The Colorado Republican, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, has attracted controversy. She has alienated fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill and back home. And her reelection prospects are dimming.

President Joe Biden is targeting Boebert. He’ll travel to her district Wednesday to highlight CS Wind, a renewable energy manufacturing company in Pueblo.

Still, Boebert says she’s making a concerted effort to advance policy important to her district.

“Obviously, a lot of people see me as a fighter — I had to fight to get here,” she said in an interview. “But I do believe I have arrived to a position where I am taken seriously in this country as an effective legislator. And I’m very proud of that.”

Such talk might raise eyebrows, especially from someone whose brand has mostly revolved around media appearances, strong fealty to former President Donald Trump and calling those engaged in Covid-19 vaccination outreach “Needle Nazis.”

Infamously, she and a date were kicked out of a Denver theater in September for vaping and groping. Boebert has since apologized.

Boebert campaigned on water issues in her 2020 bid for the House and moved to act on her promises, but her early flirtation with QAnon conspiracy theorists — which she has since disavowed — and actions like calling Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) part of a “Jihad Squad” repeatedly overshadowed her work.

Now some fellow lawmakers and advocates are giving her at least some credit for digging in on policy.

“She’s a serious legislator,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who sits with her on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Even some Democrats are offering grudging respect and have noticed a shift, though with caveats.

“I’m not ready to pronounce her a serious legislator,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said. “But I will say that I appreciate the fact that there’s been a noticeable reduction in the performative antics.”

A review of Boebert’s policy efforts shows she’s getting traction on several fronts.

She has secured amendments to freeze a Biden administration overhaul of oil and gas regulations on federal lands and remove endangered species protections for gray wolves.

Boebert has also secured funding for important district projects like water treatment facilities and irrigation projects. Those would-be successes have yet to be enshrined into federal law.

Some Democrats have noticed her willingness to work with them on certain issues.

“We might disagree on some things,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), who is working with Boebert on a bill — H.R. 8601 and S. 636 — to extend conservation protections in her district.

“But she hasn’t been obnoxious to work with in any way. … Obviously, she’s got a different take on energy than I do. But that’s whether you got spots or stripes,” he added.

The 36-year-old grandmother and former oil pipeline inspector faces a brutal reelection bid, after winning last cycle by just 546 votes.

Democrat Adam Frisch, her 2022 opponent, wasted little time announcing he would seek a rematch.

Before taking on the Democrats, Boebert has to vanquish a competitor from within her own party, Grand Junction-based attorney Jeff Hurd.

Even though he agrees with some of Boebert’s policy positions — on addressing gray wolves, and permitting and regulatory reforms — he said the district deserves a “serious and credible and hardworking” candidate.

Boebert has waved off concerns about her tight race to represent Colorado’s 3rd District, even if she noted the busy congressional calendar has kept her in Washington longer than she’d prefer.

“I like to think I spoiled my constituents being in the district so much last Congress,” she said. “I certainly go home on the weekends and try to visit them as much as possible, but you know … the appearances aren’t going to be as frequent as they were in the first Congress just ’cause there is so much to do on the East Coast.”

Her campaign put a finer point on it.

“Congresswoman Boebert has passed more pieces of legislation out of House committees this year than anyone in Colorado’s House delegation,” campaign manager Drew Sexton said in an email.

“When this election takes place, Colorado’s 3rd District voters will clearly understand she has led the way to securing tens of millions of dollars for water, infrastructure and economic development projects for their communities.”

‘Trying to moderate myself’

Boebert showed up to Congress flaunting her gun and running her mouth, but some Democrats now say she’s figuring out how to holster both those weapons.

Huffman acknowledged that he’s “locked horns” with Boebert on Natural Resources, notably over her gun advocacy and wanting to be armed on Capitol Hill. During an interview this summer, Huffman said he has noticed a change in attitude.

“Hey Lauren!” Huffman yelled over to her. “I just got asked if you have reached out to any Democrats about any bipartisan legislation. Is there anything you would like me to work with you on?”

Boebert had a ready-made list.

“I would like you to help me with my ‘CONVEY Act’ and my Dolores River bill,” she told him, referring to measures that would transfer 31 acres of Bureau of Land Management land to a local county for economic development and the bipartisan conservation effort, respectively.

“These are all natural resources, and I’m currently working on revamping my forestry legislation. And I’m trying to moderate myself with that a little bit so we can get some agreement on it.”

She also has a water bill that would protect the sucker fish.

“It’s Endangered Species Act, you love that,” she told him. “Those are all my top priorities, and I would love to work with you on those.”

As she walked away, Huffman said, “So yeah, you can certainly notice the effort.”

Still, he said, she continues to introduce bills that are “wildly controversial and just terrible policy, and probably terrible politics, too.”

He pointed to her “Trust the Science Act,” H.R. 764, which would require the Interior Department to remove protected status for the gray wolf.

“We had a recent election of both her and the wolf in Colorado,” he said, referring to the state’s 2020 vote on Proposition 114 to reintroduce the gray wolf, which passed by a margin of just 57,000 votes out of more than 3.1 million cast statewide. “The wolf’s more popular. So I question some of the battles she picks.”

‘A serious legislator’

In the recent debate over the fiscal 2024 Interior-Environment spending bill, Boebert succeeded in adding eight amendments to the bill.

Her wins focused on a host of issues popular in her rural district.

Among those was a proposal to shift $5 million from EPA to hazardous fuels reduction in national forest lands, as well as language to halt the BLM’s proposed Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process rule.

Boebert also had some red meat for her conservative base. She floated a proposal to slash the salary of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Liz Klein to $1, calling her a “radical, partisan extremist.” It failed overwhelmingly.

“She’s doing what’s right for her constituents,” said fellow Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, who co-sponsored the gray wolf legislation with Boebert. “She’s doing what’s right for the environment. She’s doing what’s right for wildlife management. She’s principled.”

Another Republican who sits with Boebert on Natural Resources offered high praise.

“I think she’s actually very smart,” said Luna, the Florida Republican. “And she’s been very effective. Oil and gas is a major component of her district so she’s advocating [for her constituents].”

Luna pointed to Boebert scoring six amendments in the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs spending bill.

“That was incredible. She’s a serious legislator. I know the media tries to paint her as not, but she is,” Luna said.

‘Not just all throwing grenades’

Within her district, Boebert has also won praise for her active support of the “Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Area Act,” H.R. 1534.

The bipartisan effort, backed by both of the state’s Democratic senators, would include 52,000 acres of BLM lands and 15,000 acres of Forest Service lands across three counties in the southwest corner of the state.

