UK Net-Zero Strategy: Government refuses to share details on how carbon emissions plans will impact

The UK Government Department of Business, Energy and Industry Strategies (BEIS) has denied the freedom to request information allowing an independent investigation into its net zero greenhouse gas emission plan.

Environment December 1, 2021

Adam Bourne

Sizewell B nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The UK government has rejected a Freedom of Information request to publish a spreadsheet showing how the groundbreaking Net Zero Strategy will reduce carbon emissions for individual measures such as supporting new nuclear power plants and installing new electric vehicle chargers.

Ed Matthew of climate change think tank E3G says not releasing the documents feels secrecy and deceitful and prevents the public from investigating the likely impact of the action.

The publication of the government’s Net Zero Strategy on 19 October was an important moment in the eve of the COP26 climate summit, detailing the UK’s plans to meet its 2050 commitment to net greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years.

Previous government blueprints for decarbonization, such as the 10 Green Plans for 2020 and the Clean Growth Strategy for 2017, have provided estimates of exactly how much individual policies will reduce emissions. However, Net Zero Strategy failed to provide such an analysis, and observers said that such analysis showed a lack of transparency that prevented independent investigation.

Government officials have admitted that they have a spreadsheet with all the figures, but said they won’t make it public. Currently, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has rejected New Scientist’s request to disclose the document. We denied the request because it involves the disclosure of internal communications.

The BEIS FOI team says that the public interest does not outweigh the need to keep such communications private. We conclude that the net zero strategy itself contains adequate details at this stage to allow the public to participate in our decarbonization proposal.

The UK is off track to achieve its legally binding carbon targets in the 2020s and 2030s, a trajectory that the strategy claims will be corrected. But this strategy doesn’t provide enough detail to make an independent judgment, says Matthew. If BEIS is so confident of their calculations, why are they afraid to disclose them? he says They are not responsible for marking their homework and must disclose their calculations immediately.

This strategy presents the best estimates of how emissions will change from now to 2050 in various sectors such as electricity, buildings and agriculture. However, it does not support new hydrogen production or subdivide individual actions, including new small-scale developments. Nuclear power plants will all be supported by hundreds of millions of pounds of public funding.

Greenpeace UK’s John Sauven said, “The ministers are behaving like suspicious dealers, asking customers to buy products without seeing them first. He is asking BEIS to post the spreadsheet. It is best for the government to disclose the numbers behind the plan and let the experts push it forward.”

This document will include estimates of how widely different technologies will be used in the UK and their impact on greenhouse gas emissions. There could be a discrepancy between the government’s publicly promised and pending estimates, such as the Conservative Party’s manifesto to quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030, for example.

A BEIS spokesperson said: There is nothing secret about the UK’s net zero strategy. This is the first time this has been implemented in a major economy. It details how we will transition to a green future.”

New Scientific appealed its decision not to publish the document.

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