Citizens' Climate Lobby UK

Category: News

  • Damning report by the Public Accounts Committee….

    Damning report by the Public Accounts Committee….

    The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report, Environmental Tax Measures, published today, is savage in its condemnation of the failure of the Government to align its environmental ambitions with the means to achieve them through its fiscal policy:

    Tax is an important instrument for pursuing government’s environmental goals, particularly getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The potential of the tax system in this respect has long been recognised by government, academics and stakeholders, notably the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the Mirrlees Review published in 2011 and more recently the Climate Change Committee. We were therefore concerned that HM Treasury and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)—the departments responsible for the strategic oversight and administration of the tax system—have taken a very limited view of the role of tax so far. They could not explain clearly to us how the tax system is used in achieving the government’s environmental goals.

    At present HMRC and HM Treasury only recognise four environmental taxes as these are the only ones with specific environmental objectives. They have limited understanding of the environmental impact of these taxes because their management has focussed on the revenue these taxes raise. The departments have not kept track of the impact of other tax measures with environmental objectives, such as tax reliefs to support energy saving and clean technologies, or the impact of tax measures affecting the consumption of fossil fuels. We were encouraged to hear that the departments have started to assess the impact of fuel duty freezes on the environment, but environmental assessments should be made for all taxes.

    We see a lack of leadership and coordination, which mirrors findings in our recent reports on Achieving government’s long-term environmental goals and Achieving net zero. The tax system interacts with environmental policy areas which are the responsibility of other government departments. These interactions risk being overlooked without greater monitoring and transparency of tax measures affecting the environment. Given HM Treasury’s cross-government remit, it is disappointing to see silo thinking, which we often see in other Whitehall departments, extending to the Treasury itself. HM Treasury is still considering how tax should fit within a comprehensive programme for funding net zero. It acknowledges that further action is needed to hit the 2050 target.

    Given the scale of the climate emergency, HM Treasury and HMRC need to act now. We are concerned that the departments have yet to plan for the impact of the government’s environmental ambitions on tax revenues, including on fuel duty which raised £28 billion in 2019–20 but will decline as people change to electric vehicles. The two departments need to be clear and transparent on the role that tax will play so that: taxpayers can make informed decisions; other government departments can plan; and Parliament has the information it needs to hold government to account. With the UK hosting the UN Climate Change Conference in November 2021 we look to HM treasury to lead by example.

    Analysis of press coverage is available here, including the comment by Labour peer Lord Triesman that:  

    “Government and regulators now need to create an environment where investors and lenders are rewarded for taking the long-term view. What will ultimately bring down green financing costs is longevity and pipeline security.” Interestingly this echoes comments on the similar gap in climate change mitigation plans across the pond:

    An editorial in the Washington Post says of the expected new US climate pledge to cut emissions 50% below 2005 levels by 2030: “Such promises are easy. Making good on them, and on this one in particular, is hard.” Like another recent editorial from the paper, the piece argues for a carbon tax: “What’s missing [from Biden’s proposals] is an economy-wide policy that would cut demand for fossil fuels in every industry in every state. A substantial, steadily rising carbon tax would ensure emissions reductions happened even if some of Mr. Biden’s government-funded green projects failed because it would dampen underlying demand for fossil fuels.”

    The publication of this report offers another very targeted opportunity to write to your MP, especially if they are members of the Public Accounts Committee. You could point out how Climate Income with Border Carbon Adjustments would be the ideal fiscal policy to send the right message to producers and consumers on the needed direction of travel and make investment in low emission technology so much more attractive, as the Government has acknowledged:

    Placing a price on carbon creates the incentive for emissions to be reduced in a cost effective and technology-neutral way, while mobilising the private sector to invest in emissions reduction technologies and measures. While we recognise the merits of a Carbon Fee and Dividend policy, we do not propose to adopt it at this time.