Those lands would be managed “to conserve, protect, and enhance the native fish, whitewater boating, recreational, scenic, cultural, archaeological, natural, geological, historical, ecological, watershed, wildlife, educational, and scientific resources.”

The proposal is the result of more than two decades of negotiations among local residents and stakeholders to protect the region while avoiding a more restrictive Wild and Scenic River designation.

“The counties have been working on that for a lot of years, so by the time she got elected it was a little late to be a driving force, but she’s definitely been a contributing force,” said Shak Powers, who works for the nonprofit Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado, which serves local communities and the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute Indian tribes.

Powers, who previously worked as Montezuma County’s administrator, which is not an elected position, praised Boebert’s attention to the district, both in terms of constituent services and her legislative efforts.

“She has been very attentive,” Powers said, pointing to Boebert’s work on the Dolores River as well as on drought mitigation projects.

Boebert has been an advocate for both state and federal funds — supporting local grant applications and pursuing a U.S. Forest Service pilot program — for removing invasive species like Russian olives and tamarisk, or salt cedars.

He also credits Boebert for her attention to increasing broadband access in the region, pointing to ongoing efforts by her office to pursue unallocated Federal Communications Commission funds designated for that purpose.

“I think she’s got a lot of political opposition that would just as soon highlight her being far-right and not give her credit for any of the things she does well,” Powers said.

He added: “It’s not just all throwing grenades across the aisle in Congress; she’s doing what she can for the 3rd District.”

Earlier this year, Boebert also began embracing earmarks — funding for specific projects in a district, which was revived by Congress in 2021.

She submitted 10 requestsfor more than $34 million in funds for her sprawling district. She did not request any funding in fiscal 2023.

The projects would bolster reservoirs, address drinking water quality, and build new roads and a bridge. The congressional stalemate on spending, however, could endanger those efforts.

A matter of style?

A sprinkle of bipartisanship may not be enough to secure Boebert’s return for the 119th Congress.

Despite her seat’s Republican advantage — the Cook Political Report gives the GOP a 7-point edge in the district, which spans the entire Western Slope and most of the state’s southern border — observers also see the seat as one of the most competitive of the 2024 cycle. Cook rates the race a toss-up.

That’s in part due to Boebert’s narrow victory in 2022 to Frisch. The former Aspen City Council member has been talking up his prospects in 2024, telling the Guardian last month that people are “sick and tired” of the “circus.” His campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

As for the primary challenge, Hurd in October rolled out a major endorsement from former Gov. Bill Owens, the last Republican to lead the state, as well as nabbing the backing of key officials from Delta and Mesa counties.

In an interview, Hurd acknowledged that Boebert has targeted some important issues for the district — including delisting the gray wolf to allow ranchers to protect their livestock — but asserted that she has failed to pursue economic policies that would benefit the rural district.

“We’ve been suffering because of our incumbent’s inability to advance that kind of legislation in a meaningful, bipartisan way,” Hurd said. “I think it’s critical that we have somebody that is principled, but also pragmatic and who recognizes the need to work across the aisle to advance economic issues.”

Hurd noted that even on issues that should be a win for the district, Boebert’s bid for attention stands to derail progress.

He pointed to Boebert’s name for the gray wolf legislation, the “Trust the Science Act,” suggesting that the title could be off-putting to would-be co-sponsors.

“I agree with the policy goal, I think it’s critical that we delist the gray wolf,” Hurd said. “But we need to make sure that if we actually want to get this passed into law, that we can do it in a way that will encourage getting as much support as we can, including from folks on the other side of the political aisle.”

Hurd, who has represented electric cooperatives in his work with the law firm Ireland Stapleton Pryor & Pascoe, added: “I think I would stylistically approach this in a different way.”

Boebert herself expressed little concern that her theatrics could undermine her efforts, even after she introduced articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden, claiming he failed to uphold immigration laws. The effort fizzled on the House floor and angered many Republicans.

Her campaign was unfazed by political attacks of any kind.

“As expected, Congresswoman Boebert’s opponents are flat-out misrepresenting her strong legislative accomplishments,” Sexton said.

Moreover, Boebert said that gender may play a role in how she’s perceived. “I think women do have to prove themselves a little more to be taken seriously,” she said.

Ultimately, she said she’s unconcerned about the year ahead and will continue to fight.

“Democrats are going to try everything they can to buy this seat,” she said. “I am not worried about that.”

Source : E&E News

The post Boebert Leans Into Environment Policy in Bid to Win Over Critics appeared first on Policy Print.

Climate change influences the frequency and intensity of wildfires in many areas of the United States. Trees remove carbon from the atmosphere, so tree planting can mitigate climate change. However, managing forests to prevent large destructive fires can involve thinning and prescribed burning, which releases a portion of forest carbon. To complicate matters further, large fires themselves can release significant carbon.

John W. Coulston and colleagues analyzed data from more than 130,000 national forest inventory plots to project how recent legislation to increase fire management and tree planting in the United States could affect the country’s forest carbon sequestration 30 years into the future, given various fuel management, climate, economic, and energy use scenarios. The research is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.

Fuel reduction activities could remove 194–288 million metric tons of carbon from western forests over the next 10 years. However, fuel management can also increase annual net carbon sequestration rates over the long term, both because trees in thinned stands can grow larger faster and because avoided fires reduce overall emissions.

By 2050, fuel management could actually increase annual carbon sequestration over business as usual. This increase is modest, however, and the projected cumulative 2022–2050 carbon sequestered under fuel management scenarios is 200–310 million metric tons less than business as usual.

All wood removed during fuel management was assumed to be an emission for the purposes of the analysis, but the authors note that wood product innovation could change that picture by allowing carbon removed from forests to be stored in durable wood products.

Source : Phys

The post Analyzing Policy-Driven Changes to US Forest Carbon Sequestration appeared first on Policy Print.

In terms of environmental policy, the coalition agreements announced last week are objectively extreme. Despite the agreements opening with an acknowledgment of the “long-term economic, social and environmental challenges” the country faces, they then commit to dismantling environmental policy that has been built over decades by successive governments driven by public concern.

First, both agreements seek to do away with recently reformed resource management law, including the Natural and Built Environment Act. This is the country’s overarching environmental law, under which other policies such as freshwater and biodiversity policies will sit. It was finalised this year and was designed to be brought in gradually over the coming decade.

Not only do both coalition agreements commit to repealing this newer resource management law but, according to the National-Act agreement, to replacing the Resource Management Act with policy that has “enjoyment of property rights as the guiding principle”. 

The extreme individualism demonstrated by this is the opposite of the collective, government-led response that is essential to addressing long-term environmental challenges like climate change and water pollution.

