Ambition or 'insanity'? Keir Starmer sets steep new UK green energy target

The UK has upped its decarbonisation ambitions at COP29 as it looks to assert itself as a global climate leader, but analysts warn hitting its new target will be a “massive challenge” requiring far quicker deployment of clean and green technologies than has been seen to date.

The UK now plans to cut its emissions 81% compared to 1990 levels by 2035, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan on Tuesday.

The new target – an increase on the 78% goal previously set – brings the UK in line with a recommendation set out by the government’s Climate Change Committee last month.

Starmer highlighted that his government adopted the new target three months ahead of schedule. Countries are required to submit their pledges to reach the goals set out in the Paris Agreement – known as Nationally Determined Contributions – no later than February.

RenewableUK CEO Dan McGrail said that by setting this new target Starmer is “positioning the UK at the forefront of the global race for clean power which is ultimately better for billpayers and strengthens our energy security.”

Climate leadership is more in need than ever now, with the re-election of climate change sceptic Donald Trump as US president. The US is the world’s second-largest polluter behind China – so hardly a climate leader in that sense – but President Joe Biden had passed landmark climate legislation that had at least set it on a positive trajectory.

Friends of the Earth’s campaign chief Rosie Downes said: “With the warning signals flashing red, a planet battered by increasingly severe floods, storms and heatwaves, and the election of climate denier President Trump, the need for climate leadership by the UK has never been more urgent."

UK has serious ground to make up on climate goals

Emma Champion, head of regional energy transitions at BloombergNEF, said that the research firm’s “base case” for the UK’s emissions reductions by 2035 is 62% – leaving the UK “quite far off” the government target.

The new emissions target will take it quite close to BNEF’s global net-zero scenario, with perhaps just a few years lag, said Champion. That scenario sees energy sectors decarbonise by 2050, resulting in an expected 1.75°C of warming by the end of the century.

The UK may well be trying to set itself out as a climate leader, but Champion said that the government’s level of ambition is broadly in line with what most other European economies are aiming for.

Although there is a lot of ground to make up, the UK has already made significant progress in its decarbonisation, having last year achieved a 49.5% reduction on its 1990 emissions, Andrew Griffiths, policy director at UK climate consultancy Planet Mark, wrote on LinkedIn.

What challenges does UK face hitting new target?

In a word, many. But Simon Irving, an energy and renewables partner at law firm Bidwells, highlighted that “without more meaningful action in regard to the UK's planning system and issues related to our antiquated electricity grid,” hitting its new target will be a “massive challenge.”

Labour’s move to recruit 300 new planning officers to speed up the rollout of necessary new infrastructure “won't touch the sides of a system that has been stripped to the bones after fourteen years of austerity,” he said.

“Investors in renewables are also taking a massive gamble by purchasing land and spending money on lengthy planning applications, with no guarantee as to when they will be granted access to an oversubscribed and outdated electricity grid.”

Given most of the UK’s energy consumption takes place off the power grid, Champion said this begins to “transcend” simply rolling out more wind and solar farms. “You're getting to the limit quite quickly of what you can do if you just rely on the power sector” and the story becomes more "consumer-led."

“We're now in a phase where you have to accelerate electrification. More electric vehicles need to be sold, more heat pumps need to be installed. Industry needs to have good reason to switch to clean electricity.”

Bridging that gap between the UK’s current and desired emissions reduction pathways will require “quite a significant change” in the pace of technology deployment, said Champion.

For electric vehicles, Champion said there is a 10 million car gap between BNEF’s base case for the UK in 2035 and its net zero scenario. For heat pumps, the UK may need four or five times the amount of heat pumps BNEF expects to be installed by then.

Is new target already beyond reach?

Labour has already pledged to hit some exceedingly ambitious targets concerning the energy transition. Aside from decarbonising the grid by 2030, it has said it will quadruple offshore wind capacity to 60GW by the end of the decade – a goal most industry experts believe is already way out of reach.

But any target that "isn’t incredibly ambitious is a missed opportunity," said Frankie Mayo, senior energy and climate analyst at UK think tank Ember. “Rapid action to reduce costs and carbon is not only doable, but opens up new opportunities too. The prize for this increased ambition is cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy.”

"While there is more to be done to deliver ambitious goals, we are seeing progress. With every new wind farm built, the UK is cutting its fossil fuel reliance."

Champion said that, while the UK is “running up against the clock” on 2030 targets, a 10-year lead time gives a lot more scope for change to take place.

Predictions for technology deployment are also often wrong, she said. Looking back at solar forecasts for Europe even just a few years ago, she said the continent is now way ahead of where it was expected to be. “Things can change really quickly with technology.”

So the UK’s new goal is not “insanity land,” she said, but it is “aggressive,” and demands looking beyond the “easy technologies that we know and are comfortable with” and get serious about scaling things like energy storage, carbon capture and green hydrogen.