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Grant Shapps declares 'we need to combat the idea that it costs you money to go green', but campaigners insist government is failing to deliver policies that could curb energy costs

The government has this week quietly stepped up its defence of its net zero strategy in the face of growing criticism from some of its own MPs who are attempting to erroneously argue that climate policies are driving up energy bills, despite ample evidence it is soaring wholesale gas prices that are to blame.

COP26 President Alok Sharma used his first major speech since the Glasgow Summit to insist that there was "no connection" between the net zero agenda and the gas price crisis, arguing the turmoil consuming energy markets was due to "macroeconomics and geopolitics" and should be tackled through an increased build out of renewables and nuclear that could secure domestic supplies of clean energy. "Domestically the answer to cutting emissions, keeping bills under control and ensuring security of supply, is to continue to build out our world-leading offshore wind sector and invest in nuclear and hydrogen, as the government is doing," he said.

He also offered a message that appeared to be directed at the Chancellor, arguing that the economic costs that would arise from unchecked climate change meant "anyone who believes in fiscal responsibility should baulk at the idea that we would laden future generations with such unsustainable levels of avoidable debt".

His comments were followed today by the publication by the Bright Blue think tank of an interview with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in which he similarly argued that efforts to decarbonise were not to blame for recent inflation. "We need to combat the idea that it costs you money to go green," he said. "It doesn't need to, and in fact, it can actually be good value for money as well. There's a lot of pressure at the moment on energy bills and we know they're very high. When you shift your tariffs to a zero-carbon tariff, you might think it is going to cost you more. In fact, it's very easy to find some of the best and cheapest tariffs on the market which happen to be the ones that come from renewables and nuclear, not from fossil fuels."

He added that electric vehicles (EVs) provide a further example of how a switch to clean technologies can help reduce costs for households and businesses. "They are still a bit more expensive to buy, but I was out looking at cars the other weekend with my wife, and the price differential is really coming close," he said. "Once you factor in relatively little servicing as well, EVs compete."

Shapps said he had now been driving an EV for two and a half years and "it's never been in for service". "I've had no engine oil changes, no petrol, far fewer parts to go wrong, no road tax, no Ultra Low Emission Zone charges in London, or wherever else new schemes are coming into place," he added.

And he rejected arguments from some critics of the UK's net zero strategy that it is pointless trying to decarbonise domestically when large developing economies like China are seeing their emissions rise. "I don't believe that China and other countries are going to sit on their hands," he said. "China is going great guns with the electrification of cars, because they never led in internal combustion engine vehicles, they jumped at it and they're starting to export … Batteries come from there, and they are going to be doing their bit on this faster than most people appreciate."

However, the government's defence of its climate strategy came as WWF today published a major new report, which concluded that Ministers had last year squandered the opportunity to cut emissions in the short term and in the process bolster the UK's energy security and curb energy bills.

The campaign group released the latest edition of its Net Zero Test, which assesses the government's spending plans against a net zero compatible decarbonisation scenario. It reviewed the spending and investment decisions announced in the 2021 Autumn Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review, and concluded that very few of the "climate-positive" policies will deliver emissions reductions in the short term.

"In fact, on balance, the package is expected to drive up greenhouse gas emissions by 38.4MtCO2e over the next four years," WWF said, given policies designed to curb emissions are set to be undermined by £55bn of spending on high-carbon, "climate-negative" policies, like investment in new roads and the cut to air passenger duty for domestic flights.

"Ultimately the Net Zero Test concludes that the overall spending package has the potential to reduce net emissions by 745 MtCO2e, but only over a 25-year period, and assuming future spending moments align with net zero," the report said. "This reduction is less than 12 per cent of what would be needed to bring the UK into line with the Climate Change Committee's Net Zero Pathway."

It added that even where 'climate positive' were adopted the emissions impact of longer-term investments was difficult to quantify, especially given much of the government's net zero strategy is focused on research and development projects.

"The science is clear: without urgent action we face climate catastrophe," said Isabella O'Dowd, head of climate change at WWF. "The latest UK government spending package was a missed opportunity to prioritise the deep, rapid emissions cuts we urgently need and instead risks relying on technologies of the future to drive down emissions."

