Sharma, the former secretary of state for international development, has also been elevated to the role of secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy on Thursday.

A government official at Number 10, the Prime Minister’s office, told Climate Home News Sharma would be the minister in charge of Cop26 and serve as the meeting’s president.

He will replace ousted Cop26 president Claire O’Neill, who was appointed in July but was abruptly sacked at the end of January. The position had been vacant for nearly two weeks, with both the UK’s former prime minister David Cameron and the former foreign secretary William Hague declining the job.

The move is part of a cabinet reshuffle due to reflect the UK government’s new priorities as it strives to reshape its relationship with the rest of the world after Brexit.

Sharma, who is little known outside of the UK, has held the international development portfolio between July 2019 and February this year.

During his time in government, Sharma, a former accountant and banker, also served as under secretary of state for the foreign office. In 2016, he was appointed the prime minister’s infrastructure envoy to India. However, he has limited experience in climate diplomacy.

UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start

In his new role, Sharma will need to balance responsibilities for the UK’s climate policy – a key test of the presidency’s credibility in demanding tougher climate action – alongside the energy and business brief as well as the diplomatic preparations for Cop26.

The talks are a key moment for countries to bridge the gap between current levels of ambition and what is needed to limit global temperature rise “well below 2C”.

Alex Scott, senior policy advisor on Cop26 for the environmental think tank E3G, welcomed the elevation of the Cop26 president to a ministerial role and Sharma’s previous “climate experience” at the department for international development.

She told Climate Home News, Sharma will be “able to draw on highly competent civil servants and diplomats in the Cop units,” the foreign office and the business department.

But with only nine months to go before the critical summit, Scott said Sharma would need to take “immediate action on diplomatic strategy to drive countries to raise their climate ambition ahead of Cop26”. One of this year’s key moments will be an EU-China summit in September, when the union hopes to leverage Beijing into bolder action.

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The UK faces a tough diplomatic double act to propel ambitious climate action into the 2020s while also negotiating new trade deals, including with the European Union.

This week, UK officials have sought to give reassurances the summit was “the top international priority” for the UK government, refuting concerns striking trade deals would take precedence.

Nick Bridge, the UK’s top climate diplomat, said on Tuesday UK embassies abroad had already done a “huge amount” to prepare for the summit. 

In Paris on Wednesday, Kwasi Kwarteng, then clean growth minister, said “Cop26 – let no-one be in any doubt – is the top international priority for the UK government”.

“We really can’t afford it to be a failure,” he told an event at the International Energy Agency (IEA), pointing to both global and national reputational risk.

The UK presidency is under pressure to leverage the world’s largest emitters into taking more ambitious climate action and toughen their climate plans.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are due to “communicate or update” their 2030 climate plans before the end of the year as well as publish a long-term decarbonisation strategy.

Much expectations rides on the the hope that countries will enhance their climate plans, with Cop26 as the unofficial deadline. Only the Marshall Islands, Surniname and Norway met a theoretical UN deadline of 9 February to ratchet up their ambition.

Officially launching Cop26 in London last week, Johnson called on every country to set net zero emissions goals this year. “The UK is calling for us to get to net zero as soon as possible – for every country to announce credible targets to get there [sic]. That is what we want in Glasgow,” he said.

The post UK government appoints Alok Sharma as Cop26 president appeared first on Climate Home News.

At a meeting in Birmingham on 8 February, 110 sometimes sceptical citizens were consulted about ways to decarbonise the UK economy as part of preparations by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government for the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in November. 

France launched a similar democratic experiment in October to seek voters’ ideas for cutting emissions. Last year, the UK was the first G7 economy to legislate a goal of net zero emissions by 2050 but it did not spell out exactly how.

Buy less new stuff, rent everything from toys to cars, and repair damaged possessions were among topics debated at the Birmingham meeting. 

“The more we consume, the quicker we run out of natural resources,” Nicole Koenig-Lewis, a reader in sustainable consumption at Cardiff University, told the room.

UK climate diplomacy ‘already happening’ for Cop26 despite leadership vacuum

“Thinking about resources like fossil fuels or minerals: it always leads to an increase pollution of our water and the air and also too much waste. Thinking about the fashion industry, 300,000 tonnes of clothing are sent to landfill every year,” she said.

Many in the audience said they got the message although others doubted the government would heed their ideas.

“It’s a big issue for my generation,” Leia, a currently unemployed 20-year old engineer from Darlington, told Climate Home News of a throwaway society. Reporters were asked only to use participants’ first names.

“We’ve never been taught to mend or make clothes. I have but I know I’m the exception, so we need to educate young generations how to do these things rather than just live a consumerist lifestyle,” she said.

Participants in the Birmingham citizens’ assembly, the second of four weekends devoted to consulting the public, were recruited through a civic lottery, under which the government sent 30,000 invitations and randomly picked 110 people out of those willing to take part.

The attendees reflect the UK population in terms of age, gender, education, ethnicity, geography and attitudes to climate change, according to Resolve, a charity specialising in participative democracy overseeing the climate assembly. 

The outcome of the discussions will be presented to the six parliamentary committees which called for the assembly in April. The government will not be bound by the recommendations, prompting Extinction Rebellion UK to call out the assembly as “toothless”.

By contrast in France, President Emmanuel Macron has said he plans to present citizens’ proposals “unfiltered” either to a referendum, to a vote in parliament or to direct regulatory application.

One million solar panels! If only we knew where they were…

In Birmingham, one audience member won a round of applause by asking Rachel Reeves, the chair of parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee: “How can we be reassured that the government will follow on our recommendations?” 

Reeves, of the opposition Labour Party, insisted that the assemblies were genuine.

“We can have a degree of reassurance that the government are going to listen and take on board the views of the citizens’ assembly,” she said, pointing to cross-party support. “We’re going to use what you come up with to inform our future work programme.”

Participants broke out into several groups in an afternoon session, each tackling ways to decarbonise an area of the UK economy, including energy in the home, transport and consumption. 

In the workshop on consumption, lectures challenged the notion that greater energy efficiency in the future would allow British people to get away with present-rate consumption. 

