Kemi Badenoch wants to scrap the Climate Change Act which committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80% by 2050, with five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track
Tory plans to rip up the UK’s world-leading climate plans are a “total betrayal” and risk “economic disaster”, Ed Miliband has claimed.
The Energy Secretary tore into Kemi Badenoch after the embattled Tory leader vowed to rip up the UK’s world-leading climate legislation to focus on “cheap” energy. Ms Badenoch wants to scrap the Climate Change Act which committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80% by 2050, with five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track to the goal.
Mr Miliband said: “This desperate policy from Kemi Badenoch if ever implemented would be an economic disaster and a total betrayal of future generations.
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“The Conservatives would now scrap a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour Government with Conservative support 17 years ago.
“The Conservatives’ anti-jobs, anti-worker, anti-young people lurch would undermine our energy security and damage our society. This Labour Government will not let the Conservatives or Reform tank our country’s clean energy economy, which is booming thanks to this Government’s clean energy superpower mission.”
When the Climate Change Act was introduced, it was a world-first for climate legislation, with many countries following in the UK’s footsteps.
Scientists warn the world must rapidly slash emissions to zero to prevent global temperatures rising to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, or face an increase in natural disasters.
Ms Badenoch has previously said it is “impossible” for the UK to meet its net zero targets and pledged to scrap them and “maximise extraction” of oil and gas in the North Sea. It follows Reform leader Nigel Farage vowing to fast-track North Sea oil and gas licences and scrap net zero targets if the party wins the next election.
The move was also condemned by numerous environmental groups who labelled it “political suicide” and a “monstrous act of economic and environmental vandalism”.
Greenpeace UK head of politics Ami McCarthy said: “Badenoch’s Conservatives are in a race to the bottom with Reform UK on climate, and this is them sprinting. But these culture-war pronouncements are unlikely to win them any support from the majority of the British public, who want action to tackle the climate change-fuelled floods, droughts and heatwaves ruining UK lives and livelihoods.”
Tanya Steele, Chief Executive at WWF said: “This reckless decision from Kemi Badenoch would put up people’s energy bills, slam the brakes on clean British energy, slow economic growth and leave us dependent on expensive fossil fuel imports. It would be a devastating blow for nature, for household finances, and farmers on the front line of climate change.”
Friends of the Earth chief executive Asad Rehman said: “For a mainstream political party to turn its back on the science in a desperate race to the bottom with those being bankrolled by discredited billionaires and dirty business, who want to stop climate action because it threatens their profits, is political suicide.”
The Tory announcement comes just hours after Mr Miliband pledged to permanently ban fracking at Labour party conference.
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