She added that there was compelling case for the government to apply a net zero test to all spending and policy decisions. "Adopting a Net Zero Test will help to lock in a climate-positive trajectory as well as improve transparency, ensuring future public spending adds up to a greener future," she said. "Investing to cut emissions as quickly as possible is also cost effective, reducing our reliance on volatile fossil fuels, creating green jobs and increasing the UK's resilience to the physical and economic impacts of climate change."

WWF's report echoes a number of similar analyses, which argued that the Budget and Spending Review - delivered on the eve of the COP26 Climate Summit - offered surprisingly little support for the government's net zero strategy. Ministers have delivered a wave of policies that have helped drive the rapid growth of the renewables and electric vehicle industries, but campaigners fear that efforts to decarbonise buildings, industry, and agriculture, in particular, are badly off track.

And a separate report today from the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) warns that the government is failing to maximise the savings households could enjoy from energy efficiency measures, despite evidence that a combination of energy efficiency regulations and policies are already saving the average household around £1,000 a year. The report joins a growing library of studies showing how a properly funded suite of energy efficiency policies could slash domestic energy bills, drive economic growth, reduce emissions, and enhance UK energy security.

Ministers may be mounting a robust and welcome defence of the government's net zero strategy, but they would find it easier to neutralise some of their colleagues' criticism if the Treasury had delivered more of the proven policies and programmes that can help reduce energy bills and gas imports.

Want to find out more about how the net zero transition will impact your business? You can now sign up to attend the virtual Net Zero Finance Summit, which will take place live and interactive on Tuesday 29 March and will be available on demand for delegates after the event.

Influential diplomat credited with persuading Margaret Thatcher to address climate risks and laying the foundations for global climate treaties

Tributes have this week been paid to the diplomat and environmentalist, Sir Crispin Tickell, who has died at the age of 91.

Tickell was widely credited with convincing Margaret Thatcher to become one of the first world leaders to take climate change seriously, persuading her to deliver what would become a hugely influential address to the Royal Society in 1988 in which she warned that "we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet".

"I think she regarded me as someone useful who could stir the pot for her, and perhaps challenge the orthodox wisdom, whatever it might be," Tickell once said of his inclusion in Thatcher's small band of trusted advisors.

He would go on to provide advice on climate issues to both John Major and Tony Blair, and offered guidance to the generation of climate diplomats that would ultimately deliver the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement through the UNFCCC negotiating process.

Writing on Twitter this week, Nick Mabey of the E3G think tank said it was a "real end of an era with Sir Crispin Tickell's passing", hailing him as "one of the true pioneers of environmental diplomacy and multilateralism".  

"He was truly generous in sharing his insight and experience of how to make the 'system' change," he added. "A role model in leadership for the community."

Following his retirement from the diplomatic service in 1990, Tickell became warden of Green College, Oxford, and took up the presidency of the Royal Geographical Society. More recently he also sat on the advisory board to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) think tank.

Richard Black, senior associate at ECIU, said Tickell's "influence on how the UK and indeed the world approaches climate change was far greater than his public profile".

"In the 1980s he introduced the issue to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who, as a former scientist, concluded that climate change posed a serious global threat to which the UK should play a leading role in responding," he said. "Her speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, which Sir Crispin had a central role in conceiving, elevated climate change, ozone depletion and other environmental issues in the international arena and helped usher in the UN climate convention in 1992. In the UK the continuing consensus on the need to cut carbon emissions and support climate science owes much to his vision.

"At ECIU we were honoured to include Sir Crispin on our Advisory Board from its launch until 2019, and benefited greatly from his wisdom, intelligence and experience, while also enjoying his dry sense of humour. He will be much missed."

In an obituary this week, The Times reflected on Tickell's diplomatic postings in Mexico, the Hague, Paris, and the UN, and his hugely influential and prescient 1977 book, Climatic Change and World Affairs, which argued that mandatory international pollution controls would eventually be necessary through a climate change treaty. It ended by quoting an interview Tickell gave in 1999 in which he said he was glad he was in "life's departure lounge and not the arrival lounge", adding that "the next generation is in for an awfully bumpy ride".

