Skidmore Mission Zero

The Independent Net Zero Review
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-78590-848-4
Verlag: Biteback Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 544 Seiten

Mission Zero is a landmark independent report into the delivery of the UK's commitment to net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Chaired by Chris Skidmore, the UK's former Energy Minister who was responsible for signing net zero into law, its conclusions set out, for the very first time, a new economic narrative for climate policy, demonstrating the vast financial opportunity that net zero can deliver. This timely and crucial report acts as a template for how all countries can map out future challenges and opportunities and, above all, deliver their own pathway to net zero while also creating new jobs, industries and investment for the future. Commissioned by the UK's Prime Minister in September 2022, Mission Zero is the largest engagement exercise on net zero conducted to date and has been widely recognised as the most informative and detailed document on the topic, covering every sector and aspect of society. This important book is a vital piece of work and an indispensable must-read for anyone interested in energy, climate and sustainability policy.

Rt Hon. Chris Skidmore OBE MP was appointed chair of the UK's independent review of net zero in September 2022 and published Mission Zero in January 2023. He was the UK's Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (attending Cabinet) when he signed the UK's net zero commitment into law in June 2019 - making the UK the first G7 country to do so. He also secured the UK's presidency of the UN COP26 conference in Glasgow. Previously, he has served in five government departments, including twice as Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation between 2018 and 2020. He is a senior fellow (2021-23) at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and a professor of practice, focusing on net zero policy, at the University of Bath.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Skidmore, Chris

