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Boris Johnson’s government will struggle to reach its net zero target unless local councils get involved in making homes more energy efficient, MPs have warned.Ahead of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK ministers have set out proposals to encourage green home improvements as part of a wider plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.But MPs on the housing committee said the government’s strategy lacks proper funding for local authorities to help make Britain’s homes more energy efficient.Labour MP Clive Betts, the chair of the housing select committee, said councils must be given support to help deliver change. “The government must learn the lessons of past failed nationally delivered ‘green’ schemes,” he said.Mr Betts added: “To meet the scale of the challenge and enable local councils to make long-term decisions on behalf of their communities, the government should also come forward with a long-term funding plan for local authority climate action.”The government’s plan to hand out £5,000 grants to help residents replace their gas boilers with green heat pumps over the next three years has been branded “inadequate” by environmentalists.Only 90,000 of the UK’s 22 million gas-heated households will benefit from the £450m commitment, according to Friends of the Earth. Greenpeace also warned it “stopped short of what is required”.The report published by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on Friday also claimed the government’s strategy lacked ambition.The MPs said there was a risk a large number of existing gas boilers will simply be replaced with new gas boilers unless families were given a greater incentive to make changes.“Moving to lower or zero emissions from new homes is important,” said Mr Betts. “But to reach net zero, it’s crucial that insulation is improved in existing homes and that householders are offered viable choices and incentives to replace their gas boilers and decarbonise their heating.”The MPs report also urged the government to set funding plans to decarbonise heating beyond 2025, and bring in a new target of moving to zero carbon homes by 2030.The Local Government Association (LGA), the body representing local authorities across England, said council bosses would have to be “at the core” of the country’s efforts to hit the net zero target.“It is absolutely crucial that councils are at the forefront of the national response to climate change,” said councillor Darren Rodwell, the LGA’s environment spokesperson. “We need the government to work in partnership with local authorities to … help to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner.” More

“Insufficient care” in changes to how farmers receive subsidies has led to a “haphazard” transition process, risking livelihoods, MPs have warned.After Brexit, the government is replacing the EU’s agricultural subsidies with a new payment system designed to help farmers while also boosting biodiversity, protecting soils and improving access to land.While the old EU system largely paid farmers based on the area of land they farmed, there are concerns the new system, known as the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, could inadvertently put greater pressures on farmers to extract money from their land – possibly through increased use of unsustainable practices.The Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee warned the government’s handling of the transition means farmers are now left with considerable uncertainty about how the seven-year transition to the new system would affect their businesses.The committee said the government department responsible for implementing the process – Defra – has put “insufficient emphasis and care” into managing the transition, risking a “haphazard” process with unintended consequences.The report criticised the government’s communication with farmers, saying Defra must “develop a clear engagement strategy which connects with the full range of farmers and land managers, or its plans will risk falling at the first hurdle.”As well as there having been delays in communicating the new policy to farmers, the committee also highlighted particular challenges the system presents to those farming the uplands.“Defra must avoid ‘squandering’ the potential of uplands, tenant farms and common land to deliver public goods such as carbon capture and storage,” the report said.The ELM payments should follow the same path as the previous EU subsidies did, the committee said – where farmers were not rewarded for taking action to revitalise the environment – and they said the new payments must fairly and fully represent the costs of delivering green action.Defra must publish an impact assessment detailing the consequences of the transition for different agricultural sectors and regions, develop a clear engagement strategy with farmers, and publish precise and measurable objectives for ELM.The committee also urged the government to retain the current budget for agricultural payments until at least 2029.Neil Parish, chairman of the Efra select committee, said: “This is the most fundamental change to agricultural funding in a generation, and the impact of this huge change on farmers’ incomes and entire ways of life cannot be underestimated.“The plan to support farmers through this transition must be robust, and it must be able to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.”He accused the government of being determined to plough ahead with phasing out the old payments without considering how it would affect farmers’ livelihoods and the environment.