    * Committee of Public Accounts members

    Name /Party /Constituency
    Meg Hillier MP Labour Hackney South and Shoreditch, Chair
    Gareth Bacon MP Conservative Orpington
    Kemi Badenoch MP Conservative Saffron Walden
    Shaun Bailey MP Conservative West Bromwich West
    Olivia Blake MP Labour Sheffield, Hallam
    Dan Carden MP Labour Liverpool, Walton
    Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP Conservative The Cotswolds
    Barry Gardiner MP Labour Brent North
    Peter Grant MP Scottish National Party Glenrothes

  • Jim Hansen’s Letter to the PM

    I hope many of you caught the news of top climate scientist, Jim Hansen, and his letter to Boris. I’m reposting it in this blog with Jim’s permission but without further comment except to say that much of the, unreported, segment concerns carbon fee and dividend with CCL-UK being recommended as Boris’s next port of call!

  • Leading scientists back promoting the use of carbon capture technology.

    A article in the Guardian (13/11/20) interviewing Michael Mann (author of the ‘hockey stick study) cites a letter signed by many scientists and activists, including James Hansen, which states that carbon capture technology, derided by many climate activists, has to be part of the solution. The beauty of CF&D, of course is that carbon emitting industries would get their money back in saved tariffs so it becomes cost effective…..

    Leading scientists, academics and campaigners have called on governments and businesses to go beyond “net zero” in their efforts to tackle the escalating climate and ecological crisis.

    The former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the leading climate scientist Michael Mann are among a group of prominent environmentalists calling for the “restoration of the climate” by removing “huge amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere”.

    Net zero targets have been a focus of governments, local authorities and campaigners in their attempts to address global heating. The authors of Friday’s letter, however, say that although stopping emissions is “a necessary prerequisite”, governments and businesses must be more ambitious and work to “restore the climate” to as safe a level as possible.

    “The climate crisis is here now,” … “No matter how quickly we reach zero emissions, the terrible impacts of the climate crisis will not just go away … As such, no matter how quickly it is done, solely cutting emissions is not enough.”Hitting net zero is not enough – we must restore the climate.

    The idea of removing emissions from the atmosphere – either directly from the air or by capturing it from power plants – has been a strongly debated subject among environmentalists and engineers for years.

    Critics point out that it has proved difficult to replicate the technology at scale and that constructing the necessary machinery would itself be environmentally damaging.

    Many fear that the idea of carbon capture is a “technological fix” used as an excuse by corporations which are opposed to the radical changes needed to move to a zero-carbon economy. However, there is a growing body of evidence that natural solutions – protecting and restoring natural forests and habitats and allowing native trees to repopulate deforested land – could help remove large amounts of carbon.

    The letter, which is also signed by the Guardian columnist George Monbiot and several leading members of the global school climate strike movement, said their call for restoration was not about “promoting one specific removal technique, but supporting the basic aim of trying to restore the climate”.

    The letter adds: “We urge activists to start including restoration in their campaigning. We urge governments and companies to start acting, not only to reach net zero as soon as possible, but to achieve restoration as well. And we urge every citizen to do what they can to make the dream of restoration a reality.”

    Mann recently stated that it would be game over for the climate if Trump won again, luckily that scenario has been averted, though he has yet to concede… In an article in the Guardian (2/10/20) about the threat of Trump, Mann did, however, state that there is some good news which offers hope if we act now….

    ‘Our destiny is determined by our behavior’

    Fortunately, there is encouraging news about climate science as well. It was long thought that Earth’s climate system carried a substantial lag effect, mainly because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, trapping heat, for many decades after being emitted. Even if all CO2 emissions were halted overnight, global temperatures would keep rising and heatwaves, droughts, storms and other impacts would keep intensifying “for about 25 to 30 years”, Sir David King, the former chief science advisor to the British government, said in 2006.

    Mann says research over the last decade has overturned this interpretation. Using new, more elaborate computer models equipped with an interactive carbon cycle, “what we now understand is that if you stop emitting carbon right now … the oceans start to take up carbon more rapidly,” Mann says. Such ocean storage of CO2 “mostly” offsets the warming effect of the CO2 that still remains in the atmosphere. Thus, the actual lag between halting CO2 emissions and halting temperature rise is not 25 to 30 years, he explains, but “more like three to five years”.