This National-led coalition’s proposals on environmental policy echo its widely condemned choices on tobacco in that they appear willing to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of the wider community to increase the wealth of industries and individuals who are already wealthy.

The Resource Management Act was brought in in 1991, passed under a National government. Its purpose: to guide the sustainable management of the country to “safeguard the life-supporting capacity” of the natural environment, protect the interests of future generations, and “avoid, remedy or mitigate” impacts on the environment. 

Thirty years ago, a National government recognised that water, soil, air (etc, otherwise known as the natural world we all live in) needed to be looked after and that government had a responsibility to do this. It also recognised that as a society, we wanted to leave our children a healthy place to live.   

Concern for the health of the environment has only increased since 1991, not just in New Zealand but internationally. 

These coalition agreements and new National-led government, therefore, appear years, if not decades, out of touch with public sentiment and the direction the rest of the world is moving in. They also fail basic tests of understanding of the nature of the “economic, social and environmental challenges” highlighted in the first line of the documents’ preamble.

As the communities of Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay understand after Cyclone Gabrielle, the safety and “enjoyment” of the places we live in rely in large part on the actions and responsibility of many other people; individuals, industries and agencies. Our health, safety, security and wellbeing takes a serious hit when silt and forestry slash barrel through a valley and into our home or business.

“Property” is the narrowest characterisation of people’s interaction with the natural world around them and our natural resources (this, of course, is to say nothing of the fact that those of us without property have rights when it comes to our environment too).

Take drinking water as an example. The vast majority of us don’t get our drinking water from our property: it comes from an aquifer, river or other waterbody. The safety and quality of that water is directly related to the actions of people across multiple properties and public land. 

New Zealand’s environmental policies recognise this reality: that collective responses, guided by government, are essential to responsible care of the places people live in. This has been recognised for decades (though policy implementation and enforcement are another matter).

As many communities’ waterways (including drinking water sources) have become more polluted, as the impacts of climate change become clearer and the consequences for the health of communities and native biodiversity more widely understood, the public has continuously pushed for stronger policies to address these challenges. This includes the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and the latest (and strongest) version of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. These policies came about due to public pressure and are slated to go under both the National-Act and National-NZ First agreements. 

Both agreements indicate the new government wants a return to the unrestrained and unthinking intensification of agricultural land that began in the early 2000s. Both emphasise a return to promotion of large-scale irrigation and water storage schemes that drove the intensification of agriculture in places like Canterbury. Such schemes have played a major role in nitrate contamination so serious that it breaches human drinking water standards. These human health standards are about 10 times higher than what is needed for the health of the wildlife that lives in waterways and, increasing evidence suggests, for the health of communities.

In 2017, Sir Peter Gluckman, the chief science adviser to then prime minister Bill English, produced a report on freshwater and wrote, “New ways of utilising our land for economic gain that also have lower environmental footprints need to be found and adopted if we are to meet the vision New Zealanders have for their fresh waters.” That same year the OECD warned, “New Zealand’s growth model, based largely on exploiting natural resources, is starting to show its environmental limits with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution.”

Improved policies in recent years are the result of public pressure, and critique from grassroots community groups to international organisations. With global shocks from climate change and the pollution of water and air hitting communities at home and around the world, the pressure for greater environmental protection through government policy will only get stronger and more intense: not only from our own people but from the international community, who have come to expect leadership from New Zealand. 

A rational, responsible government, therefore, would be taking environmental policy forward, not backwards. 

Source : The Spinoff

The post The Government’s Extreme Environmental Policies Will Take Us Back Decades appeared first on Policy Print.

Climate change poses severe and multiple threats to Nigeria’s current and future development and should be taken more seriously by the Nigerian government and other critical stakeholders, a new report by Agora Policy, an Abuja-based think tank, has said.   

• “It is evident that climate change is not a marginal or peripheral issue that the government and the people of Nigeria can take lightly,” says the report titled “Climate Change and Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria,” which was released today in Abuja and was produced with the support of the MacArthur Foundation.  

The report acknowledges and details a plethora of climate-related initiatives, including policies, programmes and projects and even the 2021 climate change law put in place or undertaken by successive Nigerian governments but it claims that the potentials of these initiatives and interventions are undercut by the absence of commensurate action, lack of synergy and inadequate funding.  

According to the 84-page report, Nigeria, despite her relatively low emission profile, is already bearing the brunt of the effects of changes in climatic conditions and of adverse weather events but that the tolls could be significantly higher. 

Unless urgent and bold actions are taken, the report adds, Nigeria risks becoming one of the worst-affected countries by climate change, with grave implications for the country’s currently fragile economic, social and human development indicators.   

• “Climate change is compounding poverty challenges in Nigeria and impeding the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals,” adds the report. 
• “Climate change is already increasing hunger, poverty, disease-burden, migration, conflict and insecurity in Nigeria. It is damaging infrastructure, changing Nigeria’s coastlines, fueling desertification, producing water scarcity, facilitating erosion and resulting in the loss of revenue for states and the national government.” 

The report states that as at 2020 Nigeria losses at least $100 billion annually to the effects of climate change and the country may lose trillions of dollars in manufacturing, construction and oil and gas assets likely to become stranded as the world gravitates to a green economy.  

• “Nigeria risks becoming a stranded country,” the report asserts. “Climate change has the potential to further jeopardize Nigeria’s economic development and alter its geographical, social and political trajectory for decades.” 

The report highlights the different channels through which adverse effects of climate change could worsen in Nigeria and further compound the country’s developmental challenges.

Some of the highlighted areas include: projected 2.9- and 5.7-degree Celsius rise in temperature across different ecological zones in the country; increased occurrence of floods, droughts, erosion and rising sea levels; the likelihood that 75% of the delta could be lost; and further adverse effects on agricultural yields, food security, health burdens, water and energy sufficiency, peace and security, and adequacy and longevity of critical infrastructure.  

However, the report also identifies opportunities for Nigeria to address climate change while supporting economic growth and resilience.  

• “Climate change offers opportunities for economic competitiveness, energy security, and sustainable development,” states the report.
• “There are many climate-led opportunities that Nigeria can explore to enable rapid economic growth, create jobs for a rapidly growing youthful and urbanizing population, and address high levels of abject poverty and inequality through a just transition.” 

Urging Nigeria to consciously pursue a climate-compatible development agenda, the report recommended the following strategies to the country: investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency, promoting climate-smart agriculture, embracing green manufacturing, harnessing natural resources for adaptation, and enhancing disaster risk reduction systems. 