A net-zero economy would also have to encourage less waste, higher-quality and more durable products than those produced at present in a shift from a throwaway consumer culture.

“Is the new iPhone, which has a new form of selfie, adding enormous amount of value to our life?,” asked John Barrett, a professor in energy and climate policy at the university of Leeds. 

“It isn’t about personal blame. This is about a system that we work in,” he said, sending several heads to nod in agreement. Some economists object that a shift to buying less will undermine growth and jobs.

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Koenig-Lewis advocated a shift away from ownership and towards renting or sharing. Ride-sharing for commuters by car, clothes-sharing or product rental, such as the Lego subscription box, could allow British people to cut resource use in the long-term. 

The participants, who were spread across five tables of six to seven people including a mediator, then had ten minutes to exchange views with experts in a session closed to the media. 

Barrett reported upon the audience’s “annoyance” towards products’ lower standards and limited lifespan.

The idea of forcing companies to indicate their products’ carbon footprint was particularly popular, the experts said. Carbon footprint labelling is currently not compulsory in the UK, despite support from household names like Kit-Kat chocolates, Cheerios cereals and Nescafe coffee.

So was a graph linking emissions to income that showed the 5% richest section of the population have by far the greatest impact. “The reaction was a sense that they want to make sure that the polluter pays,” Barrett said. 

On the sharing economy, Koenig-Lewis said participants wanted to discuss “how to  make a rented car feel more personal”. 

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There was also vivid interest in repairing initiatives, such as the rise of ‘repair cafes’, free meeting places where people can bring broken products such as clothes, bicycles, furniture, electrical appliances and, if necessary, learn how to fix them.

Notwithstanding the odd disagreement over subjects such as whether to restrict consumption of meat in favour of plant-based diets, participants provided overwhelmingly positive feedback on the experience in surveys. 

Chris, a 32-year old mechanical engineer from Oxfordshire, admitted to being initially “very sceptical about the climate assembly”. 

“I heard a lot of people say: we want a group of people, to represent the people, to make a decision for the people. And I thought: and is that not what Parliament supposed to be?”

But he said the diversity of the assembly and willingness of participants to find compromise on issues had left him “pleasantly surprised”.

The assembly embraced the full spectrum of British society, he said, from “people who are in denial to people who say we need to fix it tomorrow and everything in between along that line”.

“I feel proud of what has been achieved,” Adrian, a 52-year old lawyer from Belfast, told CHN.

“Everyone that’s involved in this is going towards a same goal,” he said, “And that makes me a lot more secure about the outcome of this than I was when going into it.”

The post Don’t shop till you drop: advice to UK citizens on net zero climate goals appeared first on Climate Home News.

With nine months to go before the summit, or Cop26, the UK faces a steep climb to provide the confidence and diplomatic lift the world needs to galvanise political leaders into taking more ambitious action and curb greenhouse gas emissions growth.

But preparations for the summit have been off to a rocky start – and the job of rallying countries into bolder action could prove to get tougher yet.

Last week, UK prime minister Boris Johnson sacked former clean growth minister Claire O’Neill as Cop26 president. Her replacement is expected to be announced as part of a cabinet reshuffle in the coming days.

As she went, O’Neill slammed Johnson for showing no leadership over preparations for the summit, which she said were “miles off track”. “He doesn’t get it,” she told the BBC of the summit’s diplomatic gravitas.

Johnson launched Cop26 on Tuesday without a president to oversee the summit, nor a clear strategy to leverage the world’s largest emitters into submitting tougher climate plans before the Glasgow talks.

He urged all countries to follow the UK’s lead in setting net zero emissions goals before the end of the year – a goal that the UK itself is not on track to meet and that none of the world’s large emerging economies have signed up for so far.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is also failing to show enthusiasm for upgrading their climate plans.

Under a UN decision to implement the Paris Agreement, February 9 is the theoretical deadline for countries to communicate new or updated climate plans this year. Only the Marshall Islands and Suriname have so far met the deadline.

In a must-read report, Alister Doyle looks at the legality and implications of the missed deadline.

Back in the UK, Johnson does have a vision, one of a “global Britain” after Brexit.

How the government balances this double act of re-defining its place in the world while calling on leader to take greater climate action will be key to the success of its leadership this year.

Indeed, some confidence remains that the UK’s diplomatic leverage could still deliver a positive outcome at Cop26. But in private, negotiators are expressing concerns that time for action is now strikingly tight.

African youths’ call

When African youth activist Vanessa Nakate was cropped out from a picture at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it was one example too many of the lack of attention to the voices of those that are most affected by climate impacts.

The incident, which sparked outrage across the world, also led young African activists to highlight the lack of action by both African and world leaders to tackle the climate crisis on the continent.

“The biggest threat to action in my country and in Africa is the fact that those who are trying as hard as possible to speak up are … not able to tell their stories,” warned Nakate.

Turbines

A record 3.6 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity was installed across Europe in 2019. As the cost of building offshore wind farms continues to fall, the economic incentive for the continent to embrace wind power should be a given.

But the pace of deployment is too slow to meet the EU’s 2050 net zero emissions target, according to the industry.

The EU Commission estimates Europe will need between 230 and 450 GW of offshore wind by 2050 to decarbonise its energy system. At the end of 2019, total capacity reached 22 GW. Still a long way to go.

This week’s top stories

• World misses symbolic February deadline to ratchet up climate action before Cop26
• UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start
• Offshore wind deployment boom ‘too slow’ to meet EU climate target
• Democratic contenders in Iowa caucus aim to rejoin Paris accord in green goals
• UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020
• UK government drops Claire O’Neill as president of Cop26 summit
• Youth activists urge African governments to do more to curb climate change

The post ‘Miles off track’ – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

The tension between the UK government’s priorities was on display this week as Prime Minister Boris Johnson both set out his vision for a global Britain and formally launched Cop26.

Outlining his “global Britain” campaign, Johnson declared his government was “ready for the great multi-dimensional game of chess in which we engage in more than one negotiation at once”.

