed national debate” about climate policy, but he isn’t being straight with the British public. Let’s be very clear: these delays are dangerous, irresponsible, and completely inconsistent with both climate scienceThe Prime Minister says that he cares about tackling climate change, but the changes he has just announced could mean that we miss critical climate targets. Targets that aren’t abstract or arbitrary but are constructed by what climate science demands to avoid catastrophic climate change.