"The UK has been one of the real leaders in climate diplomacy and in their own emissions reductions," Ireland’s climate minister Eamon Ryan told Reuters.
But according to the Climate Change Committee’s June 2023 progress report to parliament, to hit mid-way climate targets, Britain must quadruple its annual emissions reductions outside the electricity supply sector by 2030.
He said he was changing the policy because previous governments had moved too quickly to set net zero targets, without securing the support of the public.
Delaying net zero transition investments could prove politically popular, analysts observed, if an election was on the horizon.
But "this framing only works if you think climate policy is a burden", said Bob Ward, a climate policy researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, adding that avoiding short-term costs was likely to lead to a greater bill for taxpayers down the road.
Persons:
Eamon Ryan, Rishi Sunak, Bob Ward, Britain's, Simone Tagliapietra, Sunak’s, Philip Dunne, Susanna Twidale, Gloria Dickie, Kate Abnett, Elizabeth Piper, Ed Osmond, Alison Williams
Organizations:
Reuters, United Nations, London School of Economics, Political, Global, Thomson
Locations:
Britain, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Netherlands, Brussels, U.S, London