Less of the ‘green crap’: UK politicians want to take edge off net-zero pain
LONDON — British politicians think they know what the people want this weekend — less of the “green crap.”
Senior Conservative and Labour politicians have been assuring voters they want to take the edge off a suite of bold policies designed to tackle climate change and pollution after the ailing Conservatives clinched a surprise victory in an outer-London by-election opposing an ultra-low emissions zone (ULEZ), a green tax levied on higher-polluting cars.
Allies of Labour’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the architect of that expanded ULEZ scheme, made it clear he is in listening mode after last week’s election result. City Hall is expected to look at new ways to mitigate the financial impact of the policy. It comes after Labour Party leader Keir Starmer on Friday urged Khan to “reflect” on the impact of the extension of ULEZ into Uxbridge, the former seat of Boris Johnson where the election was held.
Meanwhile, veteran Conservative Cabinet minister Michael Gove, a former environment secretary who was once seen as one of the Conservatives’ most vocal green crusaders, told the Sunday Telegraph he wants to relax current plans to bring in stricter minimum energy efficiency standards for landlords by 2028.
“My own strong view is that we’re asking too much too quickly. We do want to move towards greater energy efficiency, but just at this point, when landlords face so much, I think that we should relax the pace that’s been set for people in the private rented sector, particularly because many of them are currently facing a big capital outlay in order to improve that efficiency,” Gove told the paper.
Gove was former Prime Minister Theresa May’s environment secretary when the government enshrined into law a target of eradicating the U.K.’s net contribution to climate change by 2050.
In an interview with the Financial Times, meanwhile, Energy Secretary Grant Shapps said North Sea oil and natural-gas licenses should be granted for all viable oilfields and gasfields, as long as it was consistent with the net-zero ambitions.
It is not the first time Conservative ministers have cooled on green promises in the run-up to an election.
In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron reportedly ordered aides to get rid of the “green crap” from energy bills in a drive to bring down energy costs. Cameron had made the environment a core election issue in 2010 when he invited people to “vote blue, go green.”
The U.K. government has also recently been under pressure from senior Conservatives over former Prime Minister Johnson’s pledge to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the U.K. by 2030.
Asked if the government should drop its commitment, Lee Rowley, a junior minister in Gove’s housing department, told GB News: “It’s about doing this in a way that works. We’ve got a target. Let’s all go and try and do as much as we can to get there.”
But asked about his own driving habits, Rowley said he had a diesel car, bought in 2008, which he would keep going “until it stops working.”
Calling for more nuance in the net-zero debate, Rowley said that he hoped people would move to electric cars, but that those with existing cars should hold onto them for as long as possible because of the energy used to create them.