Much hope rides on the expectations that the game will include climate diplomacy.

Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of UN Climate Change, told Climate Home News that Cop26 in Glasgow “was a post-Brexit opportunity to show that despite Brexit, Britain continues to have important leadership on global issues”.

But nine months before the UK is due to preside over the biggest diplomatic event it has ever hosted, there are no clear indications of how the government will deliver the confidence lift the world needs to deliver tougher climate targets.

UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020

At the Cop26 launch on Tuesday, Johnson, who had just sacked Claire O’Neill, the UK’s former clean growth minister, as Cop president, had little to say about the government’s diplomatic strategy for the summit.

He called on every country to follow the UK’s lead by setting net zero emissions goal this year and announced plans to bring forward a UK ban on sales of new diesel and petrol cars by five years, to 2035.

The climate talks in Glasgow have been billed as a critical moment for countries to revive the multilateralism that underpinned the Paris Agreement and leverage the world’s largest emitters into taking bolder climate action.

O’Neill, who was appointed Cop26 president in July, would have been the first Cop president not to hold any ministerial role.  The government said a minister would be replacing her.

Some observers interpreted the move as a positive signal that Johnson’s team understands the need for a political heavyweight to take the lead.

But the fallout between Johnson and O’Neill has also raised questions about the Prime Minister’s grasp of the diplomatic gravitas of hosting such an important climate meeting.

In a strongly worded rebuke letter, O’Neill accused Johnson of not giving the summit the attention and resources it needed, with preparations “miles off track”.

“In my judgement this isn’t a pretty place to be and we owe the world a lot better,” she wrote, calling on the government to make the climate talks the top of its priorities.

“You had a vision for Brexit and you got Brexit done….Please get this done too,” she urged. Johnson has called on the EU to agree a Canada-style free trade deal with the UK before the end of the year.

UK government drops Claire O’Neill as president of Cop26 summit

Diplomats have told CHN the UK’s work on Cop26 had only just started when O’Neill was dropped from the role. They expressed eagerness for the UK to start its diplomatic work as soon as possible.

Speaking to CHN before O’Neill was removed, Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said the UK was “expected to be able to do joined-up governance” without having to start again from scratch.

Johnson is anticipated to announce a new Cop26 president as part of a cabinet reshuffle, reported to take place next week.

The late timing of the announcement is putting more pressure on the UK to deliver greater ambition while finalising a number of negotiation issues left unresolved at the last UN talks in Madrid.

“Time is tight, but there is still enough time and enough leverage in the mix for the UK presidency to make some headway,” David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative, told CHN.

Once a new Cop26 president is appointed, it will be “a matter of rolling out that diplomatic effort as quickly and assertively as possible,” he added.

Possible candidates to replace O’Neill are already under intense scrutiny. For Jennifer Tollmann, an expert in climate diplomacy at think tank E3G, the new appointment will be “key to signalling to the rest of the world how serious [the UK government] is about the Cop”.

The new president will need to have good background understanding of the climate process, diplomatic experience and the commitment and determination to make the summit a success, Waskow and Tollmann agreed.

“It’s really important that the Prime Minister is fully attached to the outcome of the Cop because otherwise we will not get the top political attention that the Cop needs,” Nick Mabey, chief executive of E3G, said in an event at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London last month.

Among those rumoured for the job are former environment minister Michael Gove, former foreign secretary William Hague and environment and climate minister Zac Goldsmith.

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Inside the Cop26 presidency team, about 150 civil servants have been brought in to push ambition to the rest of the world. “Diplomats are ready to go, they are waiting for marching orders,” a UK official told CHN.

Even with the best geopolitical outlook, the scale of the Cop26 challenge is enormous.

Countries are under pressure to enhance their climate plans to bridge the gap between current emissions reduction pledges and what is necessary to limit global warming “well below 2C” above pre-industrial times.

Global emissions need to fall by 7.6% every year until 2030 for the world to be on track to limit warming to the toughest goal in the Paris Agreement of 1.5C, according to UN Environment. And global carbon emissions rose 0.6% in 2019 to a new record high.

Under the Paris deal, countries are due to “communicate or update” their 2030 climate plans by the end of the year. Countries have also agreed that successive climate plans “will represent a progression” and reflect their “highest possible ambition”.

This rachet-up mechanism, which underpins the Paris accord, is being tested for the first time.

But the geopolitical momentum for climate action is stalled, making the task ahead even greater.

The US will officially leave the Paris Agreement on 4 November, a day after the US presidential election, under a withdrawal by President Donald Trump. Leading Democratic candidates say they will immediately apply to rejoin if they beat him.

Irreconcilable rift cripples UN climate talks as majority stand against polluters

Meanwhile, entrenched nationalism, a trade war and slower growth have seen China and India bump climate action down their priority list.

Efforts to bolster momentum last year have failed. At Cop25, countries failed to agree on the rules to set up a global carbon market – an issue that needs to be resolved this year – and failed to make a clear call for more ambition.

“Cop25 really increased the diplomatic and confidence lift the UK needs to provide,” Mabey said.

The UK presidency is now largely dependent on the outcome of an EU-China summit in October, when the EU is hoping to broker a climate deal with Beijing to inject momentum into the process.

At home, the UK’s credibility lies on its own ability to develop a concrete plan to achieve its 2050 net zero emissions goal.

Last year, the UK was the first major developed economy to set a net zero goal into law. Under the Paris Agreement, all countries are expected to work out “mid-century, long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies” by the end of 2020.

“The year ahead is an acid test of the new [UK] government’s climate credibility,” Chris Stark, chief executive of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, wrote last week.

But analysis by the environmental think tank Green Alliance published on Monday found the UK to be off track to meet its 2050 target.

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For Mabey, the Paris Agreement hangs in the balance of the Cop26 outcome. “Failure is really on the agenda for Glasgow. If Glasgow fails then the Paris regime fails, and we lose another five to ten years building another regime,” he said.

In her letter to Johnson, O’Neill outlined a seven-point action plan to ramp up climate action. Strengthening countries’ climate plans and establishing carbon neutrality as the climate ambition goal topped the list.

