The government have identified climate action as a core mission set out in their manifesto. Framing this in terms of Britain becoming a ‘clean energy superpower’ has generated considerable initiative around renewed climate action, but in this article, Professor Matthew Paterson outlines how this approach creates policy gaps – and potential political problems.

• Labour has been ambitious in climate action aims. Seeking to get emissions on a more aggressively downward path, consistent with the net zero target for 2050 and the UK’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.
• But key parts of a climate policy package from the manifesto have been given little attention in other announcements by the new government.
• The Warm Homes Plan, a clean energy supply chain and the decarbonising of transport are all key components the new government should prioritise.

An ambitious start

We have seen vigorous action early in the new government’s time in office, including legislation on climate action (creating Great British Energy, reforming the Crown Estate, and to promote Sustainable Aviation Fuel).

Beyond legislation, the approval of new solar plants, rescinding the ban on onshore wind, expanding financing for renewable energy, and announcing relaxation of planning rules for future renewable energy projects, all signify a more rapid start than most commentators anticipated, and governments ambition (even if it not as ambitious as many green organisations want).

A ‘clean energy superpower’?

The framing in terms of making the UK a ‘clean energy superpower’ entails two interconnected ways of focusing climate policy action.

Firstly is the focus on energy security – an argument that enhanced climate action can also address the risks to the UK energy system made acute by Russia invading Ukraine. The rationale for aggressively pursuing renewable energy has been to show that it can detach UK energy prices from world natural gas prices and thus from the risks of global crises.

Others have argued the opposite – that the response to these energy security risks must be to expand UK fossil fuel production. The government have taken this opposing argument on explicitly – alongside the shifts in investment in renewable energy, they have engaged in the symbolism of calling their new public company ‘Great British Energy’, to underscore the nationalist/security rationale at the core of their approach.

Secondly, it is framed in terms of industrial innovation and investment. The creation of Great British Energy, but also reforms to the Crown Estate and the creation of the national wealth fund, all are driven by a concern about under-investment not only in (renewable) energy, but the economy more generally.

As with the energy security framing, the industrial strategy one fits a broader trend over the last decade across Western countries to develop such strategies in the face of economic competition with China, intensified by the supply chain shocks of the COVID lockdowns and increasingly by competition specifically over securing access to and control over the many ‘critical minerals’ that are central to renewable energy technologies.

Effective framing – but accompanying challenges

This twin framing of the challenge signals that the new government have integrated climate policy deeply into their overall political and economic strategy. It signals that they have understood some of the key challenges to sustaining climate policy – by making it connect to other objectives that they have and by which they will be judged. And it has so far been very effective in generating the dynamism needed to reinvigorate climate action in the UK.

But there are various challenges the government will face as it moves forward.

There has been very little on the climate aspects of the government’s transport policy announcements. Decarbonising transport is crucial to the next stage of climate action. Also, within the focus on energy, there is very little on the energy demand side within buildings (especially housing).

The Warm Homes Plan was an integral element of the overall strategy in the manifesto. This would involve noticeable investments (the manifesto mentioned £6.6bn over the life of the Parliament) in retrofitting housing to achieve energy demand reductions. Delivering climate policy benefits whilst addressing energy poverty and housing-related health inequalities. But this has been little mentioned since the election. Without addressing the demand-side, the expanded energy production will have to pick up more slack to meet climate targets, with limited effects on household energy bills especially for those on low incomes.

Another issue concerns details of the industrial strategy component. In both the election manifesto and the Kings Speech, Great British Energy has been talked about generating investment across the entire supply chains involved in ‘clean energy’. This is key to generating the industrial innovation and wide-ranging jobs potential. Presently the UK imports the vast majority of renewable energy capacity –  solar panels, wind turbines, EV batteries, and all the components involved in making those back to mining the key minerals involved (lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, etc).

‘Onshoring’ much more of this production, could deliver huge economic benefits in terms of jobs and investment. But when the government talks about the details of what GBE will do, it focuses almost exclusively on the installation of renewable energy capacity – the wind turbines generating ‘clean’ electricity for the UK. This is crucial to keep emissions going down but limits economic benefits the UK could get from such a strategy that will make it sustainable in the face of political challenges.

Climate policy backlash

The third issue is how to deal with ongoing backlash against climate policy in the UK. While in recent years this has been focused on EVs, heat pumps, and fracking, the looming tension is over expansion of electricity infrastructure. The phrase ‘energy system reform’ in the Labour manifesto has this at its heart: enabling the grid to deliver expanded electricity supply particularly from offshore wind.

The Conservative government had in fact already announced major investments in such infrastructure in early 2024. This is integral to the electrification of home heating, transport, and industry: electricity capacity is estimated to need to be triple current capacity to achieve this. Focusing more on reducing demand mitigates this problem by reducing overall energy consumption – but only to an extent. We have already seen an emerging backlash against this that the government will have to manage and respond to. It is uncertain if the current approach threatening Labour councils that refuse planning permission for pylons will be sufficient.

Moving forward on climate action

Three broad policy conclusions are worth drawing from this.

• Acceleration and prioritisation of the Warm Homes Plan is key to combining goals for climate action with those of social justice (associated with energy poverty and housing related health problems). It will also forestall elements in the ‘net zero backlash’ that have been successful in highlighting the social injustices created by climate policy.
• Identify more urgently how Great British Energy will invest across the ‘clean energy’ supply chain rather than just in installation of renewable energy. This will maximise the jobs and economic regeneration potential of green energy and is something that the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero should develop and launch a clear strategy for.
• Pick up the thread on decarbonising transport. The only area where this has been announced is in sustainable aviation fuels. Electrifying rail and investing heavily to switch transport from road to rail (as well as to cycling in urban settings) is, alongside electrifying cars, crucial to the next stage of reducing emissions.