    This is “a dramatic change in our understanding” of the climate system that gives humans “more agency”, says Mann. Rather than being locked into decades of inexorably rising temperatures, humans can turn down the heat almost immediately by slashing emissions promptly. “Our destiny is determined by our behavior,” says Mann, a fact he finds “empowering”.

    This reprieve will not necessarily spare polar ice sheets or evade tipping points that cannot be recrossed, the scientist cautions, and Earth is already experiencing “much more extreme weather … than we expected 10 years ago”. Greenland and Arctic ice is already melting after the current temperature rise of 1C, or 2.7F, above pre-industrial levels, and it will continue melting even without further warming. The resulting possibility of “massive sea level rise” is one example of why Mann says that humanity is “walking out on to a minefield” of tipping points: “The more we warm the planet, the more of those unwelcome surprises we might encounter.

  • The Zero-Carbon Commission

    The Zero-Carbon Commission

    The Zero Carbon Campaign (ZCC) is about as different from CCL as two organisations, with similar aims and acronyms, can get. Both organisations campaign for carbon pricing and both organisations have concluded that a carbon-dividend is vital to ensure fairness and effectiveness. But CCL is a grass-roots band of citizens whilst ZCC was set up by the founder of OVO Energy and is a commission of experts (including a former chair of the Climate Change Committee and the current executive director of Greenpeace UK). This is not a criticism of ZCC; there’s strength in diversity.

    In September 2020, ZCC published its “White Paper”—a report on How Carbon Pricing Can Help Britain Achieve Net Zero By 2050. There’s much in there for CCL to cheer including a call for the UK government to announce “a clear carbon-price trajectory”, to use the proceeds to “cushion rises in household bills” and to “investigate options for a multilateral border carbon adjustment”.

    ZCC is not advocating 100% revenue recycling into a dividend, as CCL does, but this should not stop us making common cause with an organisation whose aims have far more similarities than differences with our own. The publication of the White Paper is also an opportunity for us to publicise “climate income” and CCL-UK as an advocate for that policy.

    So what happens next? ZCC are asking the public (and organisations) to sign their declaration and to lobby MPs (sounds familiar!) They’re also planning a media campaign to pressure the government to adopt carbon pricing ahead of COP-26 in Glasgow. This will be centred around a “mock COP” to run in the second week of November this year, i.e. a year ahead of the real COP. These are all things we, in CCL, would support or are already doing.

    I’ve been asked, by CCL’s steering group, to keep an eye on developments and to involve CCL where appropriate. I’ll try to keep you all up to date and please feel free to contact me, through the comments below, if you want to be involved too.

  • Who’s best for the climate in UK elections?

    Who’s best for the climate in UK elections?

    Number one priority?

    Where did climate change feature in manifestos, and how often was it mentioned?

    This is not an analysis of how realistic or effective their policies could be – we’ll leave that up to you to decide.

    The parties that seemed to best understand climate change and how it impacts every aspect of life, referring to it throughout their manifestos, were the Green Party, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

    Also read our post on how each party fared on climate income.

    Joint 1st – Green Party of England and Wales
    Climate = first out of five headline priorities

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: Green New Deal
    First mention is the second sentence (after Brexit) then throughout.
    Priorities in order: Green New Deal, Brexit, Democracy, Quality of Life (inc NHS/education/crime), Taxation
    ‘Above all, the climate and environmental emergency rages from the Amazon to the Arctic. The science is clear – the next ten years are probably the most important in our history.’
    Net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 2030.
    Track record: a Green Bristol councillor secured the first declaration of a climate emergency; Brighton MP Caroline Lucas kick started the climate change debates in parliament this year.

