28/04/2024
Rishi Sunak has "set us back" on climate change and left the UK at risk of falling behind other countries, the head of a government watchdog has said.
Chris Stark, head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), told the BBC the prime minister had "clearly not" prioritised the issue as much as his predecessors.
He accused Mr Sunak of sending the world a message that the UK is now "less ambitious" than it once was.
A government spokesperson said: "Our record on net zero speaks for itself."
Mr Stark said the country had made enormous progress towards reaching the climate target of net zero by 2050 under Theresa May and Boris Johnson.
But Mr Sunak's Downing Street had sent a message to the rest of the world that "the UK is less ambitious on climate than it once was, and that is extremely hard to recover".
Reaching net zero means no longer adding to the total amount of greenhouse gases - such as carbon dioxide and methane - in the atmosphere. The government is bound to this target by law.
The CCC is a statutory body that gives independent advice to ministers and assesses progress on targets.
A government spokesperson told the BBC: "We are the first major economy to halve greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 and have set into law one of the most ambitious 2035 climate change targets of any major economy," referring to the target to cut emissions from manufacturing by about two-thirds by 2035.
"But we need to reach our net zero goals in a sustainable way, so we have taken action to protect our energy security, ease the burdens on hard-working people and provide transparency about the choices involved so that we bring people with us in meeting our climate targets."
In the autumn, Mr Sunak delayed a ban on new petrol and diesel cars, and weakened targets on phasing out gas boilers, as part of a major shift in green policy.
"I think it's set us back," Mr Stark said, during an interview that will be broadcast in full on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show.
"So I think we have moved from a position where we were really at the forefront, pushing ahead as quickly as we could on something that I believe to be fundamental to the UK economy, fundamentally beneficial to the people living in this country, whether you care about the climate or not."
He said the UK had been successful in "decarbonising how we generate electricity, especially by closing coal-fired powerplants".
But to get to net zero, more needs to be done on "how we heat homes, or how we deal with the industrial emissions that we have in this country, what we do with farming [and] transport systems".
"It's in those other areas that we see the gap," he said.
"I definitely feel we're at risk."