Introducing a “properly-funded global package for adaptation and resilience building”, a focus on nature-based solutions and decarbonising finance flows also made the list.

The appointment of former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney and incoming UN special envoy for climate action and finance and former We Mean Business CEO Nigel Topping as the UK’s climate action champion has further boosted the UK’s finance agenda.

Kyte told CHN it was “absolutely appropriate to put finance right at the top of [Cop26’s] agenda” both in a real economy sense but also as part of the negotiations.

“Finance is the essential ingredient in moving the transition forward quickly,” said Kyte. “It is the essential glue for speeding up the action that we need.”

The post UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start appeared first on Climate Home News.

The leaders of the Labour Party, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party all participated in the detailed discussion on how to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions and restore nature, which ranged from greenhouse gas reduction targets, to zero-carbon homes, to meat consumption.

Conservative leader Boris Johnson chose not to participate, saying ahead of the debate that he did not want environmental issues to be “siloed”. Dripping ice sculptures stood where the leaders of the Conservative and Brexit parties would have been – a reminder of the glaciers that continue to melt while politicians fail to take action.

The event, hosted by broadcaster Channel 4, comes ahead of the general election on December 12.

These two ice sculptures – which represent the emergency on planet earth – will take the place of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage tonight after they declined our invitation to attend a party leaders' #ClimateDebate

Tune in at 7pm on 4 and here on Twitter: https://t.co/GXl7XiFbgA pic.twitter.com/niPE5MLdGV

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 28, 2019

There was no debate about the reality or urgency of tackling climate change; all leaders were broadly in agreement that emissions need to be reduced steeply in the coming years, and that nature needs to be restored – the Liberal Democrats’ Jo Swinson was the only leader who did not support a 2030 net-zero goal, instead advocating for a 2045 target.

Instead, it was a debate that, as the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon emphasised, was largely about “common unity and purpose”, and the questions focused on the measures that the parties supported to achieve these goals. Brexit, which has dominated much of the election to date, was largely off the table during this discussion, although Swinson in particular stressed that she considered leaving the EU a “climate crime”.

Angela Merkel criticises EIB decision to ban gas lending

While there was broad support for renewables, Corbyn was forced to defend his support for nuclear power, with Sturgeon demanding to know why he wasn’t ruling out the technology. “There has to be a baseline of production of electricity from some totally sustainable source,” said Corbyn, adding that any party that came into power would have to deal with a mixed power grid.

There was also widespread enthusiasm for zero-carbon homes, although the leaders struggled to answer exactly how they would retrofit the country’s existing housing stock. The Green Party’s Sian Berry said that £38 billion of the £100 billion that the party would spend on climate change was earmarked for improving the efficiency of the UK’s housing stock.

The question of whether British people should eat less meat proved difficult to navigate. While farming has a generally detrimental impact on biodiversity, some leaders were evidently wary of alienating rural voters. Plaid Cymru’s leader, Adam Price, was reluctant to acknowledge that Wales’ sheep farming industry might have to change in order to improve the nation’s biodiversity and reduce its carbon footprint, stressing that farmers were “allies” rather than “enemies”. It was an argument that didn’t sit well with expert viewers: Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, tweeted that Price was “a bit all over the place” regarding farming.

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Climate change is expected to be a key topic in the general election. Voters will go to the polls following a year of heightened activism, including protests by Extinction Rebellion and school strikes inspired by Greta Thunberg. A YouGov poll in November found that the environment had rocketed in importance for voters: in 2017, only 8% of British voters considered it one of the top three most important issues; today a quarter place it among their top three concerns, tied in fourth place with the economy.

It was the first time that there had been a TV election debate on nature and climate. The event was organised after a petition by the climate NGO Possible, which ran a petition signed by more than 200,000 people. Max Wakefield, director at Possible, said that the debate “has set a new standard for political discourse around elections” and that it was clear that the “climate and nature emergency” had not previously received the attention it deserved.

On Thursday, Buzzfeed reported that the Conservatives had threatened Channel 4 with a review of its broadcasting obligations. A party spokesperson told the Guardian the ice sculpture in place of Johnson was a “a provocative partisan stunt”.

The Conservative manifesto pledges to reduce emissions to net-zero by 2050, which is well behind most of the other parties. It also promises that the party will invest £800 million in carbon capture and storage, as well as another £500 million to help energy-intensive industries to low-carbon techniques.

Greenpeace has criticised the Conservative manifesto as “half-baked”, while Caroline Lucas, a Green Party MP, condemned Johnson’s failure to appear at the debate.

“Two thirds of the public, and half of his own voters want to see him join the world’s first televised leaders climate and nature debate,” said Lucas. “It’s outrageous that he can’t spare an hour to address the greatest challenges of our time. How are we supposed to trust the prime minister’s word that he’s taking climate and nature emergency seriously?”

The post UK leaders debate climate, with Boris Johnson replaced by ice sculpture appeared first on Climate Home News.

This makes 2020 an absolutely critical year. It is the year when governments are due, under the agreement they made in Paris in 2015, to review progress and hasten action towards our joint goal of keeping global warming to 1.5C.

The UK will host the UN climate summit in late 2020, an opportunity which gives the UK an absolutely pivotal role in determining humanity’s future on our single, shared planet. The government and new prime minister have flagged their commitment to a zero-carbon Britain by 2050.

To keep the 1.5C target in play, the UK must ensure the summit focusses unwaveringly on a single objective: increasing the speed at which governments cut emissions. Currently we are hurtling towards 3 or 4 degrees of global warming, which will bring huge predictable impacts and equally huge but largely unpredictable risks.

Aviation’s black box: Non-disclosure agreements, closed doors and rising CO2

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told us last October that governments need to halve global emissions by 2030 and bring them to net zero by mid-century. The 2020 summit has to make concrete progress on both of those objectives. As host nation, the UK has a critical role to play.

There are three things that the UK must get right in order to deliver a path-breaking summit.

First, it must make crystal clear that reducing emissions is the single focus.

