Going to save the planet?????

Tory row erupts as Rishi Sunak eyes rollback of key green plans

‘We’re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people,’ British Home Secretary Suella Braverman says.

BY MATT HONEYCOMBE-FOSTER

Splits in Britain’s governing Conservative Party burst into the open Wednesday as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak prepared to loosen a host of key environmental policies.

The BBC reported late Tuesday that seven green policies now face a rethink — throwing big disagreements over Britain’s climate strategy into sharp relief and prompting warnings from business groups about chilling the country’s investment climate.

The late night report prompted a hurried statement from Sunak insisting he remains committed to the U.K.’s headline goal of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Downing Street later confirmed the prime minister will deliver a speech from Downing Street at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

“No leak will stop me beginning the process of telling the country how and why we need to change,” Sunak said ahead of the address.

“As a first step, I’ll be giving a speech this week to set out an important long-term decision we need to make so our country becomes the place I know we all want it to be for our children.”

Johnson: We can’t afford to falter

Changes reportedly under consideration include shifting a 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales to 2035; phasing out 80 percent of new gas boilers, rather than all of them, by 2035; delaying a 2026 ban on off-grid oil boilers to 2035; ensuring no new energy efficiency rules are imposed on landlords or homeowners; ruling out taxes to discourage flying; no new policies to encourage carpooling; and a rethink of planned recycling schemes.

Sunak insisted realism about climate plans “doesn’t mean losing our ambition or abandoning our commitments — far from it,” and said the U.K. remains “committed to net zero by 2050 and the agreements we have made internationally — but doing so in a better, more proportionate way.”

But the report has exposed deep rifts in the Tory party, which signed the net-zero pledge into law but includes MPs deeply skeptical of the push to decarbonize the U.K.

Voicing that view, Home Secretary Suella Braverman — on the right of the party — told Times Radio Wednesday morning: “We’re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people.”

Braverman told BBC’s Radio 4 she would not “pre-empt” Sunak’s speech, but said the cost of “achieving some of these arbitrary targets has to be taken into account.” And she added: “We don’t want to set targets which are totally unrealistic and punitive.”

The Tories were buoyed earlier this year by a successful local election campaign that put opposition to a London-wide clean air measure front and center.

But Sunak’s old rival Boris Johnson was among those warning against a shift in strategy, warning Wednesday lunchtime that firms “must have certainty about our net zero commitments.”

And the former Tory prime minister added: “We cannot afford to falter now or in any way lose our ambition for this country.”

Alok Sharma, who served in Johnson’s Cabinet and headed up the COP26 climate summit, said shifting the goalposts would be “incredibly damaging for business confidence, for inward investment, if the political consensus that we have forged in our country on the environment and climate action is fractured.”

He told Radio 4: “Frankly, I really do not believe that it’s going to help any political party electorally which chooses to go down this path.”

Already the reported proposals have sparked concern from some industry groups.

In a statement, carmaker Ford U.K. said it needed “ambition, commitment and consistency,” from the government. And it warned: “A relaxation of [the] 2030 [electric car goal] would undermine all three.”