• “Leveraging climate action to pursue economic development in Nigeria is not only a viable but an essential strategy,” says the report.  
• “The global transition from a high-carbon economy to a low-carbon economy is already well underway and will produce winners and losers across the world.
• Whether Nigeria will swim or sink in the face of the transition will depend on its willingness to take urgent action now and re-align its national development strategies towards a low-carbon economic future.
• To transform climate change from a significant threat into an opportunity requires deliberate planning supported by immediate, bold and courageous action.” 

Other prescriptions made by the report for Nigeria include: strengthening national climate change framework; mainstreaming climate change into the country’s development process; building a climate-resilient and competitive economy; boosting adaptive capacities of communities in different ecological zones in the country; incentivizing investment in low-carbon industries; increasing public awareness about climate change; advocating for a fair and just energy transition; and pursuing a collaborative approach to low-carbon development.  

• “It is our hope that this report will further raise the policy profile of climate change issues in Nigeria and trigger the necessary actions on what is clearly an existential issue for our country,” says Waziri Adio, the founder of Agora Policy.
• “Climate change did not feature as a major issue in the 2023 general election, despite the significant challenges and opportunities it presents to the country.
• It has also not featured as a major priority of the new administration. This needs to change, and urgently too.”  

The release of the report will be followed by a policy conversation in Abuja on 22 November 2023, with the theme: “Nigeria, Climate Change and the Green Economy.”

The event will be organized with partners as part of the buildup to COP28 starting in UAE later this month.  

The report was put together by a team of four renowned experts: Professor Chukwumerije Okereke, director of the Centre for Climate and Development at Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi State; Professor Emmanuel Oladipo, a leading specialist on sustainable development, environment and climate change; Ms. Ifeoma Malo, co-founder of Clean Technology Hub and a development and governance expert; and Dr. Fola Aina, a development, peace and security expert.   

Produced with the support of the MacArthur Foundation, the report is the fifth policy paper commissioned by Agora Policy to contribute to national debate before, during and after the landmark 2023 elections in Nigeria. The other four reports focused on the state of the economy, security, gender and social inclusion, and transparency and accountability. 

Source : Naira Metrics

The post Agora Policy: Climate Change Poses Grave Risks to Nigeria, Deserves Greater Attention appeared first on Policy Print.

A landmark EU anti-deforestation regulation that entered into force in June 2023 could come down hard on smallholder farmers in mainland Southeast Asia who produce a significant proportion of the region’s forest products exported to the bloc, forest trade experts say.

The EU’s deforestation-free regulation (EUDR) aim to prevent seven forest-related commodities and their products from entering the EU market if they’re found to be linked to deforestation.

The rule requires producers and companies trading timber, palm oil, soy, rubber, cattle, cocoa and coffee into the EU to provide detailed evidence proving their goods were not grown on land deforested since 2020. The new regulations give producers and companies until December 2024 to fully comply.

While the regulation is a step toward transparency and international deforestation-free supply chain management, observers say it places millions of smallholders who depend on access to the EU market in a vulnerable position. Many small-scale farmers lack the technical capacity and financial capital to meet the hefty due diligence requirements of the new rules, experts say.

Smallholders produce 95% of Vietnam’s coffee, 42% of Indonesia’s palm oil, and 95% of Thailand’s rubber. Finding ways to avoid small-scale producers being shut out of EU supply chains should therefore be a top priority for both exporting countries and the EU, according to Phuc Xuan To, a policy adviser at sustainable finance think tank Forest Trends. 

“There are a lot of concerns and worries about [the EUDR],” Phuc told Mongabay. “[E]ntire sectors, like the Vietnam coffee industry, are unsettled; many don’t know where to start and it’s particularly challenging for smallholders.”

In Vietnam alone, more than 2 million smallholders operating across roughly 6 million plots of land are engaged in the country’s three major forest-related commodities that enter EU markets and are directly affected by the new rule. Vietnam’s timber, rubber and coffee generate combined revenue from the EU in excess of $2.5 billion annually.

Among the major challenges of the new rule is a stipulation that producers and traders provide precise geographical coordinates for all plots of land from which their products are sourced. This is meant to enable buyers in the EU to trace commodities back to the farm where it was grown in order to verify that they’re deforestation-free.

However, the process of verifying land use rights and plantation registration certification, let alone gathering geolocation data, is protracted, complex and slow in many parts of Southeast Asia. Phuc said the monitoring systems and databases simply don’t exist. It will be “highly challenging if not impossible” over the short term, he added.

A major stumbling block is working out how to finance the initial stages of putting land registration and geolocation mechanisms in place. “Getting land-use titles and clear land demarcations requires a lot of resources,” Phuc said. “You have to go to the land, measure the land, mark the boundary and so on, it costs a lot of money. The [Vietnamese] coffee sector estimate it would have to pay $3 billion for that sort of background work. Who is going to pay for that? The smallholders?”

Crucially, the new regulation risks neglecting the intricate webs of cross-border trade in forest products in Southeast Asia. By focusing on onerous and expensive data collection at the farm level, Phuc told Mongabay, the regulation is missing out on the opportunity to address the “substantial” regional cross-border trade of deforestation-linked goods that could ultimately reach EU markets.

“If we look at how Vietnam imports timber from Laos, rubber from Cambodia, coffee from Laos … once it enters the country it is mixed with locally sourced supplies and then exported to Europe,” Phuc said. “How can those imports be traced? We’re not talking about small-scale imports here, there’s more than $1 billion worth of rubber imported from Cambodia each year, it’s on a massive scale.”

Such mixing of forest products via processing countries like Vietnam typically means that commodities that harm local people and the environment in other countries could still be deemed as “legal” and enter supply chains to the EU.

A lot of work remains to be done before the EU rule can be effectively applied to cross-border trade, Phuc said. “The cross-border aspect is not factored into the new regulations. The tracing of where commodities are produced in each country is complex, and to some degree, I don’t think it’s going to work, at least in the near future.”

Protecting smallholders

Experts have also highlighted that given the new EU rule relies on national laws and human rights standards, which are often weak and poorly applied in many parts of Southeast Asia, smallholders are particularly vulnerable to a spectrum of abuses. 

If smallholders lacking official land-use rights, land tenure, or capacity to comply with the new regulation are shut out from the EU market, support systems that safeguard against land grabbing, dispossession and violence must be in place, said Nathalie Faure, a senior program officer at RECOFTC, a Thailand-based community forestry nonprofit. The new regulations have the potential to stimulate such much-needed legal reforms, she added.

“The purpose of the regulation is really to create the sustainability of products, so there’s potential for having better access to information, better rules around sustainability, greening local economies,” Faure told Mongabay. “And it might create legal reforms in relation to certain aspects, such as land tenure, sustainability and trustability.”