Leseproben

Introduction
Back in June 2019, the UK became the first G7 country to sign our commitment to net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 into law. This landmark commitment followed on from the passing of the pioneering Climate Change Act in 2008 – making the UK the first major country to establish a clear governance framework on how to achieve emissions reductions and showcasing our international climate leadership. I was fortunate to have been the UK’s Energy Minister at the time, responsible for signing our net zero commitment into law. The impact was immediate: within weeks, I had managed also to help secure the UK’s successful candidacy to host COP26 in Glasgow. The UK was considered a global climate leader, the leading nation in the G20 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 50% compared to 1990 levels. Two years later, at COP26, the Glasgow Climate Pact demonstrated the UK’s ability to bring nations together to deliver on emissions reduction targets by 2030. As a result, over 90% of the world’s GDP, represented by 80% of all nations, pledged to a net zero target in some form. The reality is that we are now in a global net zero race. The rest of the world, along with international investment communities, have woken up to the fact that energy transition is a new economic reality. The year 2022 marked a watershed moment for global investment in net zero – not least from the US Inflation Reduction Act, with its commitment of placing clean technologies at the heart of future economic strategy. The global reality of the energy crisis and rising gas and fossil fuel prices in 2022 also demonstrated the importance of delivering future energy security through the greater use of domestically generated renewable and clean sources of power, while seeking to better reduce energy demand. Net zero is not merely the essential policy framework to meet our climate commitments from the Paris Agreement, it has become, as the review sets out, the economic opportunity of our generation. After leaving government in 2020, I decided to continue to champion not only the environmental importance of net zero but its economic value too. I became chair of the cross-party Environment All Party Group, as well as setting up the Net Zero Support Group of Conservative MPs. When the Conservative leadership contest took place in the summer of 2022, I was also determined to ensure that every candidate demonstrated their support for net zero. This included organising a hustings so candidates could set out their wider vision on climate action, as well as helping to create a Conservative Environment Pledge that committed candidates who signed to delivering net zero by 2050. When Liz Truss was elected as leader of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister in September 2022, I received a call from her asking me to chair an independent review into net zero. I was to produce a report within three months on how net zero could be achieved in a more affordable and more efficient manner, one which was pro-business and pro-growth. The Net Zero Review may have taken place only across 100 days, but I was determined to ensure that it was the largest engagement exercise ever undertaken on net zero. The review sought to engage, listen and learn from businesses, organisations, industries and communities from across the UK. We received over 1800 written submissions as part of our official Call for Evidence – testament to the strong interest in delivering on net zero – as well as holding over 50 evidence roundtables, visiting every devolved nation in the UK and region in England. I spoke personally to a thousand participants in our engagement sessions. The recommendations made in this review came from this extensive engagement. I sought to understand not only the barriers that are preventing businesses, regions, communities, and households from taking further action to decarbonise but to also explore the opportunities that can catalyse further economic growth. Above all, the Net Zero Review sought to ask how the UK can deliver on its net zero commitments by demonstrating how to deliver and implement most effectively and efficiently a plan for our future energy transition. Climate commitments and net zero targets remain just words on a page without a clear, consistent, and stable transition plan. The review’s recommendations require not merely action but careful decisions to be taken. Central to delivering net zero will be making the right decisions at the right time, to ensure that we achieve net zero in the most efficient manner possible. A crucial element of making decisions, however, is recognising that to delay making them creates new consequences, the costs of which can be greater than previously anticipated. Equally, rushed and poorly executed decision-making can produce adverse consequences, with similar costs. This review sought to establish how best to create a delivery ecosystem to achieve the best possible decisions for the future. This requires not just government to play its role – it’s also very important that we empower the agency of regions, local communities, and individuals to play a greater role in their own net zero journey. The question of how we create a ‘big bang’ moment for net zero, enabling and unleashing the potential of the whole of the UK to seize the opportunities that net zero presents, was a key focus in the review. Across the review, I sought to make recommendations for government, for each sector and industry, for local regions and authorities, and indeed, for individual households. Net zero decision-making requires action, not merely from government but from all stakeholders involved. Not all these recommendations will be able to be implemented immediately: indeed, the over-riding message of the review is that we must deliver greater certainty, consistency and clarity across net zero policy making, with a stability of approach that requires long-term planning. The Net Zero Review was clear that there are recommendations that can be taken forward now; there will be others that the government will be unable to take forward without further engagement and consultation with industry and communities. It is also understood that government will not be able to accept every recommendation. However, where it can act now, I argued that the costs of doing so will be less if action is taken sooner. The Net Zero Review made in total 129 recommendations to government but at the same time took an approach that recognises what recommendations should be taken forward now, with a ‘25 by 2025’ framework – 25 policies that could be realistically delivered by 2025 – alongside other wider recommendations. Each recommendation, however, was set an individual timeframe for expected delivery. At the same time, the review set out ten 10-year missions, hence the title of the report, Mission Zero. It set an achievable outcome across a range of key sectors, including grid and infrastructure, solar, onshore wind, nuclear, industrial decarbonisation, energy efficiency and buildings, greater local action, the circular economy, research and development, and enhancing the role of nature in net zero. The impact of the Net Zero Review and the Mission Zero report has been wider than I could have expected. The government officially responded to the review’s recommendations in detail at the end of March 2023, accepting around 70 recommendations both in terms of the policy and the timeframe and agreeing to take up another 30 recommendations without committing to a timeframe. Of the 29 recommendations that the government did not accept, some, such as a net zero duty on Ofgem, have subsequently been adopted during the passage of the Energy Bill through Parliament. The Net Zero Review was intended, however, to be truly independent and cross-party. I met with all political parties during the course of the review’s engagement and consultation period, and I hope that its recommendations, set across a long-term period and calling for long-term strategic and stable policy frameworks, can be reconsidered and adopted by whichever political party forms the next administration after the general election in 2024. Net zero by 2050 will only be achieved if all political parties can agree consensus on climate action, given that there will likely be several administrations of different political persuasion on the road to net zero. But we also need to recognise that net zero is not merely about a distant target. It is also about halving emissions globally by 2030. Nearly every country has set ambitious targets for decarbonisation in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), as part of the UNFCCC process established under the Paris Agreement. Many countries now need, in the next seven years and counting, to step up and deliver real-time, real-terms emissions reductions. At the same time, there are increasing calls for a global commitment to trebling renewable power generation by 2030 and doubling energy efficiency measures by the same date. To achieve this and more, I believe many countries can learn from the process undertaken in the UK’s Net Zero Review. Bringing all sectors, regions, and organisations together to map out effectively not only what needs to be achieved but how it can best be delivered and implemented on the ground and identifying the challenges and barriers currently in the way of effective decarbonisation – what I term the ‘debris on the...