Sir Keir Starmer has announced a new goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 as he attends the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan on Tuesday.
Here we answer key questions on what this means in practice.
What is this new goal?
In a speech to world leaders at COP29 on Tuesday, the Prime Minister announced a target to cut UK emissions by 81 per cent by 2035, compared with the country’s 1990 levels.
The target covers greenhouse gas emissions that occur within the UK’s borders but excludes those from international aviation and shipping (IAS).
It comes as part of the UK’s new national climate action plan — or nationally determined contribution (NDC) — which each country must put forward to the UN every five years to outline how it intends to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit dangerous global warming.
The 81 per cent target is in line with recommendations published by the independent UK government advisers on the Climate Change Committee (CCC) last month.
How is the new goal different from the UK’s domestic target?
It is and it isn’t.
The newly announced NDC target is in line with the UK’s existing domestic target to cut emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, compared with 1990.
This target was set in law in 2021 under the government’s sixth carbon budget — one in a series of legally
binding targets that outline the amount of greenhouse gases the UK can emit to achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
The domestic goal includes international aviation and shipping, whereas the NDC target does not.
The UK’s targets remain some of the most ambitious in the world and it has called on other countries to match this ambition to address the urgency of climate change.
What must the UK do to achieve the goal?
The CCC recently warned that the UK is off track to meet its 2030 climate targets, with only around one third of the emissions reductions required covered by credible plans, mostly in the electricity supply and surface transport sectors.
So the country will need to drastically accelerate changes to high-emitting industries over the next decade.
According to the government’s advisers, delivering on the target will mean ending heating homes with natural gas boilers, lower meat and dairy consumption and a switch to electric cars.
The CCC said electricity will need to be zero carbon by 2035, with a phaseout of gas power that does not have technology to capture and store its carbon emissions, and renewables — in particular offshore wind — generating 70 per cent of power.
It also said sales of natural gas boilers need to be phased out by 2033 with the majority of homes switching to heat pumps that run on electricity.
Sales of new petrol and diesel cars, motorbikes and vans, including plug-in hybrids, must be phased out by 2032, with most new sales ended by 2030.
People should also be encouraged to reduce their meat and dairy consumption by 20% by 2030, which will free up land for restoring peatland so it absorbs carbon and to plant trees.
And cuts to demand for other carbon intensive activities will also be needed, including slower growth in flights, reductions in car travel, and cutting waste and boosting recycling, the advisers said.
By 2035, 460,000 hectares of new mixed woodland must be planted to remove carbon dioxide and woodland cover will need to increase from 13 per cent today to 15 per cent.
And 260,000 hectares of farmland must shift to producing energy crops, and peatland — including agricultural land — needs to be restored.
Will Labour drive these changes?
The new Labour government is full steam ahead with ambitions to make the UK a clean energy superpower.
It moved the goal to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system forward by five years to 2030, although admitted it will still require some gas on the system as a back-up.
To deliver on this, ministers have announced an investment programme in homegrown British energy – including renewables, carbon capture and storage, nuclear and hydrogen.
The Prime Minister also plans to push the private sector to “start paying their fair share” when it comes to climate commitments.
While the CCC has welcomed the actions taken by the government so far, it warned that further action is needed to speed up the deployment of low-carbon solutions such as electric vehicles, heat pumps and tree planting.
Yet critics have pushed back against the extent of proposed lifestyle changes, with consumers facing barriers such as higher costs, supply concerns, fears around the new technologies and low numbers of green skilled workers.
Asked if he is prepared to get more people to change their heating systems and tell them to take fewer flights and eat less meat to reach that target, Sir Keir told reporters on Tuesday: “We set out the target, which is an important, ambitious target, what we are not going to do is start telling people how to live their lives.
“The target is my target and the plan is my plan, I’m not borrowing from somebody else’s plan.
“The target is as I’ve set out today. I don’t think that, as we tackle this really important issue, the way to do it is to tell people how to run their lives and instruct them how to behave.”
