Reading · The Temperate Zone by Kevin Langford

The current discontent

In 2019, when the UK committed to achieve Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, it was already a commonplace observation that the decarbonisation that had already taken place was much easier and had had far less impact on citizens than the further decarbonisation that was to come.

Delivering this more difficult next stage of decarbonisation is now upon us, and this is happening in a context of more straitened financial circumstances (due to Covid and the first energy crisis), geopolitical turmoil, and more general pessimism.

Hence, reconsideration and angst.

It is tempting to look at the break down of the UK’s consensus on climate policy as the consequence of a broader change in the UK’s politics, and of geopolitical factors, including the election of a US government which is sceptical of the benefits of decarbonisation. There is no doubt that these factors are shaping the discussion, but it is arguable that we would have got to this point about now in any case.

In the 2010’s the UK’s efforts to decarbonise its own economy focussed on electricity. The impact was relatively invisible because the policies adopted did not directly affect consumer choices in the way that (say) restricting the purchase of petrol cars does, and because their impact on costs was lost in the noise of global fluctuations in fossil fuel prices.

While there has long been broad spread popular support in the UK for some action on climate change (and a large majority of people see this as something which their government ought to be addressing), the level of personal cost or inconvenience that most of us are prepared to accept in the interests of decarbonisation is limited. So as reasonable pathways to 2050 decarbonisation started to require more visible changes there was always going to be more debate. Politicians (as it happens, on the right, though it could equally well have been from elsewhere on the political spectrum) foresee an opportunity to get behind discontent about electricity costs, taxes, and forthcoming regulation of motoring and domestic heating. Almost inevitably, debates which took place in the 2000’s and 2010’s are being reopened against the background of less sympathetic mood music.

Gaps in the debate

Some elements of the discussion are well covered. A lot has been written recently on the costs of Net Zero to the UK (see also my previous essay on this substack; ‘The Cost of Net Zero, the CCC vs the IEA’.), the costs of power in the UK, and the impact of Net Zero on UK competitiveness.

I see two areas where there is less new material.

One – which this essay considers – is an updated view on how the UK’s commitment to Net Zero is affecting the trajectory of global emissions, and the extent to which this would be changed by a possible repeal or substantial modification of the Climate Change Act.

The second – which I will address in my next essay – is a deeper consideration of the range of alternatives to the current UK framework.

Understanding the global impact of UK Net Zero (and of potentially abandoning it)

The main objective of Net Zero in the UK is the mitigation of global climate change, delivered through a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The policy claims to have some other benefits – improved air quality, industrial advantages for the UK in certain sectors etc - but its primary rationale is that it mitigates a damaging rise in global temperatures. How will maintaining the Net Zero commitment do this? And conversely what happens if the UK gives up on or dilutes its 2050 net zero objective and the legal framework which supports it?

It is straightforward to articulate a theoretical model for how a continued UK commitment to Net Zero might impact global emissions. I have set out the main levers below.

1 Up to 1% of global emissions is avoided directly. ‘Up to’ because in some cases UK territorial emissions may be shifted elsewhere rather than eliminated altogether.

2 The UK’s Net Zero commitment is part of collective effort to reduce global warming, and if all/ most of the main players were to stick with this, then there would be a major benefit. As with many similar collective efforts, each player’s choices affect the willingness of everyone else to stick with their own commitments. And if one player which has been reasonably active in advocating commitment steps back, this may be damaging.

3 The Net Zero commitment stimulates the development and deployment in the UK of green technologies. It creates an investment environment that is supportive of the roll out of these technologies. This development and deployment contributes to global innovation and cost reductions for low carbon technology, and thus makes decarbonisation everywhere both cheaper and more likely. If deployment is successful it provides a template that derisks the transition for other countries.

4 The Net Zero commitment creates markets for decarbonised technologies in the world’s 6^th largest economy with about 3% of the world’s GDP. Again this contributes to global innovation in these technologies and cost reduction.

5 The Net Zero commitment adds credibility to the UK’s other diplomatic and policy strategies to mitigate climate change - eg in advocating an exit from coal or the adoption of carbon border adjustments.

In 2019 (contrary to what some critics of the policy argue), the UK did not ‘just walk in’ to Net Zero. It had a theory as to how this UK commitment might strengthen global decarbonisation efforts substantially (more of which below).

But since 2019, we have seen Covid, two energy crises, a major change in the US approach to all aspects of foreign policy, and other significant shifts in the relationships between the world’s largest powers.

So it would be opportune to revisit the case that was made.