Some voices argue that, for example, it should focus on ‘greening the City of London’; but this is a distraction. Shifting finance from ‘brown’ to ‘green’ is a vital part of tackling climate change, but it is no substitute for government-led action across the board. Basing success on how many green bonds the city issues or how many banks disclose their financial risk will not impress either those developing countries already feeling the force of climate change impacts nor Britain’s newly invigorated citizen activists.

Second, the UK must ensure the summit delivers on the promise that western governments made a decade ago, to provide $100bn per year from 2020 to less well-off nations.

UN ‘very confident’ China plans to raise climate ambition

This will help people in the poorest countries protect themselves against multiple forms of damage, such as longer droughts, fiercer storms and rising seas. It will also enable developing countries to cut their own carbon emissions by charting low carbon growth. Ministers must have no truck with wearyingly familiar criticisms of overseas aid: the $100bn was a pledge, the money will make a meaningful difference to the pace of global decarbonisation in places, such as West Africa, where I have spent large chunks of my working life, and it needs to be delivered promptly, from 2020 onwards.

Thirdly, the UK must demonstrate to the rest of the world that it is cutting its own emissions on a timescale compatible with the 1.5C Paris target, and doing so without economic damage.

Here, it has a good story to tell. Since the birth of the climate change convention in 1992, the UK has both grown its economy more and cut its emissions more substantially than any other G7 nation. This proves that decarbonisation is not a barrier to economic growth, but helps shape a different greener path to prosperity. The decade-old Climate Change Act is increasingly being adopted as a model by other countries. Above all, the UK has just set a world-leading target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

But, as its own official advisors have noted, we are currently off track to deliver on targets for 2025 and 2030. This has to be put right now, if the UK is to credibly claim to lead others to greater ambition. Re-establishing strong incentives for local investment in renewable energy would bolster this ambition.

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The UK was the first major nation to call for a global climate treaty, when prime minister Margaret Thatcher warned the UN General Assembly 30 years ago that “we shall only succeed in dealing with the problems through a vast international, co-operative effort.” Despite this, the UK has not until now hosted one of the annual summits. The government’s determination to put that right is welcome.

But now it has to prepare to deliver. British diplomats must begin preparatory work in all the world’s capitals, as French diplomats did in the lead-up to the ultimately successful Paris summit. And their messages, their requests and their offers need to be unwaveringly focussed on accelerating decarbonisation on the route to global net zero emissions by 2050.

Whether or not ministers formally adopt the slogan of a “net zero Cop”, that is what it needs to become. Successful delivery of such a seminal summit will gain much kudos for Britain and be a major step forwards in averting the very present danger we now face.

Can this new prime minister and government, with their single-minded focus on achieving Brexit, invest what is needed now to make the summit a success?

Camilla Toulmin is a member of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s advisory board and former director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

The post Brexit must not distract from UK’s biggest job in 2020: the Glasgow climate summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a letter to the prime minister dated 28 May, the Labour politician urged the Conservative government to make “every effort” to win the presidency of the talks.

“The UK and the world are facing a climate emergency; it is therefore imperative that we urgently increase the pace and scale of our action to both reduce our carbon emissions domestically and show climate leadership on the global stage,” he wrote.

Twelve British business chiefs and 162 members of parliament from across the political spectrum have also expressed support for the UK’s candidacy.

Britain is competing with Italy to hold the Cop26 summit, which comes at a critical moment for boosting national targets under the Paris Agreement.

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Both countries face political challenges. Britain is negotiating an exit from the European Union, alienating key allies. Italy’s government is internally divided, with environment minister Sergio Costa promoting Milan as host despite the climate sceptic leanings of junior coalition party Lega.

Without mentioning Brexit, Khan said holding climate talks in London would send “a positive message that the UK continues to be open to hosting events of global significance”.

He promoted the city’s strategy to become zero carbon by 2050 and policies to cut emissions from road transport and homes. The mayor is set to open the first London Climate Action Week in July.

Under the UN’s regional rotation, it is the turn of western Europe and associated countries, which include Australia, New Zealand and Israel, to host Cop26. Representatives of the group are expected to take a decision at interim climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany next month.

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However, both countries face significant domestic uncertainties that year, with the strong possibility of early general elections and economic and political problems.

In the UK, it’s not yet clear if the country will have left the European Union by then, be in the middle of a transition or even still locked in negotiations over leaving the bloc.

In Italy, current public opinion polls predict a full-out win for the right-wing League party, which now shares power with the populist 5 Star Movement.

“New elections before the Cop26 are important because they can change a government’s priorities,” said Luca Bergamaschi, an energy and climate change expert at the think-tanks E3G and Italian Institute for International Affairs. “Having a Cop26 potentially guided by the League raises strong doubts about whether Italy could guide a meeting which is very, very important.”

Germany ready to join global coal phase-out alliance: environment minister

While the UK government may still be consumed by Brexit or its fallout, Britain has “the diplomatic network to pull off the significant outreach that will be required of the Cop26 presidency”, said Jennifer Tollmann, a policy advisor also at E3G. “It has consistently driven the climate agenda within Europe and there are numerous cities that could host it.”

The government has also made an effort to show leadership in recent years. It partnered with Canada in 2017 to form an anti-coal alliance, started the process of strengthening its 2050 climate goals last year, and is now co-chairing talks on climate resilience for a special UN summit in September.

The annual Cop summits rotate between five regional groups. Britain and Italy sit with other Western European countries, the US, Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

Chile warns of 3-hour commutes, split venue at December climate talks

Both countries confirmed their bids during the Cop24 summit in Poland in December. The UK also wrote a letter to the regional group in February.

The group is now under pressure to choose a host at a June UN meeting in Bonn, ahead of the secretary-general’s September summit.

That New York meeting is meant to begin pushing countries to strengthen their commitments for tackling climate change up to 2030 and come out with plans for 2050, as the Paris Agreement calls on them to do by 2020. Cop26 will be the final stage for those changes – requiring heavy diplomatic muscle from its presidency.