Faure added that there’s a risk of traders cutting ties with smallholders deemed “high risk” under the new EU rule and switching to larger, less scrupulous and less ethical suppliers, but with larger capital to comply. This, ultimately, would undermine the EU’s intention, she said.

Tran Quynh Chi, a regional director at IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative, a social enterprise headquartered in the Netherlands, told Mongabay the new rules serve as an opportunity for forest commodity sectors to develop more responsible approaches to business. “This is really an opportunity to make the markets and the sector transformed toward more transparency and sustainability,” Tran said.

Tran said 10-15% of smallholders engaged in the coffee sector in Vietnam live in poor rural regions close to forest edges. If mechanisms aren’t put in place to help such producer groups maintain access to supply chains, “there’s a very big risk that they’ll be excluded from the EU market, and that will drive up poverty levels,” she said.

Tran and her colleagues are now piloting a product traceability system in Vietnam in cooperation with smallholders, local governments and companies, with the end goal of developing sustainable business models that encourage producers and companies to join traceability schemes.

They’re also helping smallholders form farmers’ groups and cooperatives, “where they have sustainable governance structures and can reliably access big markets like the EU and meet the new regulation requirements.”

Ensuring that no one is left behind isn’t only important for people’s well-being, but also for environmental protection, Tran said. Smallholders living close to natural forests who are unable to comply with the new regulations “might be forced to go further into the forest to eke out a living” if excluded from EU supply chains.

“If we don’t provide them an alternative, then they have no other choice but to cut the forest. They still have to live,” Tran said.

Source : Mongabay

The post EU Deforestation-Free Rule ‘Highly Challenging’ for Se Asia Smallholders, Experts Say appeared first on Policy Print.

Listening to some politicos on the campaign trail, it’s easy to assume that most Americans are against protecting the environment and that government should simply let the market regulate itself. For decades the Gallup poll has posed a question about the false trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection.

Even though the question is flawed, it indicates that, with few exceptions, the public has prioritized environmental quality over growing the economy for decades. From 1985 to 2000, about 60-70% favored environmental protection and 30% favored economic growth. From 2011 to 2013, a small majority favored economic development, but since 2016, a majority has again favored environmental protection.

In the most recent poll in early 2023, 52% favored protecting the environment to 42% who favored economic growth. In the same poll, about 56% of the public responded that the government was doing too little to protect the environment and 18% thought it was doing too much. Gallup also reported that 60% of Americans believed that global warming has already begun compared to 12% who think it will never happen.

Similarly, a recent high-quality survey by the Pew Research Center found in a “survey of 10,329 U.S. adults conducted May 30 to June 4, 2023…[that] 74% of Americans say they support the country’s participation in international efforts to reduce the effects of climate change…67% of U.S. adults prioritize the development of alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen power over increasing the production of fossil fuel energy sources.”

“By sizable margins, Americans support a number of specific policy proposals aimed at reducing the effects of climate change through targeting greenhouse gas emissions and carbon in the atmosphere…Overwhelming majorities support planting about a trillion trees around the world to absorb carbon emissions (89%) and requiring oil and gas companies to seal methane gas leaks from oil wells (85%)…76% favor providing a tax credit to businesses that develop carbon capture technologies and 70% support taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions…61% favor requiring power plants to eliminate all carbon emissions by the year 2040.”

While the public favored taking steps to develop renewable energy, they opposed efforts to ban all fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine. The survey also found that Republicans tended to be more positive about fossil fuels, while Democrats favored renewable energy. Young people are more concerned about the environment than older people, and their concern is growing.

According to the March 2023 Harvard Youth Poll of over 2,000 18–29-year-olds, conducted by the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics, 50% of respondents believed that “government should do more to curb climate change, even at the expense of economic growth.” This 50% result should be compared to the 29% who favored enhanced climate policy back in 2013.

Americans understand the dangers of environmental pollution but are deeply suspicious of public policies that compel changes in the behavior of the broad public. My view of this is that regulatory rules and standards are required, but the methods of achieving those standards should focus on positive incentives rather than negative disincentives.

People should be motivated to protect the environment, not forced to do so. The strategy of shaming individuals or institutions for degrading the environment is not as effective as policies that reward actions that protect the environment. There is also a tendency of many environmental advocates to term environmental damage an “existential threat” when, for some people, there are more immediate threats to existence, such as homelessness, hunger, drug addiction, or threats of gang violence.

A sense of perspective is needed. Is global warming more of a danger than nuclear terror? Humankind faces many dangers, and the public faces competing demands for their attention and support.

Despite majority support for environmental protection, Republican support for the environment trends lower than the support of Democrats. Coupled with unrepresentative elements of our political system like gerrymandering, the electoral college, and the U.S. Senate and its filibuster rule, overwhelming public opinion majorities are often required to impact public policy.

Anti-environmental views, while often cloaked in the language of freedom and the glory of the market, are typically reflections of short-term economic interests flexing their political muscle. They are also common in Republican primary campaigns in deep red states where disinformation about environmental policy or renewable energy technology and economics is far too common.

And yet the widespread concern in America’s culture for the wellness and health of family and friends leads to a focus on fitness and diet and directly to demands for clean water, air, and food free of toxics. The goal is not a pristine environment, but one that enables people to remain healthy. Some people who oppose environmental protection see it as a luxury item or as peripheral to the goal of producing and accumulating wealth.

Early efforts at environmental protection required that we retrofit cars with catalytic converters or place stack scrubbers on power plants. This reduced pollution but added cost. In the 1970s, the connection of air pollution to public health was not yet understood, and most saw the environment as an aesthetic issue.

However, the connection of air pollution to asthma and lung cancer and toxic waste to cancer and other diseases transformed the environment from an aesthetic issue to an issue of public health. Technological innovations such as solar power, batteries, and electric vehicles enabled lower pollution to also become integral to product design, resulting in less pollution, better products, and lower rather than higher costs.

Many, although not all, understand the connection of environmental protection to economic growth. The trade-off question that Gallup has used for decades is a false trade-off. Pollution is a form of waste, and the impact of pollution is far from cost-free. Pollution is a drag on economic development, and a clean environment facilitates economic development.

Pollution increases costs due to the economic impact of extreme weather events, the cost of health care, losses of production, elimination of valuable ecological services and a wide variety of additional costly impacts. The engineering field of industrial ecology demonstrates the cost advantages of closed-system production.

Careful consideration of environmental risk is one element of a sound analysis of financial risk. Economic development sometimes ignores environmental impact because polluters assume that someone else will pay the cost of clean-up. However, in a world of instant and inexpensive communication and widespread ease of observation, it has become relatively easy to connect environmental pollution to environmental impact and cost.