The following is not an in-depth review of literature and reports in the area. (I looked, but I could not find such a review. I would welcome suggestions as to where to look further.) Looking at the five areas that I outline above:

1 Directly avoided emissions.

This is the easiest argument to evaluate, but also the least consequential. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimates that its preferred pathway to Net Zero will reduce UK emissions by 7.6bn tonnes of CO2 equivalents[1] by 2050 compared to a baseline of current emissions, and it might save a further 37bn tonnes[2] over the remainder of the century. This could be expected to reduce the rise in global temperatures by 0.02-0.03 degrees[3]. From this should be subtracted the impact of emissions which are displaced elsewhere rather than removed. On its own, this is not going to be a convincing part of the argument.

2 Impact of UK abandoning Net Zero on global collective effort.

When the UK committed to Net Zero in 2019 it believed that ‘an ambitious new UK [net zero] target would encourage increases in ambition elsewhere, including the adoption of other net zero targets[4]. It considered that previous UK climate policy choices had affected global decarbonisation[5] and that its net zero initiative would contribute to the adoption of similar initiatives in a ‘leadership’ group of high ambition countries, which would in turn create enough momentum to push decarbonisation forward globally. The initial response to the commitment was encouraging, with a ‘surge’ of net zero commitments in the run up to COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021, but progress has slowed and to some extent reversed since then.

We could spend time looking back to evaluate the extent of this apparent success, but the more important question is what next? And what happens if the UK reverses course?

I cannot find any substantial analysis of the likely consequences for global climate policy of a repeal or major dilution of the UK Climate Change Act.

There are a number of arguments as to why it might have consequences; the UK has some additional credibility as an early adopter and a leader in this space, so this may increase the impact of any reversal; the UK is closer than most to the US, and so its decisions may have more impact than others on how the debate in the US develops[6]. But I don’t see much objective analysis of whether it would.

3+4 Impact on stimulating green technologies and providing markets for them.

In 2019, the CCC set out how the UK – along with a few other climate innovators - could be instrumental in catalysing a climate leadership group, which would have enough scale to make a global difference to green technologies and markets. A clear commitment to a decarbonisation target was the first step, and this had already been shown to work. For example, UK leadership in pushing for ambitious EU wide targets had previously led to subsidies and policy support for solar and wind, which in turn drove down the price of these technologies globally and was influential in the development of Chinese energy policy[7]. A 2020 report for the CCC set out how this might work in the future[8].

We should look honestly at how have we done against the aspirations in that 2020 document – are they still credible?

We should also look at the world of the 2030’s (the UK election which might lead to the repeal of the Climate Change Act is in 2029) rather than the 2010’s from when the evidence supporting the Net Zero commitment was drawn. China is even stronger, and it might be harder to make a case that any given element of its energy and industrial policy would be influenced by developments in the West. Europe is a smaller proportion of the global economy[9] and a less confident player. Do the commitments in the Climate Change Act perhaps even undermine this by pushing the UK into decarbonisation actions which are expensive or unsuccessful and therefore highlight the problems rather than benefits of decarbonisation?

Perhaps this is too pessimistic. But we would benefit from an up to date sector by sector understanding of where the UK (and in some cases, by extension, Europe) can reasonably be expected to still make some difference to global decarbonisation and the extent to which this is linked to country wide net zero commitments.

5 Interrelationship with other climate change policies and commitments.

Anything other than a marginal adjustment to the UK’s Net Zero commitment would likely lead to the UK having to replace its most recent Nationally Determined Commitment (81% reduction vs 1990 by 2035) under the UNFCCC framework. Upward revisions of NDC’s are against the spirit of the agreement, but it would probably be better than the alternative of complete withdrawal from the Paris agreement. This in itself may have consequences.

The UK has also been a significant player in many climate fora outside the main UNFCCC process. It is a common assumption that other UK climate change policies – e.g. its commitment to carbon pricing, its advocacy through the Powering Past Coal Alliance – draw strength from the UK’s commitment to Net Zero.

How strong these relationships are is also worthy of review.

Work to be done

If I was wanting to defend Net Zero, I would want to be able to set out with confidence how it is going to reduce emissions in today’s world, and why the chances of success make it worth its costs.

If I was wanting to repeal the Climate Change Act and Net Zero, I would want to understand properly what the consequences were likely to be.

If I was looking to reform the Climate Change Act, or refocus UK climate change policy in a different direction I would need an up-to-date understanding of this part of the picture.

Someone should look more thoroughly at this.

Whatever one’s criticisms of the CCC, it has a great deal of institutional knowledge about the costs and benefits of climate change policies I would ask it to prepare a detailed hypothetical analysis of how repealing the Climate Change Act would be likely to impact global emissions trajectories via the various transmission mechanisms discussed above.

Failing that, there is a clear opportunity for a radical think tank of whatever political stripe to undertake an important programme of useful climate research.

Weaknesses in our understanding of UK Net Zero: its global impact

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