Net zero in UK by 2050 is within reach, says climate committee

The UK can reach its net zero targets for 2050, and its interim carbon budgets for 2030 and beyond, the government's statutory climate advisers have reported, in an unusual vote of confidence in green policy.

- Fiona Harvey Jillian Ambrose

But difficult decisions cannot be ducked, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) added, in its annual progress report to parliament - including a pressing need to overhaul how energy is taxed to make electricity much cheaper than gas.

Piers Forster, the interim chair of the CCC, said: "This is an optimistic report. It is possible to meet our carbon budgets for 2030 and 2050, provided we take steps forward [on policy]. It's very important that our country steps up to deliver our commitments."

The longstanding net zero target, put in place by the Conservative prime minister Theresa May in 2019, has come under sustained attack in recent weeks from the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and from Reform UK.

Badenoch has repeatedly called net zero "impossible" and this month called for the repeal of the windfall tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea.

Reform's deputy leader, Richard Tice, has called the target "net stupid zero" and told the Guardian he believed Labour would quietly back down on the issue.