It is true that some corporations, such as the owners of petrochemical plants in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, use political influence to dodge responsibility for the costs of environmental clean-up and impact. I believe with exposure, companies are increasingly required to pay the costs of impact. More importantly, investors are starting to ask questions about the risk of incurring costs due to environmental impact. This, too, indicates that the trade-off between environmental protection and economic growth is losing credibility in financial markets.

Support for environmental protection is based on the health and economic costs of environmental pollution. The awareness of these costs has grown over the past several decades. The financial benefits of pollution have proven to be short-term or even nonexistent. There is a part of our culture which insists that pollution must simply be tolerated for the economic benefits it brings.

Indoor air pollution is a case in point. When former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg proposed banning smoking from restaurants and bars, the owners of those establishments complained bitterly that he would put them out of business. Imagine their surprise when they found that business generally improved after the smoking ban. It turned out that a lot of people didn’t enjoy the smoke in some establishments and either stayed home or took their business to places that banned smoking. The economic value of clean air was as clear as the air itself.

Despite the widespread support for environmental protection, many environmental initiatives are opposed politically. Some of this is due to our polarized political process and the ideological extremes it embodies. Some opposition results from the framing of issues by environmentalists and their tendency to define environmental policy debates as a battle between good and evil.

To develop a winning strategy promoting environmental protection, we should look at our many success stories and seek to imitate them. Our air and water are cleaner today than they were when EPA was first empowered to set national environmental standards in the early 1970s. We accepted gradual improvement, provided federal subsidies, and focused on developing new technologies to improve environmental quality. Policy was based on widely shared values.

We built our air pollution policy on a simple fact that I often repeat: Everyone likes to breathe—we sort of get used to it.

Source : PHYS

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Notwithstanding the criticality of climate-related concerns in recent times, such concerns, by and large, remained outside the domain of core macroeconomic issues. In other words, global warming and climate change issues tended to elude key macroeconomic concerns, like growth, inflation, interest rates, or exchange rates.

In this context, RBI’s Report on Currency and Finance, 2022-23 assumes importance. With a subtitle, ‘Towards a Cleaner Greener India’, the report flags climate-related concerns and brings these to core macroeconomic issues.

To appreciate the criticality of climate change for the economy, consider some indicators/episodes of climate change in India flagged by the report.

First, India faced its hottest February in 2023 since record-keeping began in 1901.

Second, in 2022, India experienced extreme weather events on 314 of 365 days of 2022, which claimed little more than 3,000 lives, affected 1.96 million hectares of crop area, and killed nearly 70,000 animals.

Third, in 2022, India recorded its seventh wettest January since 1901 and March 2022 was the third driest and warmest ever in 121 years.

Finally, it has been estimated that without any policy action, India’s CO2 emission level may rise from 2.7 billion metric tonnes (in 2021) to 3.9 billion metric tonnes by 2030.

These numbers are grim and should convince anyone that climate change is no longer in the periphery but like the proverbial elephant in the room has entered our home, and we can neglect it at our own peril.

But how can central banks handle the concerns of climate change? Aren’t they ill-equipped to handle these problems? The report is profound in pointing out, “…. even if governments are the most influential agency for climate change, all institutions, including central banks and financial sector regulators/supervisors, are stakeholders and especially so in view of the existential threat to their central mandates”. Illustratively, the report flags the critical role of climate change in generating demand and supply shocks over business cycles.

The following are worth mentioning in particular. First, price stability can be affected by climate change via supply shocks like food and energy prices. Second, climate-related risks can affect inflation volatility which could potentially de-anchor inflationary expectations. Third, natural disasters could lead to loss of income and health, leading to adverse demand shocks. Fourth, physical and transition risks can affect the balance sheets of financial institutions and banks, which could have an adverse impact on the flow of credit. Fifth, climate-induced uncertainty could lead to a rise in precautionary saving with an attendant impact on interest rates. Sixth, a change in risk perception arising from climate change could lead to episodes of financial instability.

What is the impact of climate change on the Indian economy? The report noted, “India’s diverse topography makes it vulnerable to significant risks from climate change, evidence of which are increasingly visible in rapid changes in temperature; variations in SWM (South-West monsoon) rains; rising frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as unseasonal rainfall, heatwaves, cyclones and floods”. Besides, balancing environmental and economic goals could pose serious challenges in India’s ambition to become an advanced country by 2047.

To gauge the state of our consciousness on climate change, the report mentions an anonymous informal survey of various financial institutions was conducted in December 2022. According to the respondents, the energy and mining sector was identified as the most exposed to climate risk, followed by automobiles, agriculture, infrastructure, and construction; sectors like textiles and engineering were not expected to have significant exposure.

Role of financial sector

What is the role of the financial sector in handling climate change? Remember, insofar as the financial sector is related to the real sector, the financial sector is affected by climate change, but at the same time, it can throw up some solutions for mitigating climate-related risks. Climate change can amplify various types of risks in the financial sector, such as credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, and operational risk and is likely to have adverse implications for financial stability.

Since environmental pollution is primarily seen as an externality, the solution packages traditionally encompassed correcting such distortions via traditional measures like carbon taxation. Besides, technological innovation in clean energy and appropriate trade policies are thought through. Interestingly, increasing emphasis is being placed on the financial sector to devise the solution package. For example, several countries have taken recourse to Sovereign Green Bonds, which are traditional government securities except that “they contain a “use of proceeds” clause which states that the funds will be utilised solely for green investments”.

The report delves into using monetary policy tools for countering the menace of climate change and goes on to mention ingenious policy tools like green quantitative easing (such as, a targeted scheme to provide low-cost funds to banks for lending to firms engaging in the renewable energy space), relaxing collateral policy for access of liquidity, CRR exemptions on green credit, even introduction of central bank digital currency from green considerations.

The report highlighted some of the key initiatives of RBI in this area. Illustratively, the RBI released its ‘Discussion Paper on Climate Risk and Sustainable Finance’ in July 2022. The Discussion paper provided broad guidance for RBI-regulated entities to develop good practices on some issues, such as (a) appropriate governance; (b) climate risk strategy; and (c) risk management structure. Later in January 2023, the RBI issued sovereign green bonds to mobilise resources for the government for green infrastructural investments. More recently, in April 2023, the RBI released the framework for mobilising green deposits.

The RBI report brings some fresh air into this arena and mainstreams such concerns about climate change.

Ray is with National Institute of Bank Management, Pune, and Pal is with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Views are personal

Climate change can amplify credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, and operational risk. This can impact financial stability

Source: Business Line

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Trailing Labour by about 20 points in national polls, the Tory triumph in Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat was widely attributed to a backlash against a new daily charge aimed at highly polluting cars.