Ministers are facing pressure to overhaul the education system to better prepare pupils for the climate emergency and ensure they have the skills they will need to participate in the green economy

The government has this week faced growing calls to reconfigure the national curriculum to put more focus on the climate and nature crises. A growing number of experts and campaigners contend that changing the curriculum would help to accelerate the net zero transition and slow rates of nature depletion in the UK, arguing that providing citizens' with a clearer understanding of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss from a young age would drive interest low carbon careers and help plug a net zero skills gap that experts fear could derail UK's transition to a more sustainable economy.

Despite climate action being one of the UK's number one domestic and international policy priorities, it barely features in the national curriculum. A poll of roughly 4,700 teachers published this week by the Teach for the Future campaign revealed that two thirds of secondary school teachers say climate change is not taught in a meaningful or relevant way by their subject, despite nine out of 10 reporting that climate was relevant to their subject area.

The survey comes after four 15-year old schoolgirls from Oxfordshire launched a petition calling for the climate crisis to be made central to the curriculum, instead of being relegated to a few mentions in Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 for geography and science. At the time of going to press, the petition has amassed just under 95,000 signatures.

Clearly, there is growing appetite from the public for the government to plug the climate and nature gaps in the curriculum. And this week, a Bill sponsored by a cross-party coalition of MPs that would require climate change and sustainability to be embedded into the primary and secondary school curriculum, as well as into vocational training courses, is set to be debated by MPs.

The Climate Education Bill - which was written by secondary school students and was introduced to Parliament by the UK's youngest sitting MP, Labour's Nadia Whitthome - demands that students of all ages are taught about the climate and ecological emergencies, climate justice, nature, and sustainability, as well as "the need to cut carbon emissions to net zero as soon as is practically possible". It would also require that students are empowered to "care for and protect the natural environment in a way which preserves the environment for present and future generations".

"Our education system is failing to prepare young people to face the biggest challenge of their lifetimes," said Whittome. "The Climate Education Bill would ensure that learning about the climate and ecological crises is woven through every subject, for every student in primary and secondary school and those on vocational courses. It would also guarantee that teachers have the time and resources to integrate these issues across the curriculum, which the new data reveals they lack."

Environmental Audit Committee Chair Philip Dunne and Education Select Committee Chair Robert Halfon are among the Conservatives that have backed the Bill, alongside Green MP Caroline Lucas, the Liberal Democrat's Layla Morgan, the SNP's Mhairi Black, Labour's Darren Jones, Clive Lewis, Zarah Sultana, and Rebecca Long-Bailey, and the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour confirmed this morning that its front bench would be backing the Bill at its second reading, with Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change Ed Miliband noting it was "essential" that the education system reflected young people's passion for tackling the climate emergency.

"I am proud to support the Climate Education Bill - a grassroots campaign by students and teachers across the country who are calling for change," he said. "More focus on climate and nature in our schools and colleges will better equip young people with the knowledge and skills that we need to build a greener, fairer country."

The private members bill has been introduced in the same week  the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) called on the government to introduce a GCSE in Natural History from September 2024.

The government indicated it was considering introducing the new GSCE last September in a response to an EAC report about biodiversity which contained a number of recommendations for ramping up nature education in schools so as to help inspire "a new generation of ecologists".

In a letter sent on Thursday to the minister for school standards Robin Walker, EAC chair Dunne recommended the government should now approve plans for a Natural History GSCE so that it is ready for September 2024.

"The UK is facing an alarming nature skills gap, with a shortage of ecologists threatening delivery of the government's environmental objectives," Dunne wrote. "A Natural History GCSE is a logical first step, widening access to nature through education and providing a stepping stone to higher qualifications, supporting a clear skills pipeline to address nature skills shortages sustainably over the long term."

The Department for Education had not responded to BusinessGreen's request for comment about whether it intended to accept the EAC's request for a new GCSE or vote in favour of giving climate and education a more central role in the UK's curriculum.  

