Action is urgently needed to boost electric vehicles and cut greenhouse gas emissions from heating homes to help meet UK climate targets, government advisers said.
The move to a low-carbon economy was in danger of being derailed by a lack of Government action, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) warned in its annual progress report to Parliament.
It called for “urgent” plans to meet legal targets for carbon cuts by 2032 and bridge the gap between existing policies and what is needed to achieve required emissions reductions by the mid-2020s.
And Government needed more ambitious plans for dealing with the impacts of climate change such as increased flooding and heatwaves that were already inevitable, it said.
The call comes after significant delays to the Government’s “clean growth plan” for meet carbon cutting targets in the 2020s and 2030s.
Climate change minister Claire Perry told the Commons on Tuesday the plan would be published after Parliament’s summer recess, and she wanted it to be “as ambitious, robust and clear a blueprint as it can be”.
While overall UK emissions have fallen by around 42% since 1990, greenhouse gases from transport and buildings were rising, the CCC said.
To meet carbon targets cost-effectively, 60% of new cars and vans must be electric by 2030, which would require stretching limits for emissions from new cars after 2020, financial support and rolling out recharging infrastructure.
Plans must include measures to ensure 25% of building heating was low-carbon by 2030 by supporting heat pumps, heat networks and “green” gas supplies, and to bring forward more low-carbon power and energy efficiency.
Efforts to develop technology to capture and store carbon emissions from power plants and heavy industry must also be restarted.
Committee chairman Lord Deben said there were economic opportunities in the shift to low-carbon, but unless the UK had a clear path, investors would invest in other countries.
And though prices of renewables and batteries for electric vehicles were falling, he said ministers could not leave things to the market.
He warned: “This is all about facing the fact that climate change doesn’t wait.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the power and force of those who are in situ, there are very large forces to try to ensure that what is, continues to be, great investment by people who don’t want change.
“Government has a responsibility to ensure that change happens.”
Such a move was needed not just to fight climate change but to be competitive in a post-Brexit world, he said.
He added: “We’re fighting a battle which has to be won, and has to be won quickly.”
A Government spokeswoman said: “The Government is a world leader in tackling climate change and committed to meeting the UK’s targets set under the Climate Change Act 2008.
“We have cut emissions by more than a third while growing the economy by over two-thirds, and through our industrial strategy continue to support our burgeoning low-carbon sector which is helping deliver high-skilled jobs across the country.”
But she added the Government recognised more needed to be done.
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