The UK government is facing court for the second time in under two years over its strategy for tackling climate change.
Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and Good Law Project say the government’s revised net zero strategy – the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, published 30 March – is unlawful and have filed papers at the High Court requesting a judicial review.
The news follows a damning progress report from the Climate Change Committee, published last week, which found the UK is way off course to meet its net zero targets.
The government was required by the High Court to publish a revised strategy following successful legal challenges by the three organisations in July 2022, in which the judge underlined the critical expert role of the CCC by stating their advice must be given “considerable weight”.
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In last year’s landmark judgment, the High Court ruled that the net zero strategy, which was supposed to set out plans to decarbonise the economy, didn’t meet the government’s obligations under the Climate Change Act to produce detailed climate policies that show how the UK’s legally binding carbon budgets will be met.
The trio say this revised plan breaches the Climate Change Act too, however, and that it provides “no real information” government’s assessment of the risk of the proposals and policies not being delivered and not meeting legally binding climate targets.
Friends of the Earth lawyer Katie de Kauwe said the revised plan “falls far short of the government’s legal obligations under the Climate Change Act.”
At the same time, the information that the plan does include confirms that many of the technologies being relied on to deliver substantial emissions savings are high risk, raising serious questions about the government’s assumption that they will be delivered ‘in full’.
ClientEarth CEO Laura Clarke said the new plan “is not fit for purpose.”
“It relies heavily on unproven and high-risk technological fixes at the expense of near-term action – yet the government ‘assumes’ that it will be delivered in full, despite these stark risks,” she added.
