Ahead of general elections next year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided to revise a host of policies aimed at achieving ‘net zero carbon emissions’ by 2050.
Sunak vowed to pursue a “pragmatic” approach to hitting the climate target. He also announced ‘an easing of energy efficiency targets’ for rental properties, and backtracked on nonsense plans to make homeowners replace gas boilers with heat pumps.
Al-Jazeera reported:
“’We can adopt a more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach to meeting net zero’, Sunak told a news conference on Wednesday, saying a ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars would be pushed back from 2030 to 2035.”
The decision comes amid widespread concern over the financial cost of the government’s ‘net zero’ goal.
With next year’s general election, and Sunak’s Conservative Party badly trailing in the polls behind the Labour opposition, Sunak decided at long last to tackle the rampant cost-of-living crisis that has seen food and housing costs spiral.
It also helped that a viral campaign against the expansion of a ‘vehicle pollution toll zone’ by London’s Globalist Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan triggered calls among conservatives to rethink climate commitments.
“Stressing that ‘no one can doubt’ the reality of climate change, Sunak said he was a firm believer both in net zero and the UK’s ability to achieve it.
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But he added that ‘too often motivated by short-term thinking, politicians have taken the easy way out, telling people the bits they want to hear, and not necessarily always the bits they need to hear’.
‘We haven’t had an honest conversation about these issues in a long time. It’s not enough to just announce these targets – great headlines in the short term – to will this thing to happen. That’s not right’, he said.”
The move sparked anger among opposition lawmakers, climate alarmists, the electric car industry and even some Conservative MPs.
In the vein, in July, Sunak approved hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, off Britain’s east coast, angering all the usual groups.
Daily Mail reported:
“Mr. Sunak said it was now up to opponents, including Labour, to explain why hard-pressed families should pay thousands of pounds to move faster than other countries in tackling climate change.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today program: ‘They should explain to the country why they think it’s right that ordinary families up and down the country should have to fork out five, 10, £15,000 to make the transition earlier than is necessary’.”
Sunak claimed Britain ‘was already a world leader in tackling climate change’. Britain’s target to reduce carbon emissions is by 68 per cent by 2030, compared with EU average of 55 per cent, a US target of 40 per cent and a Canadian goal of ‘just’ 20 per cent.
“The PM said people with ‘more ideological zeal’ about climate change ‘just don’t care about the impact on families’ and insisted his green shift was ‘not about politics’.”
This could prove a differential at the next election from Labor’s extremist climate proposals.
“In a major intervention last night, the PM announced that grants for installing heat pumps would rise by 50 per cent to £7,500 in order to encourage take-up. But he said it was not reasonable to force households to switch to a system where upfront costs can be £10,000 or more.”
The PM tried to emphasize the position of reforming ‘green policies’ from inside, and not alienating the population to the point where they would completely bail on it.
Reuters reported.
“Sunak said he was changing the policy because previous governments had moved too quickly to set net zero targets, without securing the support of the public.
‘If we continue down this path, we risk losing the British people and the resulting backlash would not just be against specific policies, but against the wider mission itself’, he told a press conference.”
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