Net zero: the ideas
Children born today will be taking their first steps into adulthood in 2040. What will life in the UK be like for them, according to current trajectories? What policy options do we have now that can influence or change that trajectory for the better?
The UK has a strong track record of leadership on net-zero targets, but this is a country that is veering substantially off-track for future carbon budgets unless it massively accelerates the pace and breadth of its decarbonisation.
Through Delphi exercises, workshops and interviews, we’ve asked experts two questions: what are the biggest priorities facing the UK Government as it seeks to deliver on climate targets, and what interventions could deliver on these priorities and get the UK back on track by 2040, ahead of the Government’s target to reach net zero by 2050? It’s worth being explicit that targets are a proxy – a necessary one – for the things we really care about. In this case, stabilising the impacts of global warming to reduce global harms, and making the UK better off, greener, more comfortable and healthier as we do so.
We’ve already distilled the challenges and priorities into the fundamental facts and the big choices for Government to grapple with. This paper is the third in our series, and focuses on the ideas that could help deliver that better, greener, healthier UK by 2040, and beyond.
The ideas presented here are not intended to form a comprehensive strategy across all priority sectors, nor are they a clear-cut set of recommendations. Instead, they are intended to be practical, thought-provoking policy ideas which could support the trajectory to net zero.
The ten ideas that follow in this report are:
- Bring citizens into the key issues: launch a national engagement campaign on net zero
- Support an effective market for green products and services: increase information transparency for consumers using green subsidies
- Explore an alternative delivery model for home retrofit: coordinate household decarbonisation street-by-street
- Increase centralised planning for major infrastructure: make NESO a system architect
- Increase efficacy of land use for environmental outcomes: develop a national rural land use framework and use it to underpin farming payments
- Make better use of carbon pricing mechanisms: expand the scope of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)
- Harness the market power of state funding: amend government procurement to require net-zero carbon construction materials to reduce embodied emissions
- Change incentives and increase innovation in energy markets: reform the structure of the energy retail market to support household decarbonisation
- Incentivise households to decarbonise when they’re moving house: reform Stamp Duty Land Tax to become an energy-saving stamp duty
- Show leadership on the impacts of climate change: develop and legislate adaptation targets