Government climate techno-fixes raise ‘grave doubts’ among UK’s civil servants

Net zero policies and plans of climate-obsessed politicians looking threadbare and unrealistic yet again, this time in court. They can never admit that their goals are unachievable at any price, even supposing their methods had some merit.
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British civil servants have grave doubts about their government’s favoured techno-fixes for climate-polluting industries like meat production and air travel, new documents show.

In risk assessments made public because of an ongoing court case, officials warned that technology to reduce methane emissions from cow burps is “nascent” and there might not be enough plants or hydrogen available to power the world’s planes more sustainably, says Climate Home News.

Yet despite the uncertainties surrounding these and other climate solutions like carbon dioxide removal, the UK government is relying on such technologies to meet a big chunk of its climate plans.

Internal government documents disclosed in court show civil servants had “low” or “very low” confidence in about half of the planned emissions reductions up to 2037 and “very high confidence” in just a tiny fraction.

In court, the government’s lawyer said that these categories should not be taken out of context – and that certain measures could be rated “very low confidence” just because it is “early days”.

The risk analysis was put together by unnamed civil servants at the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in 2022 and was supposed to help shape the government’s latest carbon budget delivery plan, aimed at keeping the country on track for net-zero emissions by mid-century.

The plan was published in March 2023 along with a sanitised version of the risks and uncertainties that civil servants foresaw in meeting it.

But the full risk tables were made public this week as environmental campaigners took the government to court, arguing that civil servants did not give then climate minister Grant Shapps enough information to judge whether the UK’s climate plan was sufficient.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Katie de Kauwe, a lawyer for Friends of the Earth, one of the groups bringing the case, said the analysis shows “much of the government’s ‘strategy’ to meet legally-binding climate targets amounts to wishful thinking”.

ClientEarth lawyer Sam Hunter Jones, said: “These risk tables only further prove that the government is choosing to look the other way when it comes to the clear possibility of its climate plans failing.”

Full article here.