“It is essential that the government undertake the necessary work to understand exactly what the consequences of this transition will be.”He added: “These schemes will only be successful if uptake is high- and this can only happen if land managers are clear on how ELM will work for them.“It is essential that Defra engage effectively with the full range of land managers and farmers to communicate its plans, and that it funds peer-to-peer learning, which will build the confidence needed for the English farming sector to fully embrace the change.”A Defra spokesperson said: “Our future agricultural policy will move away from the arbitrary land subsidies and top-down bureaucracy that epitomised the EU era and incentivise farmers to farm more sustainably, create space for nature and enhance animal welfare outcomes. We are supporting the choices that farmers make for their own holdings.“Since January, in England, we have increased the money going to Countryside Stewardship, we have consulted on an exit scheme and we will be setting out plans to support new entrants.”Additional reporting by PA. More

Campaigners have criticised the government for scrapping a planned fuel duty rise, saying the freeze on petrol and diesel taxes for the twelfthyear in a row amounted to a subsidy for drivers of polluting vehicles just days before the UK hosts a major climate summit. Rishi Sunak announced in the Budget on Wednesday that the planned rise in fuel duty would be cancelled because of high pump prices.The chancellor said he was “not prepared to add to the squeeze on families and small businesses”.The move, which will cost the taxpayer nearly £8bn over the next five years, drew sharp criticism from clean air and active travel advocates, coming just days before the UK hosts the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow. Jemima Hartshorn, founder of clean air pressure group Mums for Lungs, told The Independent: “The chancellor clearly hasn’t made the connection between the climate emergency, public health, the pandemic and the need for combining all of these in a responsible Budget that addresses future challenges but also ensures the health of children now.”The UK continues to suffer from illegal levels of pollution linked to emissions from the high numbers of cars, taxis and lorries on the roads. Ms Hartshorn said motor vehicle owners “receive much more generous subsidies compared with sustainable means of travel, such as public transport. This needed to be addressed in the Budget so that investment and subsidies from the government ensure that everyone is encouraged to travel in a way that is not polluting and harming our children.”Simon Munk, campaigns manager at the London Cycling Campaign, also criticised the government for the fuel duty U-turn and said the government should focus on discouraging unnecessary car journeys rather than making it cheaper to drive. “We understand that many people are struggling with the cost of living, but with Cop26 looming, and the planetary climate crisis rightly in starker focus than ever before, this announcement is the polar opposite of what the government needs to do to help save our planet and our country from runaway climate change,” he said.“We urgently need to swap the government’s £27bn roads building programme to building active travel and convenient, affordable public transport schemes, and move towards a system of charges that discourages avoidable trips by car, and helps people switch to good, sustainable alternatives. “In London that means a long-term funding deal on active travel and public transport for TfL and the Mayor, and them having the ability to implement ‘smart road-user pricing’ inside the M25.”Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the fuel duty freeze was a “big tax loss” for the Treasury and “hardly consistent with climate change objectives”.However, warnings about the climate and health impacts of the policy were brushed aside by motorists. At one forecourt in London, drivers told The Independent they welcomed any move to keep prices down. Liz Durham, a dog walker from Clapham Junction, said petrol had become much more expensive since the pandemic. “Filling up my tank cost £58 today,” she said at the Jet petrol station in Loughborough Junction, south London. “When I bought this car three years ago it would never have cost me this much. Prices have gone up a lot recently and the whole thing is such a mess. “Cutting fuel duty will be beneficial to anyone who has to drive, like me. I have to drive for work, the dogs don’t collect themselves.” Samantha Stewart, who lives in nearby Brixton, also backed the fuel duty freeze. “Driving has been very expensive since the whole petrol-gate thing,” she said, referencing the shortages of drivers last month which led many petrol stations to temporarily close after running out of fuel. “I have noticed prices shooting up. If fuel duty had risen it would have affected us financially. £40 on petrol used to go a long way, but not anymore. Those that are less vulnerable should drive less, and more people should walk, but I have long Covid so it is more difficult for me.”RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “We welcome the chancellor’s confirmation that duty will continue to remain frozen at 57.95p a litre until next year. With pump prices at record highs, now would have been the worst possible time to change tack and hike up costs still further at the forecourt.” More

