New Committee on Climate Change report criticises the UK's climate change action

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has today released their annual progress report, Progress in Preparing for Climate Change - 2019 Progress Report to Parliament.

The report addresses the UK’s current progress on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the policies generating this reduction, and the UK’s adaption to climate change.

The CCC suggests that the UK is not on track for its recent net zero GHG emissions target by 2050. Indeed, more damningly, the CCC argue the UK is not on track to meet its past, less ambitious, target of an 80% reduction in GHGs by the same date.

Read the CCC’s full report here, and coverage from the BBC here.

Net zero greenhouse gas emissions target law begins passage through Parliament

Yesterday, the draft law to create a net zero emissions target for the UK by 2050 was put to Parliament by Chris Skidmore MP, who is currently a joint Minister of State for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department of Education.

The draft law proposes updating the existing greenhouse gas emissions reduction target set by the Climate Change Act 2008 of an 80% reduction by 2050 to 100% by the same year.

Such action follows Theresa May’s announcement of the net zero target earlier this month before her departure from office. This follows the Committee on Climate Change’s influential Net Zero report, arguing for the adoption of a legal net zero emissions goal by 2050 at the very latest - as Bright Blue has previously campaigned for.

Read more about the proposed law currently making its way through parliament here, the CCC’s Net Zero report here, and Bright Blue’s response to the CCC’s report here.