Sunak’s trip to Britain’s oil capital, partly to announce plans for hundreds more North Sea drilling licences in the years to come, was the latest in a series of interventions that have enraged environmentalists.

His calculation is that by portraying himself as being “on the side” of motorists and taking a “pragmatic and proportionate” approach to climate change, he is aligning himself with the views of middle Britain.

Sunak’s contention is that the UK can reach its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 while still drilling for oil and without unfairly hitting struggling families.

The flip side of his calculation is that he hopes to present his opponents as unreasonable or, in the words of cabinet minister Michael Gove, suggest they have turned net zero into a “religious crusade”.

Will Sunak’s shift work politically? Polling suggests that — unlike the US — there is broad cross-party support in Britain for moving to a net zero economy by the middle of the century.

However, polls also suggest that support drops when the public is asked whether carbon-cutting policies should be pursued if they result in extra costs for ordinary families. Tory voters are particularly resistant to the idea.

Although Sunak’s press secretary insisted the prime minister had not changed his policies since the Uxbridge win, his tone has shifted in the last week, as Tory MPs clamour for a dilution of government green policies.

Sunak claimed the London Labour mayor Sadiq Khan had handed Uxbridge to the Tories with his plan to extend the £12.50-a-day ultra-low emission zone to outer boroughs, hitting owners of highly polluting cars.

Then, on Sunday, Sunak vowed to review “anti-car policies”, notably “low-traffic neighbourhoods” — areas that have been closed to through traffic and which have been blamed by some for creating local congestion or blocking access for emergency vehicles.

To ram home the “pro-motorist message” Sunak — whose preferred prime ministerial mode of transport is the helicopter — posed for a picture in ex-premier Margaret Thatcher’s iconic official car, an old Rover.

All the while Sunak, conscious of polling suggesting growing public concern about climate change, has been careful to resist pressure from MPs in his own party to change its key carbon-reducing targets.

The prime minister repeated again on Monday that he would stick to the ban on sales of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 despite 40 Tory peers and MPs calling for a delay. The 2050 net zero target also remains in place.

Sunak’s confirmation of future North Sea oil drilling licences was not a break with existing policy — he has long argued that domestic supplies should be exploited during a carbon transition — but it still generated fury.

The prime minister appeared to relish the fight, happy to be talking about something other than the poor state of the economy and public services, the two issues that traditionally dominate the thoughts of voters.

In a combative interview with BBC Scotland, Sunak defended his use of a private jet for his visit, saying that people who criticised him for flying wanted — by implication — to “stop people going on holiday”.

Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow climate change secretary, claims Sunak is undermining the bipartisan approach to cutting carbon, which ministers often claim makes Britain an attractive place for green investment.

Sunak claims that Labour’s opposition to new drilling is because it had received about £1.5mn from Dale Vince, a businessman who has also given money to the pressure group Just Stop Oil.

Chris Skidmore, the former Tory energy minister who conducted a net zero review for the government, said the plan for additional drilling was “the wrong decision at precisely the wrong time, when the rest of the world is experiencing record heatwaves”.

But Sunak continues to court two audiences at the same time. His promise of more oil and gas drilling was coupled with an announcement of two new projects to capture carbon dioxide and store it under the North Sea, which critics say is an unproven technology.

For now, Sunak’s approach is more about a shift in tone than an abandonment of the government’s climate goals. Even the prime minister’s promised review of “low-traffic neighbourhoods” was described by his spokeswoman on Monday as no more than a “fact-finding mission”.

Conservative election strategists have always feared that by taking more strident positions on issues such as the environment, migration and transgender rights, they risk driving away moderate Tory voters. For now, many Conservative MPs believe Sunak is striking the right balance.

“This is all rhetorical,” said one. “There aren’t going to be any actual changes to the law. The government is just trying to make clear we’re on the side of the majority, not the minority.”

Greg Clark, Tory chair of the Commons science committee, said: “Developing carbon capture is clearly a green policy and, until we no longer need oil and gas for refining, using our own supplies rather than shipping them in from overseas seems obviously sensible.”

One government official said of Sunak: “I think he’s very smart to position himself as ‘pro-motorist’. In Westminster it’s easy to forget how much people outside of urban centres rely on their car to get to work or transport their family around.”

Source: The Financial

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The transitional phase beginning 1 October 2023 will cover carbon-intensive imports in six sectors — aluminium, cement, electricity, fertilisers, iron and steel and hydrogen — imposing only reporting requirements on importers. The CBAM charge will be effective from 1 January 2026 and will apply to imports from all countries except those linked to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) or with an equivalent carbon pricing mechanism.

The CBAM is expected to encourage decarbonisation at the global level while also preventing ‘carbon leakage’. But a careful review of the CBAM’s design and proposed implementation reveals inherent inconsistencies and contradictions with multilateral climate and trade agreements, as well as with the EU’s free trade agreements. If not suitably amended, the CBAM may end up being implemented more as an exclusionary trade policy tool than as an effective climate action tool.

In a deviation from the burden-sharing principle under the Paris Agreement, the CBAM makes no distinction and offers no concessions or exemptions to developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs). Given the lower institutional capabilities of developing countries and LDCs to set up domestic carbon markets or a comprehensive accounting and reporting system for the carbon-emitting intensity of production processes, due differentiation in burden-sharing ought to have been incorporated into the CBAM.

The inequitable design is further reinforced by the fact that the revenue collected from CBAM charges will be directed to the EU budget instead of being utilised to lead capacity-building initiatives in developing countries or LDCs.

This departure from the Paris Agreement is even more glaring when viewed against EU’s commitments in its free trade agreements. A distinct reference to the commitments of the Paris Agreement has always been included in chapters on trade and sustainable development in recent EU free trade agreements. For the first time, the EU–New Zealand free trade agreement signed in June 2022 provides for the application of trade sanctions for breaches related to the objectives and principles of the Paris Agreement.

The CBAM is also in apparent contradiction with multilateral trade norms. The fundamental World Trade Organization (WTO) non-discrimination principles of most favoured nation status and national treatment appear obfuscated by the CBAM. While the most favoured nation principle requires that similar products should not be discriminated against if coming from different trade partners, national treatment calls for non-discrimination among domestically produced goods and ‘like’ imported goods.

The EU justification for differential treatment of otherwise similar products is based on the differential carbon content of imports. But different process and production methods across countries can lead to varying levels of embedded carbon content in a ‘like’ good, making the CBAM a potentially discriminatory border tax and liable to challenges at the WTO.

In justifying its compliance with the principle of national treatment, the EU’s argument of parity between domestically produced and similar imported goods is based on the CBAM being an extension of the ETS that is already applied to domestic products. But as of April 2023 there are just 73 national or sub-national carbon pricing mechanisms covering only 23 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is hard to imagine how the CBAM can ensure ‘equivalence’ of imports from countries that have opted for different forms of climate regulation.

