By Sarah George

Copyright edie

Badenoch will today (2 October) tell Party members, ahead of the Party conference in Manchester later this month, that she would scrap the Climate Change Act (CCA) if elected.

Badenoch has previously stated that decarbonising the economy at the rate stipulated by the Act “cannot be achieved without a significant drop in our living standards, or worse, by bankrupting us”.

The UK Government’s official climate advisors have stated that a well-managed low-carbon transition could be delivered with an average investment of 0.2% of GDP per year through 2042.

The CCA’s origins

The CCA was ratified in 2008 under Gordon Brown’s government. It has been maintained ever since, with subsequent Conservative Prime Ministers broadly following the guidance of their official climate advisors and setting carbon budgets.

In June 2019, Theresa May, in one of her last acts as Prime Minister, changed the CCA to enshrine the UK’s 2050 net-zero target in law. She did so shortly after the world’s leading climate scientists collectively stated that reaching global net-zero by mid-century would give humanity the best possible chance of avoiding the most devastating effects of global heating.

Polling earlier this year found that 84% of UK MPs still support net-zero by 2050. In the same poll, only four in ten Conservative MPs agreed with Badenoch that the target is impossible to achieve.

The Act does not, in and of itself, specify how industries or individual businesses must decarbonise. The High Court has, however, used the Act to order the UK to come up with sector-specific decarbonisation plans by the end of October 2025.

Green economy reaction

The announcement from Badenoch was quickly criticised by green business groups and environmental NGOs.

Several pointed to recent CBI Economics research, which found that the UK’s green economy generated £83.1bn in gross value added (GVA) in 2024 – a year-on-year increase exceeding 10% despite headwinds for the national economy at large.

Moreover, those employed in green jobs each generated £105,500 in economic value in 2024, 38% above the UK average.

Key figures also accused Badenoch of trying to enter a race to the bottom on low-carbon energy policy with Reform UK, in a bid to win back voters.

The Aldersgate Group’s executive director, Rachel Solomon Williams, said: “The CCA has been widely welcomed by businesses across the economy and hailed as good practice internationally. Over nearly two decades, it has successfully provided a consistent signal, driving innovation and enabling businesses to invest in the UK with confidence.

“The Act does not dictate how targets must be met, and has placed no requirements on consumers. At this economically turbulent time, further legislative change would undermine that confidence, compromising the UK’s credibility as a place to do business… Removing the Act would offer no benefits to the public or to business, while putting jobs, investment and energy security at risk.”

Shaun Spiers, executive director of Green Alliance, said: “Scrapping the CCA would be a reckless and indefensible move, undermining the UK’s green economy and damaging our global credibility at a time of escalating climate risks. It has been critical to the UK’s progress in tackling climate change, providing clear targets that give businesses the certainty to invest and innovate.

“Badenoch claims she wants cheaper energy and to protect nature, but the proven path to both is through clean, green solutions, not by abandoning the very policies that support them. Dropping them without a real alternative is what truly risks bankrupting the country.”

E3G’s UK programme director, Ed Matthew, said: “This announcement is anti-science, anti-growth, anti-health and anti-nature. It is the kind of policy that Vladimir Putin would be recommending.

“The CCA was a world first for the UK Government and has cleaned up our air, created hundreds of thousands of jobs in clean energy, saved households hundreds of pounds on their energy bills and increased investment in measures to protect people from flooding.

“Repealing this Act would be a monstrous act of economic and environmental vandalism and sends a clear signal that the Conservatives care far more about the profits of oil and gas companies than they do about the British people.”

The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment’s policy and communications director, Bob Ward, said: “It is disappointing that the Conservatives under Badenoch’s leadership are aligning themselves with Donald Trump and Nigel Farage by ignoring the science and abandoning any serious effort to stop climate change.

“The claim that keeping Britain dependent on fossil fuels is good for economic growth is demonstrably false. Our dependence on fossil fuels causes high prices for electricity and heating for businesses and households. And we are experiencing growing costs from the impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and more intense and frequent extreme weather events.

“The only pro-growth strategy is to invest in domestic clean energy.”

Friends of the Earth chief executive, Asad Rehman, 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.

“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, scrapping the CCA will position the Conservative Party as has-been 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.”

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s (ECIU) director, Peter Chalkey, said: “Trump may have rowed back on responsibility for tackling climate change, but the rest of the world is clearly moving in one direction with renewables investment booming, electric vehicle sales up and the clear risk of being left behind.

“Being a net-zero sceptic essentially means you don’t believe in solving climate change. The science is clear that reaching net zero emissions is the only way to bring balance back into our climate, stop climate change and prevent the many harms that the UK, its people and the wider world face from getting ever worse.”