Rishi Sunak has put the brakes on UK environmental policy and the goal of eliminating the carbon footprint by 2050. But the road to next year's general election is winding and full of ice sheets. Will the British Conservative Prime Minister get the car to stop in time, or will it inevitably skid and fall off the cliff?
If you look into the abyss enough, said Nietzsche, who was never an optimist, the abyss ends up staring back at you. And that is the situation of Sunak and the conservatives after thirteen years in power, in which they have plunged the country into a spiral of austerity and chronic lack of investment (in schools, in hospitals, in roads, in infrastructure of all kinds, in development, in innovation and technology...), have exponentially increased inequality between millionaires and the rest, have impoverished the middle classes and have made the British economy the one with the lowest growth in the OECD, ahead only of the dysfunctional and hyperinflationary Argentina.
The polls consistently give Labor a twenty-point lead, and Sunak has decided he had to do something, anything, even at the risk of crashing. Given the exaggerated caution of his rival Keir Starmer, one of the few ways Labor tried to differentiate itself was on the environment. And the premier, encouraged by the antipathy provoked in the metropolitan area of London by the extension of the tax to the most polluting vehicles, has gone down the middle street. Diesel and combustion engine cars will not stop being sold in 2030 but in 2035, twenty percent of gas boilers (especially in rural areas) will not have to be replaced by heat pumps, and homemade ones will not They will have the obligation to install them in the apartments they rent.
Sunak assures that GPS continues to work towards decarbonization by 2050, and that the United Kingdom will fulfill its promise. But experts doubt it. The country was already on track to fail to meet its commitments for 2037, and now even more so.
Cars are responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, home heating for 17%, and agriculture for 11%. The relaxation and delay in time of the objectives will further jeopardize the achievement of the planned goals, but the prime minister's fundamental concern is the next elections. Winning seems a remote possibility, but not so much saving the furniture and preventing or limiting an absolute majority for Labour.
Since 1990, Britain has reduced its carbon footprint by 48%, more than any other country, but most of the achievement came before the new millennium, by replacing coal with natural gas as an energy source. The momentum has long since disappeared, and the problems in giving a new push are numerous. Individuals are reluctant to buy electric cars due to their high cost, short range and lack of battery charging points.
Heat pumps are very expensive (18,000 euros per unit, of which the Government does not cover even half). Furthermore, the supply of wind and green energy is currently insufficient and major power outages would be likely that could harm this transition.
Sunak's argument is that, in the midst of a crisis in living standards, it is not the time to obsess over dates in the race towards decarbonisation, and that it is better to go slowly but steadily than in a hurry and in an uncontrolled manner. He knows that he has lost young voters, but he wants to appeal to traditional conservatives, retirees and those who resist change. In the abstract, almost everyone is a supporter of environmental policies, until it affects their car or it's time to pay the bill. The prime minister is counting on this so that the slowdown in his environmental policy avoids a major political disaster.
