Climate action will make British people’s lives more secure, the UK climate envoy has said.
Rachel Kyte’s comments come after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch claimed the country’s key climate target would “bankrupt” the country and drive a drop in living standards.
She told an audience this morning: “This government has a clear commitment to climate leadership at home and abroad.
“Why? Because this is going to make British people more secure.”
She was appointed as the UK’s special representative for climate last year by the current Labour government after it reinstated the role that the Tories had axed under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Ms Kyte said at a conference hosted by Chatham House thinktank today that climate action would boost Britons’ security by protecting them from extreme weather like flooding, which has saturated farms and homes, and by encouraging other countries to do more to slow global warming.
She was not commenting directly on Ms Badenoch’s comments, who earlier on Tuesday had declared the UK’s primary climate goal – to reach net zero emissions by 2050 – to be “impossible”.
Ms Badenoch said the target “can’t be achieved without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.
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Net zero by 2050 ‘is impossible’
The Conservative leader did not publish analysis to support these claims, but they are at odds with findings from the UK’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (the CCC).
Last month the CCC said reaching net zero would cost on average 0.2% of UK GDP a year until 2050, requiring upfront investment before saving money.
The CCC estimates net zero will cost now before saving the country money from 2040, balancing out at an average cost of 0.2% of GDP per year until 2050
That’s because clean electric technologies like heat pumps and EVs, which will eventually replace gas boilers and petrol and diesel cars, run on electricity which will be cheaper than gas or petrol and diesel.
Ms Badneoch’s comments come in the wake of US President Donald Trump attacking US climate laws – rolling back nature protections and wrenching it out of the landmark Paris Agreement.
His actions as head of the world’s largest economy and second-biggest polluter have raised fears others may be emboldened to follow suit and ditch their own attempts to go green.
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But Ms Kyte, who as a diplomat does not comment on specific countries or parties, said conversations she has with other countries are about how they green their economies, not if.
“There are no conversations about ‘well, maybe we should take a pause in the energy transition’,” she said.
“It’s a question of ‘how do we learn from what’s working? How do we push it forward?’.”
She was speaking on a panel alongside Ana Toni, chief executive of the COP30 climate conference in Brazil this year, who said the transition from fossil fuels to clean technology is “underway. It’s inevitable”.
“We are not saying there won’t be a fight. But the [energy transition] is unstoppable.”
