{"id":267184,"date":"2023-07-13T14:12:08","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T12:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=267184"},"modified":"2023-07-13T14:12:11","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T12:12:11","slug":"new-legal-challenge-to-uk-governments-climate-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=267184","title":{"rendered":"New legal challenge to UK Government\u2019s climate plans\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Tallbloke’s Talkshop<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 11, 2023 by\u00a0oldbrew<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Making climate targets legally enforceable turns out not to be such a smart idea, except for fee-seeking lawyers. Who knew?<\/em>
\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THREE ORGANISATIONS are taking the UK Government to court for the second time in under two years over its \u2018feeble and inadequate\u2019 strategy for tackling climate change,\u00a0says Ekklesia<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and Good Law Project say the government\u2019s revised net zero strategy \u2013 the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, published on 30 March \u2013 is unlawful and have filed papers at the High Court requesting a judicial review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news follows a damning progress report from the Climate Change Committee, published on 28 June, which found there are only credible plans for less than a fifth of the emissions cuts needed to meet the UK\u2019s legally binding climate targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is down from the government\u2019s independent climate advisors assessment last year that just 39 per cent of plans were fit for purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government was required by the High Court to publish a revised strategy following successful legal challenges by the three organisations in July 2022, in which the judge underlined the critical expert role of the CCC\u202f by stating their advice must be given \u201cconsiderable weight\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In last year\u2019s landmark judgment, the High Court ruled that the net zero strategy, which was supposed to set out plans to decarbonise the economy, did not meet the government\u2019s obligations under the Climate Change Act to produce detailed climate policies that show how the UK\u2019s legally binding carbon budgets will be met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After carefully studying the detail of the revised Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, lawyers for Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and Good Law Project say this revised plan breaches the Climate Change Act too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three organisations argue that the plan provides no real information on the government\u2019s assessment of the risk of the proposals and policies not being delivered and not meeting legally binding climate targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the information that the plan does include confirms that many of the technologies being relied on to deliver substantial emissions savings are high risk, raising serious questions about the government\u2019s assumption that they will be delivered \u2018in full\u2019. ClientEarth argues that this approach is so clearly flawed that it is unlawful and fails to comply with central provisions of the Climate Change Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the hundreds of pages of the plan and associated documents, there are no specifics on the level of risk posed by each policy, or even an overview of whether the plans for each sector are high, medium or low risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, reliance is placed on \u201cnascent\u201d technologies at an \u201cextremely low starting point\u201d \u2013 such as hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and low-carbon aviation fuel. These are said to pose inherent delivery risk, uncertainty and challenges, though the precise extent of these risks and how they add up with other risks across the plans remains unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also the case that a leaked advisory document from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) assessing the delivery risk of government net zero measures was reported on by the Times\u202f earlier this year. Of 44 policies, the report states that 21 were marked red or red\/amber, showing they will be hard to achieve,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friends of the Earth further argues that the government\u2019s approach breaches its sustainable development duty, including by referencing an eight per cent shortfall in meeting the UK\u2019s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), a key climate target adopted under the Paris Climate Agreement. The NDC requires that the UK achieve a 68 per cent reduction in its emissions by 2030, as compared to the 1990 baseline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friends of the Earth lawyer, Katie de Kauwe, said: \u201cDespite having nine months to come up with a lawful strategy, we believe this revised action plan still falls far short of the government\u2019s legal obligations under the Climate Change Act. We said we\u2019d take the government to court again if we believed that they\u2019d failed to honour their climate commitments \u2013 and this is exactly what we are now doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full article\u00a0here<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making climate targets legally enforceable turns out not to be such a smart idea, except for fee-seeking lawyers. Who knew?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":267190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691818154,691818248],"class_list":{"0":"post-267184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-net-zero","10":"tag-uk","12":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/07ncjkvwjcrk01.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-17vq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":407770,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407770","url_meta":{"origin":267184,"position":0},"title":"Climate 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