Weekend Rundown: Disgruntled Developers, EV Evolution and Breaching 1.5c
Heading out in a tank top and skirt on the second Saturday of October felt surreal. But there is no amount of autumn summertime that could make this a happy occasion for me...
Heading out in a tank top and skirt on the second Saturday of October felt surreal. But there is no amount of autumn summertime that could make this a happy occasion for me. Last month was 0.93C warmer than the average September temperature over the past 30 years - and 0.5C hotter than the record set in 2020.
On that scorching Saturday, over 100 companies urged Sunak to reinstate the net zero policies he abandoned for properties, including EPC minimum requirements for landlords and insulation targets. The companies have been left in the dark regarding their green investments, and the supposed party of business flicked off the light switch.
The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT), on the other hand, seem to have the right idea. Launched by the Treasury in April 2022, they have today announced a best practice transition plan for businesses, known as the Disclosure Framework.
The TPT focuses on helping companies and financial institutions develop plans to transition their operations to net zero.
The new plan highlights principles of "ambition, action, and accountability", which is reminiscent of what Ford asked the Prime Minister for in his net zero policies after they were drastically rehashed last month: “ambition, commitment and consistency.”
It outlines how companies can include transition plans in their annual reporting and practical ways in which they can respond to new net zero regulations put in place by the Financial Conduct Authority, among others. All in all, this is an important step to greenifying the industry in a way that is organic, informed and tailored to cater for individual businesses.
Talking of greenifying industry, the Department for Business and Trade has announced £89 million of joint funding to develop “cutting edge” electric vehicle tech.
This will help fund 20 projects over four competitions, including developers of offroad vehicles, net-zero tractors and new EV battery systems.
The Department claims that funding from one competition alone could create or safeguard over 4,700 UK jobs, potentially saving 65 million tonnes of CO2 being emitted over the next decade.
Over the way in DESNEZ, however, the Guardian reports that ministers have ‘misrepresented’ the view of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) by claiming that they ‘said we would need a quarter of our energy to come from fossil fuels by 2050.’ The government has supposedly used their own calculations based on a CCC budget to come up with this claim, with professors from UCL and Oxford University, among others calling for an explanation.
Just to put fire in your belly - a BBC analysis has found that on around one in three days of 2023, the average global temperature was at least 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels. Now is not the time to be complacent, and I’ll be looking eagerly toward Labour conference to see how robust their net-zero proposals are for when they inevitably form the next government.