“Cop26 in 2020 will be a pivotal moment to encourage and take stock of global ambition and prepare the ground for further action,” UK energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry said in a statement to the UN’s climate change secretariat in January. “It is for that reason that the UK expressed interest in hosting Cop26, continuing to show our global leadership in climate action. However, we note the interest of other countries and will engage with them on this matter.”

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Italy first floated the idea of hosting under the previous Democratic Party-led government early last year.

The country’s environment ministry is now run by the 5 Star Movement, which tends to advocate for stronger environmental and climate change measures.

The League has largely stayed out of environmental policy since the coalition government took over a year ago, except in supporting a controversial gas pipeline and other infrastructure projects. However, its European Parliament members – including now-party leader and interior minister Matteo Salvini – voted against ratifying the Paris accord in 2016.

A fight is also brewing over where the summit would be held in Italy.

The northern region of Lombardy, which includes Milan, wrote a letter to the government asking to be considered, even though environment minister Sergio Costa has mentioned his home city of Naples, the newspaper Il Denaro reported in February. Milan hosted the Cop9 in 2003, and was the Democratic Party’s preferred location.

The regional group is expected to decide on the winner later this year, either at talks in Bonn or at the Cop25 summit in Chile.

Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation. Please read our editorial guidelines for more details.

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UK environment policy is devolved to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments. The UK government’s draft Environment Bill is therefore limited to England – and risks leading to diverging rules and regulatory gaps once Britain leaves the European Union.

To avoid protection gaps, Northern Ireland has asked to be part of the bill, and is now talking to the UK government about how to apply it, according to a letter published by the House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee on Friday.

The decision was based on concerns that Northern Ireland’s environmental protections would otherwise be weakened after Brexit, Northern Ireland’s permanent secretary for the environment Denis McMahon wrote. It would not be possible for Northern Ireland to fill those regulatory gaps with its own legislation because it has not had a sitting assembly since 2017, he added.

However, applying the environment law to Northern Ireland presents new complications: how to regulate free flowing air and water pollutants across a land border with the EU, and how to manage protected sites now shared between Northern Ireland and Ireland, the letter noted.

Belfast and London are looking at how these issues would affect the remit of the new watchdog, known as the Office for Environmental Protection.

The answer, according to Labour MP Mary Creagh, is a softer Brexit.

Adding Northern Ireland to the environment regime may require the rest of the UK to keep regulatory alignment with the EU under the Irish backstop arrangement – “effectively requiring the whole of the UK to stay within a customs union and single market”, said Creagh, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.

However, there are still concerns that environmental protections in Scotland and Wales will diverge if London presses ahead with its Environment Bill rather than building a system with the devolved governments. Scotland opened a consultation on how to maintain environmental governance after Brexit in February, which closes in May, and Wales is expected to start one later this month.

 “It creates an anomaly for Scotland in terms of animal and plant protection and highlights the importance of our recommendations that the Office for Environmental Protection must be co-designed and co-owned by all the nations of the UK in order to be more resilient, independent and effective,” Creagh said.

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As a prominent advocate for leaving the European Union, Gove has long argued that Brexit will allow the UK to strengthen its environmental protections and set policies more effectively.

But when it comes to the commission’s role in making sure governments fulfil policies, the “easily understandable process” in Brussels sets a good example for Britain’s Environment Bill, he told the House of Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

“There are lots of other things where we wish to do things differently,” Gove said. “But given that we will have had a degree of confidence in the process – whereby the commission can give an opinion and then if necessary go with infraction proceedings – people have a high degree of confidence that – whatever else are the defects of the EU – that is a good working model. And therefore we’ve sought to replicate it.”

The same goes for the government’s plan to establish environmental principles to guide policymaking.

The treaty that created the EU includes commitments to, for example, ensure that a polluter always pays. Legal experts told MPs last week that the UK’s draft would create loopholes for lawmakers to avoid following them.

Environmental advocates, MPs, the National Audit Office and others have expressed concerns that the draft Environment Bill fails to give the watchdog enough independence and power to hold the government to account for its shortfalls.

In response to criticism, Gove said repeatedly on Wednesday that his department is still “open to suggestions” and “open-minded” as it prepares to release the final version this year.

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The Environment Bill is to replace EU environment law after Brexit, addressing clean air, nature protection, waste management, resource efficiency, water and other areas, according to a draft released in December.

It would set up an independent watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), establish environmental principles for policymaking and make sure the government sets out long-term environment plans, publishes indicators and measures and reports on its progress.

The draft, however, creates “too many get-out-of-jail-free cards” around those environmental principles, Labour MP Mary Creagh, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, said in response to expert testimony.

The principles should inspire and inform legislation across the government and the way courts interpret it – the way the EU’s principles, placed prominently in the treaty creating the bloc, trickles down into law. EU principles say the polluter should pay and precaution and prevention of pollution should be taken at the source, and then rectified there.

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The concern in Britain is that the principles would be limited to the environment law, with a narrow requirement on ministers to apply them in policy-making – and room for exemptions.

“You can put the principles into the legislation in a way that gives pretty powerful influence,” said Tim Buley, a barrister at Landmark Chambers, pointing to the UK’s human rights and air quality acts. “What you have here is not that, nor is it one or two steps away from that, it’s many, many steps away from that, because of the various ways in which the principles are downgraded.”

The Office of Environmental Protection, meanwhile, may not be able to hold the government accountable the way the European Commission does with member countries, Conservative MP Neil Parish, chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said during a separate hearing.

“The commission, for all its faults, at the moment is separate from government,” he said. “And if we’re not careful, this OEP, is it going to be too close to government? Is it independent enough?” To be independent, the office should sit in a separate building, with a separate structure for resources, Parish added.

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According to the draft, however, the environment secretary (currently Michael Gove) would appoint the OEP’s chair and two to five other non-executive members. The chair would then have to consult the secretary before choosing a chief executive. The secretary would also fund the office and decide how much is “reasonably sufficient” to do its work.

“Everyone has to watch for that,” Richard Macrory, emeritus professor of environmental law at University College London, said of the system for appointing people. “They’ll start with an independent chair… and the next time you get a slightly more compliant chair.”

