Labour’s 2030 net-zero target ‘unrealistic’

Labour’s Green New Deal policy to cut UK emissions to net zero by 2030 is not “credible” and risks being undermined by the party’s plans to renationalise the whole energy system, businesses have warned.

Yesterday’s Labour’s annual party conference backed a pledged to work towards reducing greenhouse emissions to net zero by 2030 – two decades earlier that the government’s current target.

The motion, enshrining the so called Green New Deal as official Labour policy, also backed bringing the big six back into public ownership, going beyond the party’s 2017 general election manifesto pledge to renationalise the energy networks.

Speaking at Utility Week’s New Deal for Utilities debate, the Committee on Climate Change chairman Lord Deben said: “Saying you’re going to achieve net-zero by 2030 is very easy until you work out how you’re going to do it. The truth is we were looking at things like the availability of battery and what needs to be done to get to the net-zero target and we came to 2050 as the only answer within the technology we have available that was realistic.

“I’m a great believer in not promising things that we don’t know about because people won’t believe it. If you say we’re going to eat 80 per cent less meat, nobody is going to believe it. If you say, we’re going to eat 20 per cent less meat and it’s going to be better meat, people can go along with that.

“The most remarkable achievement of the 2050 target is that people genuinely do believe we can do it.

“In ten years’ time, if we think we can achieve it faster then everyone will be delighted but we need to keep convincing the public that this is achievable.”

Also dismissing the 2030 target, a Confederation for British Industry (CBI) spokesperson said: “Business is completely behind the transition to a net-zero economy by 2050, but there is no credible pathway to achieving it by 2030. Business wants to work with politicians on a climate policy that is ambitious but rooted in reality.”

Gareth Phillips, a partner at lawyers Pinsent Masons, warned that shadow business and energy secretary Rebecca Long Bailey’s pledge to build a new fleet of state controlled offshore wind farms could deter overseas companies from investing in the UK.

He said: “Part nationalisation of that could disrupt the market and drive private investment further towards emerging markets in other jurisdictions.”

But Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack, who moved the motion committing Labour to the 2030 target, hit back at the critics of Labour’s Green New Deal policy.

He said: “2030 is an ambitious target for net-zero carbon emissions– but we should be optimists and trust human creativity to tackle the climate damage. For that, we need democratic public ownership of not just the national grid, but the big energy companies too.

“For too long, big businesses and corporate polluters have allowed our planet to burn. Government has refused to take any serious action, despite pleas from trade unions and environmental activists. Only a comprehensive programme of government and worker-led action can bring us out of this climate emergency.”

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace, said: “Net zero by 2030 will be extremely difficult. If it can be done it should be and if it can’t then missing the target by a few years or even a decade is still a far better outcome than hitting the government’s 2050 target, which is dangerously late.”

A spokesperson for the Energy Networks Association, said: “To meet the challenge of net zero as quickly as possible, it’s imperative that we don’t waste valuable time and resources on redesigning a system that’s been proven to work. Private investment has helped make Britain a superpower of renewable energy. Let’s build on that to reach net zero.

“Independent research shows that state ownership of energy infrastructure would be a huge risk for investment, a huge risk for hitting our decarbonisation targets and a huge risk for energy billpayers.”