The government will cut taxes on domestic flights to make it cheaper to fly within the UK, Rishi Sunak has announced – despite being told by his climate advisors that he needs to reduce aviation.In a budget delivered just days before the UK hosts the Cop26 UN climate conference in Glasgow the chancellor said he wanted to make internal air travel cheaper to “cut the cost of living”.And he also announced that the government will continue to freeze fuel duty, a policy which has made it increasingly cheaper to drive compared to more environmentally sustainable alternatives.Mr Sunak’s announcement attracted the ire of environmentalists, with Green MP Caroline Lucas warning that the chancellor did not “get the memo on the climate emergency” and Friends of the Earth branding the move “astonishing”. It comes a day after the government’s own Climate Change Committee (CCC) told Boris Johnson he needed discourage people from flying and that his administration’s net zero strategy had “nothing to say” on aviation.Mr Sunak’s policy in flights is the polar opposite of some other European countries – which have increasingly moved to restrict domestic air travel where rail alternatives are available.But the government is moving to push passengers from rail to flying by cutting the price of internal flights while rail fares are set to rise at the fastest rate in a decade from January.”Right now people pay more for return flights within and between the four nations of the United Kingdom than they do when flying home from abroad,” Mr Sunak told MPs on Wednesday afternoon.”We used to have a return leg exemption for domestic flights, but were required to remove it in 2001. “But today, I can announce that flights between airports in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will from April 2023 be subject to a new lower rate of air passenger duty.”Mr Sunak claimed the policy would “help cut the cost of living with nine million passengers seeing their duty cut by half”. “It will bring people together across the United Kingdom, and because because they tend to have a greater proportion of domestic passengers it is a boost to regional airports like Aberdeen, Inverness and Southampton which are major regional employers.”The Chancellor also confirmed he would extend state support to English airports for a further six months to “help them get through the winter”.Mr Sunak also said he would create a new “ultra long haul band” of air passenger duty affecting just 5 per cent of passengers would increase air passenger duty on flights over 5500 miles long.In a statement earlier this week the CCC, a statutory body which advises the government on meeting its climate change targets said: “The government does not include an explicit ambition on diet change, or reductions in the growth of aviation, and policies for managing travel demand have not been developed to match the funding that has been committed. “These remain valuable options with major co-benefits and can help manage delivery risks around a techno-centric approach. They must be explored further with a view to early action.”Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, said: “Cutting Air Passenger Duty on domestic flights is an astonishing move that completely flies in the face of the climate emergency. The Chancellor should be making it cheaper for people to travel around the country by train, not carbon-guzzling planes.“Air Passenger Duty for all flights should have been increased, or even better replaced with a frequent flyers levy, aimed at curbing multiple flights taken by a minority of people each year.“As the Prime Minister prepares to host next week’s crucial climate summit, this retrograde step is another illustration that the government’s carbon reduction plans don’t add up.”Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK said Mr Sunak was “actively making things worse by making it cheaper to fly between UK cities”, while James Thornton, chief executive of campaign group ClientEarth the announcement on fuel and domestic flight duties “goes against everything we know about climate change” and warned that the UK had “missed a crucial chance to lead by example”. Luke Murphy, head of the environmental justice commission at the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank, meanwhile said Mr Sunak had “used the budget to extend the ages of fossil fuels”.“Cutting air passenger duty was the most significant new policy mentioned in the budget speech today which will have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions – and it will increase them. Rishi Sunak talked for longer about beer duty, than our duty to future generations to address the climate and nature crises,” he said.“The truth is, this climate-void, fossil-fuel heavy budget failed to deliver the necessary £30 billion of investment needed each year to meet our climate and nature targets.”And Sam Alvis, head of green renewal at Green Alliance, said the chancellor’s approach to climate was “increasingly difficult to understand”.“Just days away from a vital climate conference championed by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak barely mentions net zero and encourages people to fly around the UK rather than take the train. The measure on air passenger duty will even cost the Treasury money rather than boost its revenue, he said.Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow energy and climate secretary said: “Another Budget from the Chancellor which failed on both the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis. “No green recovery, no plan to save families £400 on bills, no plan for green steel. Working people will pay the price of Tory climate delay.” More