MPs should have the right to challenge the chair’s appointment, added Parish.

There is also strong concern that the draft Environment Bill doesn’t extend to enforcing climate change policy.

The UK’s existing Committee on Climate Change is an independent advisory body, so it cannot penalise the government for falling short of targets such as emissions reductions. The European Commission does that. The environment watchdog should therefore have the power to enforce climate obligations, as long as it first consults with the Committee on Climate Change, experts agreed.

The UK’s National Audit Office warned in January that the environmental oversight system should extend across policy areas such as business, transport and communities.

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Ireland imports all of its oil and around a third of its natural gas – mostly from the UK – and the gas imports are set to rise as the country’s offshore Corrib reserve runs out over the next 12 years, according to the Irish Offshore Operators’ Association (IOOA).

Now, uncertainty around Britain’s future relationship with the EU is adding urgency to the industry’s calls for drilling and infrastructure projects that can bolster Ireland’s energy independence.

“Ireland’s geographical location at the edge of Europe makes us extremely vulnerable to any potential disruption to energy supplies,” Pat Shannon, the IOOA’s chairman, told Climate Home News. “Brexit increases energy security concerns, and post-Brexit, Ireland will not have a direct connection to the main EU energy infrastructure.”

Irish energy industry calls for new links to Europe amid Brexit fears

The association published a report in January highlighting Ireland’s reliance on foreign oil and gas. It noted that even its biggest supplier, Britain, depends increasingly on imports from the European Union, Norway and Russia.

A disruption in these energy supplies would be costly for Ireland, the report warned. A year-long interruption of Russian gas to Europe would push up the country’s gas prices by 23% and electricity prices by 15%, while a total blackout would cost around €850m per day.

“Developing indigenous oil and gas would provide greater security of supply for Ireland in the context of global geopolitical uncertainty, including Brexit,” Shannon said.

The industry association has been discussing these risks with Ireland’s local and national governments and other stakeholders since Britain’s June 2016 referendum.

Oil and gas explorers will “likely” drill at least one new well in the deep Irish waters this year, with more being prepared for 2020 and 2021, Shannon said.

“Irrespective of the manner in which the UK departs from the European Union, IOOA believes it is vitally important for Ireland to secure its own indigenous energy supply as we transition to a low-carbon economy,” he said.

Along with supply security, Shannon points to one more upside to developing homegrown oil and gas: lower carbon dioxide emissions. Gas-fired power emits 67% less CO2 than peat and 61% less than coal, while oil emits 33% less than peat and 20% less than coal, according to the IOOA report.

That said, peat and coal only accounted for a combined 13% of Ireland’s total energy use in 2017, while oil and gas dominated with 78%.

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New investment in domestic oil and gas would also put Dublin in an awkward position, after lawmakers voted last summer to make the country the first to fully divest its sovereign wealth fund from fossil fuels. A cross-party parliamentary committee is now debating recommendations for broad new policies to tackle climate change, as the country struggles to limit its emissions.

The Irish Green Party’s leader, Eamon Ryan, dismissed the claims that the country needs domestic oil and gas.

“This industry is like an addict, it just wants one last fix, and it will tell you anything and do anything and try anything to get that fix,” Ryan, a former energy and natural resources minister, told CHN. “They’re chasing the dragon, they’re chasing the wrong way. We should be using Irish waters to develop offshore wind farms… that’s what has to change to take the climate seriously, and Brexit is not going to change that one way or the other.”

Brexit is not expected to immediately disrupt Ireland’s oil, gas or electricity trade with its neighbour, even if it’s a hard, no-deal departure on 29 March.

The World Trade Organization does not apply trade tariffs to power or crude oil, and only 0.7% to gas. Plus, Britain and Ireland also have bilateral agreements on their gas trade outside any EU arrangements, noted Paul Deane, an energy research fellow at University College Cork.

Nonetheless, Brexit has “refocused attention” on Ireland’s import reliance, Deane said. Wind and other renewables are growing, but gas still covers about half the power demand.

Brexit uncertainty is one factor that helped revive plans for the stalled €1 billion Shannon liquefied natural gas import terminal on Ireland’s west coast, when a US equity firm stepped in to buy it last year.

The project’s prospects are also boosted by the availability of new, cheaper technology to receive cargoes offshore rather than onshore, but its future now depends on the outcome of a legal challenge from environmental groups. The High Court is expected to decide on Friday whether the new owner can start building, or has to apply for new planning permits, or must drop the project entirely.

Projects like this require swift decisions aimed at bolstering the country’s energy security, the offshore operators’ association argues.

Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation. Please read our editorial guidelines for more details.

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An earlier version of this article erroneously said Shannon LNG terminal was bought for €1 billion last year. In fact €1bn is the estimated cost of the project.

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Ireland relies heavily on British energy. It shares its electricity market with Northern Ireland, with just two power links to the mainland, and receives most of its oil and gas imports from the UK.

While an abrupt, no-deal Brexit on 29 March is unlikely to stop those supplies, it could lead to disruptions if Europe and Britain’s rules diverge in future, energy industry representatives are warning.

With these risks in mind, state-owned EirGrid is urging the European Commission to approve funding for a planned €930m electricity link with France before the commission’s term ends late this year, according to chief executive Mark Foley.

“It’s a project of common interest and a project of enormous strategic importance to an island nation which, in a post-Brexit situation, is not connected to Europe,” Foley said on the sidelines of a conference at Dublin City University last week. “We’d like to achieve grant aid in formal terms in the lifetime of the current EU commission.”

The commission has already approved funding for studies of the Celtic Interconnector, which is deemed a cross-border project of common interest that can bolster the EU-wide energy market. If additional funding is secured, EirGrid and its French counterpart, RTE, hope to begin trading power in 2026, Foley added.

Plans for the link between southern Ireland and northwest France predate Brexit by about five years, and proponents say it will be crucial to both countries regardless of the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

For Ireland, new interconnectors are needed to balance the rising supply of renewable power. This way producers can export their electricity when the weather is strong and supply exceeds demand, and import when it wanes.

