By Kevin Schofield

Copyright huffingtonpost

Kemi Badenoch has been accused of being a “Reform tribute act” after she unveiled plans to scrap the Climate Change Act if the Tories win the next election.

The Conservative leader said the law, which commits the UK to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, “tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions”.

But campaigners and industry chiefs accused her of aping Nigel Farage and said the move put her party on the same side as “climate denialists, conspiracy theorists and far right extremists”.

Badenoch announced the controversial move on the eve of the Tories’ annual conference, where she is under pressure to set out how she will turn around her party’s ailing fortunes.

She said: “We want to leave a cleaner environment for our children, but not by bankrupting the country.

“Climate change is real. But Labour’s laws tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions. Previous Conservative governments tried to make Labour’s climate laws work – they don’t.

“Under my leadership we will scrap those failed targets. Our priority now is growth, cheaper energy, and protecting the natural landscapes we all love.”

The Climate Change Act was first passed under Labour in 2008, when its aim was to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.

But it was strengthened to 100% by the last Conservative government in 2019.

Former Tory MP Gavin Barwell, who was Theresa May’s chief of staff when she committed the UK to achieving net zero by 2050, told HuffPost UK: “This is both bad policy and bad politics.

“If you look at the US, where policies like these are being enacted, electricity prices are going up, not down. And polling shows Conservative voters support the net zero target.

“There is no future for the Conservative Party in being a Reform tribute act.”

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “This desperate policy from Kemi Badenoch if ever implemented would be an economic disaster and a total betrayal of future generations.

“The Conservatives would now scrap a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour government with Conservative support 17 years ago.

“The Conservatives’ anti-jobs, anti-worker, anti-young people lurch would undermine our energy security and damage our society.”

Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said: “Kemi Badenoch’s desperate attempt to sound like Donald Trump on climate change is taking her party further away from the interests of future generations, businesses, and the needs of ordinary people.

“Millions of lives are already being ruined and nature is being pushed to the brink. An act of political vandalism of this scale will not be easily forgiven or forgotten.

“For a mainstream political party to turn its back on the science in a desperate race to the bottom with those being bankrolled by discredited billionaires and dirty business, who want to stop climate action because it threatens their profits, is political suicide.

“Climate change is not some theoretical threat, we can see it out of our windows, in our flooded communities, in the excess deaths from extreme heat and in the supermarkets with rocketing food price increases.

“Far from being the party of business, it will position the Conservative Party as has-beens luddites alongside a motley alliance of climate denialists, conspiracy theorists and far right extremists who want to ignore the killer floods, droughts, storms and wildfires that are threatening our future.”

Ed Matthew, of the independent climate change think-tank E3G, said: “This is a new low point for Kemi Badenoch as she blows up the Conservative Party’s credibility for protecting nature and the climate in her quest to ape the far right policies of Nigel Farage.

“This announcement is anti-science, anti-growth, anti-health and anti-nature. It is the kind of policy that Vladimir Putin would be recommending.”

Dhara Vyas, chief executive of the industry body Energy UK, said: “The Climate Change Act has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the UK and on business confidence.

“It has given businesses the confidence to invest in jobs, skills, and innovation that benefit people in areas like the Humber, Teesside, and across the whole country.

“Pulling out the rug from under these critical investments will do nothing to lower energy bills.”