‘Climate Assembly risks being tool to allow politicians not to make decisions’

An initiative set up to put people power at the heart of tackling climate change has allowed “unworkable views” on decarbonising emissions to gain “unfair legitimacy”, the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) has warned.

This withering verdict is contained in the response of the EUA, which represents heat installers, to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee’s follow up inquiry to the Climate Assembly UK’s final report, which was published last September.

The assembly, which brought together a cross-section of UK society last year to make recommendations on how to deliver the government’s 2050 net zero emissions target, gave overwhelming backing (86 per cent) to a ban on sales of new gas boilers as soon as 2030.

It also supported all three of the key technologies – heat networks, heat pumps and hydrogen – for decarbonising heat, while emphasising the need to “minimise disruption” when carrying out home retrofits.

However, the EUA says this scenario is “widely accepted as impossible to achieve”.

It adds: “All decarbonisation routes will involve some of the above, some possibly more than others.

“It would probably indicate that those that were chosen to present to the assembly provided false choices that enabled the assembly to believe a utopian energy future was possible.”

The response says there is no need for additional layers of political oversight, such as the assembly, which could “complicate” both the decision-making process and accountability surrounding the transition to net zero.

It says: “The Climate Assembly risks being a tool to allow politicians not to make decisions, it allows institutions an unfair lobbying position and allows unworkable views to gain unfair legitimacy.

“We have a functioning political system which is working hard to achieve incredibly ambitious climate targets, let’s not make them even harder.”

The response says the assembly’s work has “no use” to the EUA, adding that is now engaged with its members and wider stakeholders across the industry to find “practical and realistic routes” to enable the UK to decarbonise.

The response adds that the assembly has had “no impact” across the sector and its recommendations do not appear to have influenced the government’s energy white paper, which was published last December.

It says the government or Parliament do not need to formally respond to the report, which it argues should not be treated any differently than studies published by non-governmental organisations or think tanks.

The response says it is preferable to engage organisations like Citizens Advice to work on encouraging consumer and homeowner acceptance of decarbonisation policies.

However, BEIS’ response to the committee says that deliberative processes, like the Climate Assembly UK, are an important part of the evidence base in helping to develop policies for reaching net zero that are “feasible and equitable”.

It says: “These initiatives are also important to appreciating the challenges of getting to net zero and giving people a say in shaping the future policies to achieve that target.”

The BEIS committee will be hearing evidence from witnesses, including energy minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan, about the assembly’s work tomorrow (15 June).