Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has received harsh criticism from across the political and business spectrum for his reversal of action on climate change and renounces most of the measures to achieve the goal of “zero emissions”, promoted at the time by Boris Johnson.
Sunak convened an emergency cabinet on Wednesday to communicate the decision to his ministers, who were strongly divided over his plans. The ‘premier’ will announce this week that will repeal the ban on the sale of diesel and gasoline vehicles initially announced for 2030 (postponed until 2035), as well as the replacement of gas heaters with heat pumps.
The news has had a strong impact on the international community as it coincides with the Climate Ambition Summit in New York, from which Sunak decided to symbolically be absent. The retreat from zero emissions policies has been criticized by the Labor opposition and by broad sectors of the Conservative Party as an express renunciation of the global leadership role in the face of climate change assumed at COP27 in Glasgow.
“We remain committed to our objectives, but we are going to do it in a better and more proportionate way,” Sunak anticipated on Tuesday night, in a brief message in which he criticized politicians (with a veiled mention of Johnson) for “not having been honest about the costs and trade-offs” of the ecological transition.
“This realism does not mean that we lose our ambition or give up our commitments,” Sunak stressed. “The UK is leading the world on climate change“We remain committed to “net zero” by 2050 and will respect international agreements.”