    Joint 1st – Labour Party
    Climate = first out of five headline priorities

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: Green Industrial Revolution
    First mention – second paragraph in foreword (after Brexit) then throughout.
    Priorities in order: a green Industrial Revolution, public services, poverty and inequality, Brexit, internationalism (inc defense)
    ‘This is our last chance to tackle the climate emergency.’
    Net zero GHGs – unclear – energy by 2030, food by 2040
    Track record – Created the Climate Change Act in 2008 and set up the Committee on Climate Change, and entered the UK into the EU emissions trading system in 2003.

    Joint third – Liberal Democrats
    Climate = Third and eighth out of eight headline priorities

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: Green Revolution
    First mention – first paragraph in foreword (after Brexit) fifth paragraph in introduction (after Brexit), then throughout.
    Priorities in order: Brexit, Economy, Education, Green Society/economy, Health care, fair society, rights and equality, better politics, international
    ‘We will deliver a ten-year emergency programme to cut emissions substantially straight away, and phase out emissions from the remaining hard-to-treat sectors by 2045 at the latest.’
    Net zero GHGs – by 2045 ‘at the latest’
    Track record – ‘Thanks to Liberal Democrat policies in government, the UK has made major strides in cutting emissions from power generation…’

    Joint Third – Plaid Cymru
    Climate = first of five ‘key priorities’

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: Welsh Green Jobs Revolution / Renewables Revolution
    First mention: although the Green Jobs Revolution is the number one priority, climate change itself is not mentioned until page 25, and then in detail on page 63.
    ‘We understand that climate change, together with the global collapse of biodiversity, is the defining challenge of our time.’
    Priorities in order: Green jobs, caring, families, housing, crime.
    Net zero GHGs: carbon-free / 100 percent self-sufficient in renewable energy by 2030
    Track record: While they were MPs, Plaid Cymru’s team recently received a 100% rating in the Guardian’s analysis of MPs’ records on 16 indicative climate votes between 2008 and 2018, reflecting our long-standing support for ambitious long-term climate targets.

    Fifth – Scottish National Party
    Climate = 10th out of 11 headline priorities

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: Green New Deal
    First mention: ‘Protect the environment’ is in the tenth paragraph; ‘climate emergency’ on page five.
    Priorities in order: Independence, Brexit, NHS, austerity, poverty/inequality, drugs, pensions, migration, devolution, climate emergency, Trident.
    Net Zero GHGs: latest 2045 ‘…a 75% reduction in emissions by 2030, net zero carbon emissions no later than 2040 and net zero of all emissions by 2045…’
    Track record: ‘Scotland has the world’s most ambitious emissions reductions targets in law’

    Sixth – Conservative and Unionist Party
    Climate = 16th out of 17 priorities

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: Environment Bill
    First mention – a reference to carbon emissions in the foreword, point six (‘My guarantee’, after Brexit, NHS, police, immigration, and education) and second page of the introduction. ‘Climate change’ is first mentioned specifically on page 12.
    Priorities in order: Brexit, ‘your priorities’, Britain’s potential (including the Environment Bill), international (including climate change), ‘put you first’.
    Net zero GHGs: 2050
    ‘…[dementia is] one of the ‘grand challenges’ that will define our future along with the impact of climate change or artificial intelligence.’
    ‘We will also prioritise the environment in the next Budget…’
    Track record: first in the world to enshrine in law a net zero GHG emissions target, established UK as the ‘world’s leader in offshore wind’, began the process for a Citizens’ Assembly for Climate Change, ‘doubled international Climate Finance.’

    Seventh – Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland)
    Climate = 23rd to 25th out of 37 priorities

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: cleaner transport and cleaner air
    Priorities in order: NI Assembly, NHS, schools, economy, welfare, abortion and childcare, environment/agriculture/fishing, animal welfare, communities, crime
    First mention: net zero is mentioned in the manifesto summary, but not climate change specifically until page 18, and then only within the bounds of rural matters.
    Net Zero GHGs: net C02 by 2050

    Eighth – Brexit Party
    Climate = no priority

    Primary mechanism to tackle Climate Change: tree planting
    First mention – no mention
    Priorities in order: Brexit, political reform, investment, living costs, economy, immigration, NHS, education, housing
    ‘Invest in the Environment: in addition to planting millions of trees to capture CO2 we will promote a global initiative at the UN.’
    Net zero GHGs: no mention

    Want more?

