Rishi Sunak rejects claims his net zero U-turn driven by party politics after widespread condemnation of policy change – British Politics Live | Policy
Sunak rejects claims his carbon neutrality speech is motivated by party politics
Q: Yesterday you said in your speech that this is not about politics. But soon after, CCHQ asked Labor questions. It’s a question of politics, isn’t it??
Sunak don’t accept this.
He said he didn’t want to take the easy way out.
He says supporters of these measures need to explain why they are necessary.
Key events
Sunak says after bringing ‘stability and competence’ in his first year, he now wants to ‘change the direction of the country’
Q: Is it really you now? Will you destroy other government policies, like HS2?
Sunak said he wanted to “change the direction of the country”.
In his first year, he brought “stability and competence” to the government.
But now he wants to change the direction of the country. He won’t be dissuaded from doing what he thinks is right, he says.
And that’s all. Sunak is gone now. He is visiting this morning, where he will again address broadcasters.
Robinson quotes from Sunak’s resignation letter as chancellor, in which he said that if something seemed too good to be true, it probably wasn’t true. Didn’t you do that in your speech yesterday?
Sunak don’t accept this. He said in his speech that he recognized the need for change. He just wants a “realistic approach”.
Sunak rejects claims his carbon neutrality speech is motivated by party politics
Q: Yesterday you said in your speech that this is not about politics. But soon after, CCHQ asked Labor questions. It’s a question of politics, isn’t it??
Sunak don’t accept this.
He said he didn’t want to take the easy way out.
He says supporters of these measures need to explain why they are necessary.
Q: You said you wanted to be honest. But then you said you were abandoning things that were not government policy. Where was the proposed meat tax?
Sunak says the climate change committee has spoken about the need for an “accelerated shift away” from meat consumption.
Robinson says it is not a tax on meat.
Q: And where was the mandatory carpooling policy?
Sunak said the CCC has talked about encouraging this. And he mentions “demand-side” measures, which implies a constraint.
Q: And what about requiring people to have seven recycling bins?
Sunak says there have been calls for more recycling, meaning seven bins are needed.
Q: Concerning boilers, you say that it will be possible to install a new gas boiler until 2035. They could therefore operate until 2050.
Sunak says a boiler typically lasts 15 years. And 2050 is the deadline to reach net zero.
He says people will have to make changes.
He says 2035 is a “reasonable date.”
But it says it has also introduced exemptions for households in which installing a heat pump does not make sense.
Q: Ford says you compromised consistency.
Sunak says Ford made the comments before giving his speech. Since then, other automakers have been more positive.
Q: Manufacturers say they won’t be incentivized to invest.
Sunak says he does not accept this, as the targets are in line with those of most other major countries.
Sunak says people who disagree with him must explain why they want families to pay an extra £5,000, £10,000 or £15,000.
Q: No one is suggesting that people will have to spend this money now.
Sunak says policies were put in place (on boilers) in just two years.
Sunak says he is confident the government has policies in place to achieve its climate goals
Q: People will be surprised if you say you’re not slowing down. Alok Sharma is at the UN. He was president of Cop26, and he says there is consternation at the UN over your speech. You will encourage other countries to slow down.
Sunak says at the G20 he made Britain’s biggest ever contribution to help poorer countries make the transition.
He says the UK’s decarbonisation target by 2030 is 68%. He says other countries have weaker targets. It’s the facts that count.
Q: But people worry about where they’re going.
Sunak says these are goals for 2030.
Q: The climate change The committee is testing whether the government can meet its target and says the UK does not have the policies in place to meet its targets.
He says the secretary of state has a legal duty to ensure policies are in place to achieve these goals.
Q: The CCC says no.
Sunak says he is confident in his position. And he says the government has “consistently overachieved” in achieving its climate target.
The cost of new technologies is decreasing. And the adoption of green technologies is increasing.
Nick Robinson is an interview Rishi Sunak at No. 10, in the Thatcher Room.
Robinson begins by recalling Margaret Thatcher going to the UN to warn about climate change.
Q: But you didn’t go to the UN this year and you are slowing down action on climate change?
Sunak says it won’t slow down climate goals.
He says you can’t look at the events of this summer without thinking that climate change is real.
But, as Thatcher would have said, it’s not right to state a goal without having a clear plan to get there, he says.
Last night Kwasi Kwarteng has become the latest senior Tory to voice concerns over Rishi Sunak’s speech. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss strongly supported Sunak’s announcement, but Kwarteng, who was Truss’ chancellor (before his dismissal), told Newsnight he thought it sent the wrong signal to investors. He said:
I was afraid of pushing back the phase-out date for internal combustion engines.
Philip (Dunne, Conservative chair of the environmental audit committee) mentioned that electric vehicles have been hugely successful.
Of course, the 2030 goal has really caught the attention of manufacturers. That’s what accelerates and drives a lot of the transition, a lot of the change. And what worries me is that if you insist on this point, you are sending the wrong signal.
As a business secretary I used to travel all over the country, particularly Sunderland in the north east (where Nissan is based), and huge amounts of capital were deployed because They felt that we had a very strong position and very ambitious goals and they wanted to support this movement.
And of course the party fears that if we relax these targets we will not attract investment and this will come at the expense of employment and wealth creation.
Good morning. Politics is 98% moments of routine predictability (interesting for those of us who care, but not so much for others), and then maybe 2% moments of eye-catching wow. Rishi SunakYesterday’s speech, in which he aligned himself with net zero skeptics, abandoned what had been a cross-party consensus and earned rave reviews in conservative newspapers, fell into the latter category.
In his London Playbook briefing Dan Bloom According to Sunak, he wakes up to “a political landscape changed by his own hand”. But will it still look like this in a week? And above all, with the polls, will this change the situation?
This is our overnight story.
Sunak’s decision is seen as an example of divisive politics. But divisive politics is about driving a wedge within the opposition (between what their supporters want and what their leaders are prepared to do). This divide has also affected the Conservative Party.
At 8:10 a.m., Sunak is on the Today program. I will cover the interview live.
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theguardian