The implicit assumption of the CBAM is not just contrary to the spirit of ‘self-differentiation’, but also raises the more important question of extra-territoriality effects.

Even a broad interpretation of the general exceptions contained in Article XX of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs may not be sufficiently persuasive to demonstrate the CBAM’s WTO compliance. The EU will still be required to prove that the CBAM is non-discriminatory in its application and that it is not a ‘disguised restriction on international trade’.

In the broader trade context, the complexity of implementing the CBAM brings in an element of inequity. Given that there is a high likelihood of the CBAM triggering retaliatory carbon border taxes, global value chain-led trade will necessitate establishing rules of origin to account for the carbon content of every part and component at the point of origin. This will be a formidable task, particularly in complex global value chains involving multiple border crossings of parts and components, which will be beyond the administrative and institutional capabilities of many developing countries.

Most significantly, the fundamental premise of ‘carbon leakage’ is contradicted by available evidence. The broad inference drawn from extant empirical literature is that there is currently no conclusive evidence of a significant level of carbon leakage to provide a fair rationale for the CBAM. Relative to the costs of environmental protection, factors like labour costs, production factors, transparent regulation, a stable policy environment and property rights are all likely to have far greater weight in investment location decisions — even of polluting industries.

With the CBAM now included in planned discussions by the India–EU Trade and Technology Council, it is time for India to seek corrective action from the EU to ensure that the scarce diplomatic capital of developing countries and LDCs that has been spent on ensuring fair outcomes of multilateral climate and trade negotiations is not rendered wasteful by the CBAM.

Source: East Asia Forum

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Sparked by its narrow win in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election – a battle fought and won by the Conservatives’ opposition to London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) scheme – some in the party are calling for a rethink of their current climate commitments, with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg claiming they are “unpopular” and “expensive”.

Downing Street has confirmed ministers are scrutinising existing pledges “in light of some of the cost of living challenges”.

And Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has hinted at a watering down of proposals, saying measures must be “proportionate and pragmatic”, instead of adding cost and “hassle” to households.

But others from both the Tory benches and the opposition warn any rollback would not only add to the damage caused to the planet, but see the UK fail to cash in on the jobs, industry and investment offered by green technologies.

So what are the current pledges from the government that could be facing either delays or the axe?

Reaching net zero by 2050

The overarching promise from the Conservative government was to ensure the UK reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 100% from 1990 levels by 2050.

The measure was made law by Theresa May in the dying days of her premiership back in 2019 and it was backed by Boris Johnson throughout his time in Number 10.

But when Liz Truss entered Downing Street, she ordered a review into the target – though her stint ended before it came to pass – showing not everyone in the party was onboard.

Mr Sunak has insisted he is committed to the pledge.

But questions have been raised over whether the government is doing enough to even meet the target, with the Climate Change Committee warning progress had been “worryingly slow”, and time is “very short” to correct the path.

Phasing out petrol and diesel cars by 2030

In 2020, then prime minister Mr Johnson made a commitment to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK after 2030 – bringing the target forward by 10 years.

The £12bn plan promised to accelerate the rollout of charge points for electric vehicles, as well as the development and mass production of electric vehicle batteries, in an attempt to lower emissions and clean up the air.

Number 10 has said Mr Sunak is committed to the 2030 date, but hinted the ban is to be kept under review to ensure it hits that “proportionate and pragmatic” goal as technology evolves.

However, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove later doubled down on keeping it in place, saying the target is “immoveable”.

Energy efficient landlords

Another pledge made by Mr Johnson in 2020 was to ensure all private rented homes had an energy efficiency rating of C or better – where A is the best and G is the worst – by 2028.

While the plan could be costly for landlords, it would lead to a reduction in bills for many renters and stop leaky homes adding to emissions.

But this is one proposal that looks to set to have a pin put in it.

Mr Gove, the former environment secretary who is now the minister in charge of housing, said he wanted to see the government “relax the pace” of the 2028 deadline, adding: “We’re asking too much too quickly”.

Another target that may be pushed back is ensuring all new homes are built with an alternative to a gas boiler – such as a heat pump – after 2025.

The measure will not impact people who already have gas boilers in their homes, or stop them from replacing like for like, as it will only be a rule for developers building properties.

However, making the move will cut emissions from new buildings and again help towards hitting that net zero target.

There is a wider ambition for all new heating system installations to be low carbon by 2035, with a pot of £450m to help with household grants.

But again, the government has insisted people will not be forced to remove their existing fossil fuel boilers.

Now, Downing Street has hinted these dates could change as part of a review of their policies as the cost would hit people’s pockets.

Hydrogen levy

Another move that already appears to have been shelved is the introduction of an annual levy to cover the cost of producing low-carbon hydrogen, instead of using fossil fuels, for energy at home.

The fee – which was expected to cost households around £118 a year – was due to be added to bills in 2025, and would help cut emissions by cleaning up the energy market.

But Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps has made numerous protestations about the cost being borne by people rather than companies, and has pledged numerous times to find another way of funding the change.

What about the other parties?

As mentioned earlier, most of this debate has been brought about by the result of the Uxbridge by-election which, before Thursday’s vote, seemed like a safe bet for Labour to seize.

However, the Conservatives managed to turn the campaign into a referendum on the expansion of ULEZ to the outer boroughs of London – a policy from the capital’s Labour mayor to clean up air quality, but with a cost to drivers of £12.50 a day.

Having initially stood by the plan – and Sadiq Khan – Labour is now making a lot of noise about reviewing the policy and asking the mayor to “reflect” on its impact on voters.

Yet, the party is still is making much of its green credentials, with one of Sir Keir Starmer’s missions for government to “make Britain a green energy super power”.

Labour said, if it got into power, it would cut bills and increase energy security by making all electricity zero-carbon by 2030, and carry out upgrades to 19 million homes to make sure they are insulated.

It would also create a new publicly owned company called GB Energy, tasked with championing clean energy, increasing jobs and building better supply chains.

But Labour has backtracked on its £28bn a year investment pledge to accelerate the shift towards net zero, with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves blaming rising interest rates and the “damage” the Conservatives had done to the economy since the announcement was made.

The Liberal Democrats have a raft of green policy proposals, including upgrading insulation in all existing homes by 2030 and ensuring all new builds are “eco friendly”.

Other measures include investing to get 80% of the UK’s electricity from green energy by 2030, and creating a £20bn Clean Air Fund to create walking and cycling routes to schools, and invest in pollution-free public transport.

Source: Sky News

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