Boris Johnson’s strategy for cutting emissions to net zero is a major step forward – but will fail to reduce demand for flying, the government’s climate advisers have said.The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said the strategy set out by Mr Johnson’s government last week had left some big gaps, including measures to reduce the number of flights.The independent committee which advises UK ministers said the new strategy had “nothing to say” on limit the growth in aviation sector or encouraging diet changes away from meat – insisting these steps are crucial in cutting emissions.“The government does not include an explicit ambition on diet change, or reductions in the growth of aviation, and policies for managing travel demand have not been developed to match the funding that has been committed,” said the CCC.The committee added: “These remain valuable options with major co-benefits and can help manage delivery risks around a techno-centric approach. They must be explored further with a view to early action.”The committee has released an assessment of the strategy published by the government last week on meeting the UK’s legal goal to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 – which included action on home heating, clean cars and power, and planting more trees.The CCC said the strategy was an achievable and affordable plan that would bring jobs and wider benefits. The strategy’s ambitions also align to the UK’s legal targets of net zero by 2050 and a 78 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035, the advisers said.But the committee said there were still some gaps, arguing that more had to be done to tackle emissions from agriculture and improve home energy efficiency, as well as encouraging some big behavioural changes.The experts said it government should do more to reduce the demand for high-carbon activities such as flying.It follows the deletion a document which recommended strong “interventions” to tackle aviation emissions, including curbs on airport expansion and subsidies, from the government’s website last week.A research document commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) – taken down hours after the net zero was published – had urged ministers to consider a series of “interventions”.In a report released on Tuesday, the CCC also said further plans were needed to improve home energy efficiency in the 60 per cent of UK households that are owner-occupied but not in fuel poverty.And while there is more focus across government on net zero, that does not constitute a full “net zero” test on all decisions – raising the risk of policy or planning decisions that are not compatible with climate efforts, the CCC said.The assessment has been published just days before the UK hosts the crucial Cop26 summit in Glasgow, where world leaders will gather to drive forward efforts to combat global warming.Committee chairman Lord Deben said: “The net zero strategy is a genuine step forward. The UK was the first major industrialised nation to set net zero into law – now we have policy plans to get us there.”He said ministers had made the “big decisions” to cut carbon out of the power sector by 2035, phase out diesel and petrol vehicles, and back heat pumps for homes. “I applaud their ambition. Now they must deliver these goals and fill in the remaining gaps.”He said the committee will continues to “hold their feet to the fire” as it was required to under legislation mandating for emissions cuts and to advise UK and devolved governments.A government spokeswoman said: “We value the Climate Change Committee’s expert advice as we work to implement our comprehensive plan to finish the job and eradicate the UK’s contribution to climate change by 2050.“As the committee rightly highlights, our world-leading net zero strategy builds on the UK’s proven track record of having decarbonised faster than any other G7 country in recent decades.” More

Rich countries will be three years late in putting together a long-promised $100bn climate crisis fund for poor nations, a pre-Cop26 study says.The target is seen as crucial to winning the trust of developing countries to make their own CO2 cutting commitments in Glasgow next week, but stood $20bn short in 2019.Now the study confirms the original target of $100bn by 2020 has been missed, but expresses “confidence that it would be met in 2023”.A disappointed Oxfam said: “This plan claims that rich nations will meet their target three years late.”Germany and Canada were handed responsibility for piling pressure onto the richest nations to make commitments to stump up the missing billions, in the run up to Cop26.The report says its projection that $100bn will be achieved in 2023 is “based on pledges made by developed countries as of 20 October, 2021”.The UK has pledged around £2.3bn each year until 2025, but The Independent revealed the cash will be swiped from the shrunken foreign aid budget – despite a requirement that they be “additional”.The delay until 2023 was attacked by aid groups including ActionAid International, which called the announcement “the bare minimum needed to build trust in the climate talks”.“Making good on a promise made more than a decade ago is setting a pretty low bar for a successful Cop26,” said Teresa Anderson, the organisation’s climate policy coordinator.She also warned that 71 per cent of support is in the form of loans, which is “pushing climate vulnerable communities deeper into debt and poverty”.Jan Kowalzig, senior climate policy adviser at Oxfam, pointed to “the money that poorer countries are owed for every year they fell short”.“This shortfall, which started to accumulate in 2020, will likely amount to several tens of billions of dollars,” he said.