CCC plays down climate risks of winter coal plant reprieve

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has played down the risks that keeping coal power plants running this winter will undermine progress on the UK’s carbon reduction targets.

At a press conference this week to mark the publication of the statutory climate advisor’s latest annual report for Parliament, the CCC’s chair Lord Deben was quizzed on moves to safeguard against the risks of gas shortages this winter by keeping a number of coal power stations running.

Given the “serious threat” created by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it is “not unacceptable” to keep operating coal plants that had been scheduled for closure later this year, he said: “In those circumstances, the government has to make sure that we keep the lights on.

“I hope we won’t have to use it (coal) and that by making the investment in nuclear and renewables, it won’t be necessary. I’m not worried about this in the long term as long as we keep a very close eye.”

Lord Deben was backed up by the CCC’s chief executive Chris Stark. He said: “I’m not at all concerned by extensions to coal plants that are hardly used during the year.

“We need to be concerned about our energy system. If that means having the facility to use a bit of coal in points of the year when you really need it, so be it. The long-term trajectory is in the right direction.”

Stark also said that the energy profits levy on oil and gas producers, which was recently announced by chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak, will not have “very much impact” on the trajectory of emissions reductions.

The report itself says a “shocking gap” exists in government energy efficiency policy, one of a number of areas for delivering emissions reductions identified as suffering from “major failures”, meaning the UK is off track on its net zero goals.

The annual report, the first to be published since gas and electricity prices began to soar last summer, says the CCC has found “scant evidence” of delivery on the government’s headline targets to tackle climate change announced in last year’s Net Zero Strategy.

While identifying some “bright spots of progress”, there is a high likelihood of under-delivery in most areas, leading Stark to warn that the government is taking a “genuinely high-wire approach” to meeting net zero.

In addition, the government cannot depend on all of its proposed carbon reduction policies delivering promised savings and that this risk cannot be credibly mitigated by greater reliance on greenhouse gas removal technologies

One of the most glaring shortfalls surrounds energy efficiency, where the CCC concludes that the policy gap is “shocking”, especially given soaring energy bills.

Stark told the press conference that the government’s approach to decarbonising buildings deserved to be marked as a “stunning fail”.

The CCC warns that the government’s reliance on stimulating the heat pump market by setting boiler manufacturers mandatory targets to sell a progressively rising number of the devices is an “untested approach”.

“If market participants do not respond to incentives as expected, low-carbon heat roll-out will not take off,” it says, adding that the government should develop contingency plans if this approach doesn’t deliver as ministers anticipate.

The report warns that much now rests on the government’s promised energy advice service, due to be launched this summer, to reach millions of households requiring energy efficiency upgrades.

It also says there has been slow progress on wider measures to enable progress and that the Treasury must urgently review its tax strategy to support the transition to net zero.

The report says the CCC would support cutting electricity bills by shifting historical subsidies for renewable energy from electricity bills onto general public spending.

The government has credible plans for achieving 39% of the UK’s required emissions reductions to meet its Sixth Carbon Budget in the mid-2030s and will manage another quarter with a “fair wind”, says the report.

However, significant risks surround delivery of another third and plans are either “completely missing or currently clearly inadequate” for the remaining 5% of the required emissions reductions.

Achieving full decarbonisation of electricity by 2035 is one of the areas where strategies and detailed plans are still needed.

“The Net Zero Strategy is not fully credible until the government develops and begins to implement contingency plans,” says the report.

“The government is willing the ends but not the means,” said Lord Deben.

The report says that while UK emissions were still ten per cent below pre-Covid levels, it remains unclear what the long-term impact of the pandemic will be across a range of sectors.