It remains to be seen whether either of the latest interventions will prove successful, although significant reforms to the curriculum appear unlikely given the government has to date left campaigners and MPs disappointed by its failure to deliver a bolder green skills strategy. Earlier this month the government formally responded to the EAC's recent report on the green skills gap by highlighting how the Department for Education launched a draft Climate and Sustainability Strategy at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow last year and confirming that the Department for Work and Pensions is considering how net zero and environmental goals can be incorporated into the design stages of future labour market interventions. But the response was described as "disappointing" and "piecemeal" by Dunne, who reiterated the Committee's view that "the government's grand ambitions to deliver two million green jobs lacked policy detail".

"Government departments lack a central coordination function to deliver green jobs policies," he added. "The national curriculum is not embedding environmental sustainability nor even restoring the teaching of nature into schools as we had recommended."

Frustration is clearly growing among politicians and businesses alike at the government's failure to take a more proactive and long term approach to tackling green skills shortages that could hamper the net zero transition. A clear focus on climate and nature-based education from an early age that could help deliver the next generation of electric vehicle engineers, clean energy engineers, ecologists, and conservationists should be at the heart of any green skills strategy. As such the government would be wise to engage with the cross-party coalition of MPs that have a bill ready to go that could help avert a looming green skills crunch.

Want to find out more about how the net zero transition will impact your business? You can now sign up to attend the virtual Net Zero Finance Summit, which will take place live and interactive on Tuesday 29 March and will be available on demand for delegates after the event.

A new report finds that annual spending on nature-based solutions needs to increase by 140 per cent, with special attention paid to investment in non-G20 countries

The UN is urging 20 of the world's richest nations to step up their funding for nature-based solutions in a bid to close the climate spending gap.

In a new report published yesterday, titled the State of Finance for Nature in the G20, the UN calculated that G20 countries need to invest $285bn a year in nature-based solutions by 2050 to meet global climate, biodiversity, and land degradation goals. Meeting the target would require an additional $165bn in annual investments, up 140 per cent on the current G20 spend of $120bn.

The report suggests additional spending should be directed towards official development assistance (ODA), which targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries, where the nature based solutions spending gap is larger and harder to close.

G20 investments represented 92 per cent of all global investments in nature based solutions in 2020, the report reveals. The majority of those G20 investments - 87 per cent - were directed towards domestic government programmes, while just two per cent of the $120bn annual investment went to ODA.

"In many instances, G20 countries can improve economic efficiency in nature-based solutions spending by targeting investments in non-G20 countries,'' said Nina Bisom, coordinator of Economics for the Land Degradation Initiative, a contributing organisation to the report. "For example, the average cost of converting land from other uses to nature-based solutions in G20 countries is USD 2.600/hectare, while the same costs only USD 2,100/hectare for non-G20 regions."

The report also suggests that private sector spending should increase to deliver the additional nature based solutions funding required to meet targets, revealing that private sector investments made up just 11 per cent of the total G20 spend at around $14bn a year.

Future global investment in nature based solutions should reach $536bn a year, of which G20 countries should account for around 40 per cent, according to the UN. The report also finds that G20 countries have the capacity to meet this investment and stresses that the world's richest nations should now move to align their development and economic recovery from the pandemic with international climate goals.

Ivo Mulder, Head of UNEP's Climate Finance Unit, said: "To scale up private finance, governments can boost the investment case for nature, for instance by creating stable and predictable markets for ecosystem services like forest carbon or by using public money on below-market rates."

"Systemic changes are needed at all levels, including consumers paying the true price of food, taking into account its environmental footprint. Companies and financial institutions should fully disclose climate- and nature-related financial risks, and governments need to repurpose agricultural fiscal policies and trade-related tariffs."

Government and corporate interest in nature based solutions is growing, with investment in projects to protect forests and expand natural carbon sinks increasing globally. However, the trend remains highly controversial in some quarters, raising concerns over the wider impact of changing land use and sparking criticism from many environmentalists over the expansion of a carbon offset that they allege is badly regulated and can even lead to higher overall emissions.

In related news, Natural England yesterday announced an £11m boost to three nature recovery projects in the north of England and Scottish borders, while Foreign Minister Lord Goldsmith separately announced the UK government is to invest £2m of UK Aid into protecting marine environments in the eastern pacific.

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