“These are achievable amounts of money – governments have spent trillions on Covid-19 fiscal recovery packages, which show their ability to act in an emergency. This is an emergency.”The report fails to set out which countries are providing how much climate finance – but Joe Biden pledged, last month, to double the US’s contribution to $11.4bn per year.The UK has declined to increase its pledge – made two years ago – as a respected thinktank suggested it is shortchanging developing countries by around £1.9bn a year.Germany and France are among leading contributors, while Australia, Canada and the US are low payers – while Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece have been criticised for confusion over their donations.The UK government admitted it was “disappointing that the goal has not been met so far”, but Cop26 president Alok Sharma said “progress” was now clear.The announcement was “a step towards rebuilding trust and gives developing countries more assurance of predictable support,” he argued.But Matthew Pennycock, Labour’s climate change spokesman, called the wait until 2023 “of the utmost concern”.“This is a matter of trust for states on the frontline of the climate crisis and every wealthy country falling short, including the UK, will need to do more to reassure them,” he said. More

Boris Johnson joked that feeding people to animals could help solve the biodiversity crisis facing the planet during a climate press conference with children on Monday.The prime minister was discussing the challenges facing the natural world with conservation charity WWF UK’s chief executive Tanya Steele.“I think we need to bring nature back,” she said. “Our planet, 97 per cent of the mass of mammals on this planet is humans and our animals, our domestic animals.“Just 3 per cent is left for the wild.”The prime minister responded that it was “so sad” before adding: “We could feed some of the human beings to the animals, that would, that would be…”Ms Steele jokingly replied: “We could have a vote later and ask if there’s any candidates.“ The off-script remark came after Mr Johnson surprised environmental campaigners by claiming recycling plastic “doesn’t work”.During the press conference at No 10 he said: “Recycling isn’t the answer. Recycling… it doesn’t begin to address the problem.”Ms Steele said: “We have to reduce, we have to reuse – I do think we need to do a little bit of recycling, PM, and have some system to do so.”But Mr Johnson replied: “It doesn’t work.”Responding to those comments, the Recycling Association said the prime minister had “completely lost the plastic plot”.Chief executive Simon Ellin told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “Wow, I think is the first answer. It’s very disappointing. I think he has completely lost the plastic plot here, if I’m honest.“We need to reduce and I would completely agree with him on that but his own government has just invested in the resources and waste strategy, which is the most ground-breaking recycling legislation and plan that we’ve ever seen, with recycling right at the front of it.“So he seems to be completely conflicting with his own government’s policy.” More

Nicola Sturgeon has said Cop26 needs to see “significant uplift” in the ambition to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s most polluting countries, and also said the conference must recognise growing levels of anger at inaction, particularly from younger generations.She also suggested the controversial Cambo oilfield in the North Sea, which has been backed by the UK government, should be reviewed.Speaking in front of an audience of students and young people in Glasgow a week before the UN’s climate summit begins, Ms Sturgeon called on world leaders to take “credible action” to achieve net zero.She also warned that without the conference resulting in more determined action from governments, such events could serve to further inflame tensions over politicians’ handling of the climate crisis.Speaking about recognising the “fundamental issues of fairness and justice that lie at the heard of the climate crisis”, she said young people “will live their lives with the climate that my, and preceding generations have created”.“All leaders at Cop26 must truly understand the concern, the entirely justified anger, that so many young people across the world feel.”“I know that in some ways, what Cop26 represents – rich countries coming together to haggle and negotiate over the future of the planet – might intensify rather than alleviate your anger.”“On the need for climate action there is no doubt at all that your generation is far ahead of mine.“I know that some of the most challenging interactions I’ve had on climate policy have been with young activists – I’ve been pushed to go much further and faster, and quite rightly so.”She said one key measure of whether the conference could be considered a success was how it was regarded by young people.She said: “For all of us in positions of leadership today, there is a really important standard that we must hold ourselves to: Can we look you and your peers across the world in the eye and say we’re doing enough? Right now the simple answer to that question is no, we’re not.“So a fundamental test of Cop26 is that it starts to turn that no into yes.”Speaking more widely about what was required to get to this point, Ms sturgeon focused on the countries with the biggest greenhouse gas emissions, which she said must “step up the most”, and urged them to sign up to emissions cuts by 2030.Countries must “be clear in their ambition to reach net zero”, she said.“To be credible their pledges must be backed by action.”“The hard fact is this: keeping 1.5 alive – which has become the strapline almost, for Cop26 – is vital, but it mustn’t just become a face-saving slogan, it must be real.” More