UK Government Could Delay Publication of Emissions Reduction Plan, Again

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The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) appears to have pushed back the release date for a key document outlining its climate plans.ย Again.

BEIS initially promised the Emissions Reduction Plan would be delivered by the โ€˜end of 2016โ€™. The BEIS minister for climate change, Nick Hurd, later revised that to the end of the first quarter of 2017.

Now, buried on page 94 of 132 in a document released today on the governmentโ€™s industrial strategy, is the suggestion this could be furtherย delayed.

In a section titled โ€œDelivering affordable energy and clean growthโ€, the government says โ€œWe will publish our Emissions Reduction Plan during 2017, providing long-term certainty for investorsโ€. That’s considerably vaguer than BEIS‘ previous statements, and other commitments within theย strategy.

The plan is meant to outline how the government plans to catch up with its emission reductions to meet the fourth carbon budget, as well as outlining how it will hit the fifth carbon budgetย goals.

Labourโ€™s shadow minister for internationalย trade and climate change, Barry Gardiner, was quick to condemn any further delay to the planโ€™s release, tweeting that it was a โ€œdisgraceโ€ the government hadn’t realease the plan yet as it is legally required to do so โ€œas soon as reasonablyย practicableโ€:

There remain many questions about the content of the report, as well as its releaseย date.

For instance, itโ€™s unclear if a commitment to reduce the UKโ€™s emissions to zero will be included. Ed MIliband originally called for the goal to be enshrined in UK law, with former energy minister Andrea Leadsomย responding that โ€œthe question is not whether but how we [the government] doย it.โ€

Legal NGO ClientEarth has also called for a mechanism to ensure regular reviews of the plan. The government initially published quarterly updates on the emission reduction planโ€™s predecessor, the carbon reductionย plan.

But climate minister Nick Hurd seemed to imply this would no longer be the case. In a response to a parliamentary question from Gardiner, he said BEIS had fulfilled its โ€œstatutory requirementsโ€ with its current reports, suggeting it wouldn’t release reports beyondย this.

If the government isnโ€™t going to provide regular updates allowing for scrutiny of its climate plans, ClientEarth has called on BEIS to outline โ€œa robust mechanism that willโ€. Otherwise, scrutiny of the plans would become difficult, with policies quickly going out ofย date.

But first, there has to beย plan.

Responding to the news that BEIS may miss its own deadline again, Gardiner told DeSmog UK:

โ€œI am outraged that we are already five and half years late. What the government is doing is saying it accepts the climate science and the recommendations of the committee on climate change, itโ€™s then setting a budget in accordance with those recommendations, but itโ€™s doing absolutely nothing to ensure those targets can be met and that strategy can be implemented andย followed.โ€

โ€œIf they produce a good plan, I will be the first toย cheer.โ€

โ€œBut I donโ€™t have any real hope that they are going to come up with a credible carbonย plan.โ€

Client Earth lawyer Jonathan Church told DeSmog UK that he agreed that today’s suggestion that there could be further delays isย โ€œdeeply concerningโ€. He said that while he accepted that ย it was better for the government to take slightly more time to get the plan right, โ€œthere comes a point at which we canโ€™t wait anyย longerโ€.

BEIS has not responded to DeSmog UK‘s request for comment. We will update the story if itย does.

Updated 23/01/2017: A quote from Barry Gardiner was addded, and the text around Jonathan Church’s quote wasย adjusted.

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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