    Carbon Brief – a very comprehensive manifesto comparison based on energy and climate change

    BBC – choose your beef and country

    Friends of the Earth – have your election candidates signed the climate pledge?

    Friends of the Earth Manifesto analysis has Labour on top

    Greenpeace analysis has the Green Party on top

  • The Changing Climate of Climate Change

    The Gillet Jaune protests in France started as protests against climate-related taxes on petrol. Photo: Koshu Kunii

    It’s been a dramatic few weeks.  Climate Emergencies were declared by the Scottish, Welsh and UK parliaments last week (and the Irish Parliament this week) whilst, last Thursday, the government’s own Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published a report recommending the UK have a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

    The last few weeks have also seen climate protests on the streets of London, whilst the visit from Greta Thunberg—the Swedish girl who sparked off global school-strikes—stimulated, at the very least, some warm words and commitments from our politicians.  I also loved David Attenborough’s programme which really described well what we are facing.

    All this activity is raising my spirits.  The CCC report, for example, is surprisingly upbeat and positive.  You get a strong impression of a well-thought through plan that really can deliver.  And net-zero by 2050 is just about good enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change (as long as everyone else does the same).  I’ve not been this optimistic about global warming in years. 

    Hopefully our government will accept the CCC recommendations before the end of this year.  If they do, the UK really will be an international leader in tackling climate change.  Perhaps my fellow columnist at Marlborough News—MP Claire Perry, the Minister for Clean Energy!–could say a few cautious words about this in her June column although I appreciate that even the pages of Marlborough News are not the right place to announce government policy.

    Last week also saw publication of a less widely publicised Government document—a consultation on how the UK will replace the European Union’s Emission Trading System (ETS) when (if?) we leave the EU.  You’re probably unaware of the ETS but it’s been operating since 2005 and it places a cap on the greenhouse gas emissions of our biggest polluters (e.g. electricity generating companies, steel makers and so on).  Importantly, this cap is reduced over time so that these large organisations are forced to reduce their emissions.

    It’s not a bad way to do things but it does have one major flaw.  It only controls about 30% of the greenhouse gasses we put out.  The remaining emissions come from lots of small things (e.g. heating your home) and these cannot easily be controlled by an approach like ETS.  The government’s current answer to this problem is to introduce lots of regulations (e.g. a ban on petrol cars from 2040) but that has flaws too.  Apart from the fact that it generates lots of red-tape, it also relies upon a few (admittedly very clever) people in Whitehall to come up with all the necessary regulations, and they can’t think of everything.

    There is another way.  We can tax all emissions.  It’s simple and it applies to the entire economy.  But taxes are not generally popular even for good causes like combating climate change.  We can see that just by looking at the continuing Gillet Jaune protests in France (which started as a protest against climate-related taxes on petrol) or the problems the UK government had with the “fuel price escalator” in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.  Any such taxes have to be applied intelligently and I’ll talk about one possible solution in my next column.

    First published in Marlborough.news

  • October Campaign – results!

    October Campaign – results!

    MP letter
    Scottish MP Stephen Gethins reply to CCLUKer Charlie Webb

    Our campaign to galvanize Parliament in advance of the recent UN climate negotiations (COP 23) in Bonn – which has just ended – has resulted in a surge of action and some splendid results.

    The numbers tell just a small part of the story. CCLUK members have been talking up our policy up and down the country, sharing it with friends and family, posting it (in many imaginative ways) on Facebook, generally spreading the word.

    How many conversations did you find yourself taking part in? One volunteer signed up 21 letter-writers. Only seven of them actually produced the letters…But that was 21 conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.  Experience has shown what a difference that can make. ( I’ve had people come back to me after a year to say, “Ah! Now I get it!”) (more…)