Renewables – mostly wind, with some hydro and solar – accounted for about one-third of the entire island’s power generation in 2018, according to EirGrid. The republic aims to reach 40% by 2020, and EirGrid expects to have to double the island’s capacity of around 5,000 megawatts to reach its 2030 goal.

“As we take it to the next level, if we don’t have the safety relief valve to export wind to other jurisdictions, the economic case for building renewables on the part of private developers won’t be there… they won’t get bank financing,” Foley said.

That’s why EirGrid is also pursuing a planned second power connection with Northern Ireland and considering another to mainland UK – on the assumption that Brexit will not split the island’s single power market, he added.

Ireland and Northern Ireland further integrated their market last October, allowing traders to buy and sell as quickly as within the day. London, Dublin and Brussels have all promised to keep the market intact after Brexit.

That said, there are concerns that British and Irish market rules will gradually diverge, and uncertainties about how disputes between traders would be resolved if the UK is not under the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction – adding to Ireland’s need for links beyond Britain.

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While Brexit is presenting enormous challenges, depriving us of energy, time and money, we are approaching a point of no return on climate, while making progress at snail’s pace. Climate change needs to be treated as what it is; a crisis. We need headlines every day, constant media attention, contingency plans, the works. While March 29th is a ‘definite’ date (for now), the tipping point for climate change, though impossible to pin down, is sooner than we think.

As Britain Brexits, Ireland stalls on climate action. Meanwhile, the EU is Ireland’s only pressure point for moving on climate while under the expansive shadow of Brexit.

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The partition of Ireland already condemns both sides of the island to slow development in many policy areas, climate action no less so. A 500km border on a small island, with two political systems, undermines any green strategic long-term planning. The border straddles ecosystems that receive EU funding, including high-potential carbon sinks. In spite of the Good Friday Agreement expressly mentioning the environment as an area of co-operation, a Brexit-booted north, whatever shape that takes, will struggle to co-operate on the same terms as it being a partner in Europe.

The most glaring example of the climate impact of Brexit on Ireland is in relation to the all-island single electricity market (SEM), which has been in place on the island of Ireland since 2007. This unified, trans-border electricity market between the north and south is underpinned by the EU internal energy market legislation.

The smooth operation of the SEM is down to both sides of the border being subject to the same set of technical operation rules, including EU rules on data sharing, state aid and market surveillance. Brexit is clearly more than an inconvenience for Ireland’s energy system.

To complicate things further, the EU is already struggling to keep whatever residue of environmental integrity there is in relation to its beloved carbon market – the EU ETS, or Emissions Trading System. Britain’s ability to auction or issue allowances in the EU ETS has already been temporarily suspended by the European Commission since the start of the year, awaiting clarity in the form of a Withdrawal Agreement. We are now six weeks away from the cliff edge, and there is still a question mark over the future of Britain in the EU’s carbon market, never mind how to technically resolve its continuation in the system.

Regardless of the massive shortcomings of the EU ETS, we are facing a situation in which the island of Ireland would still be subject to one single electricity market, split with diverging operational rules, with energy production on one side of the island exempt from the extra costs of buying pollution permits in the carbon market. Moreover, there are obvious difficulties in setting a phase out date for fossil fuels on a small island when the one energy network is governed by two unharmonised political jurisdictions. No amount of replicating legislation in London can guarantee the same efficiency in a single harmonised system.

On top of that, we learnt earlier this month that the Irish minister for climate change was considering delaying major climate plans in order to hold out for Brexit to take shape. Under enormous pressure due to international condemnation, Ireland has to get its act together on climate fast; but the new minister has so far been only talking the talk on revamping Ireland’s climate performance. The minister’s tapping of the breaks shows how the chill factor of Brexit is as far-reaching as to affect our climate policy. The full argument for a solid backstop, which would provide the certainty needed to act, is not to be underestimated.

The minister’s hesitancy begs the question: to what extent is Brexit eclipsing climate action? The answer is – to a large extent, until we stop seeing climate action and Brexit preparations as mutually exclusive.

No deal Brexit to leave UK without green watchdog for two years – report

There needs to be a bold move away from thinking of climate action in terms of sacrifices, as if it were some type of austerity. Climate action needs to be centred on state investment. A bold plan on climate should be an integral part of Brexit-proofing Ireland, whatever Brexit outcome we are left with. Planning for Brexit should include plans for energy self-sufficiency, investing in green jobs in rural communities, and ensuring Ireland is a competitive place for green industries.

The EU could put pressure on the Irish government to advance climate action in spite of Brexit, but it also could be supportive financially. We need to negate the idea that climate action is an austerity policy, and start heavily investing in Ireland so that it can ‘green up’ while at the same time prepare for whatever Brexit swings at us. Only then can Ireland be resilient enough to cope with a single energy market under two jurisdictions and start leading on the energy transition.

The argument for the backstop clearly stretches beyond border infrastructure or customs. Despite its flaws, I support the backstop as the ‘least worst option’ for Ireland, knowing that it is not restricted to just stopping border infrastructure, but that it is also about insuring that Ireland can climate proof itself in a post-Brexit world.

Lynn Boylan is an Irish member of the European parliament.

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With no replacement legislation in place and the date for leaving the union fast approaching, the UK will lose access to European Union regulators and systems for governing energy trade and environmental protections.

In some sectors, such nuclear, Britain is setting up a domestic regime just in time for an abrupt Brexit on 29 March – by handing new responsibilities and more funding to the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which is procuring a new IT system and training inspectors.

But in other areas, the country is far from ready, the independent Institute for Government said in a report on London’s progress in preparing for a no-deal exit.

Most concerning: the lack of an environmental watchdog to replace the European Commission’s role in keeping countries in line with rules such as air pollution limits, and the security of electricity supply in Northern Ireland, which shares a power market with the Republic of Ireland.

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The UK is drawing up an environment bill that will set standards after Brexit and create an agency to hold the government accountable to its policies and goals. But that watchdog won’t be in place until 2021 at the earliest, the Institute for Government said. A spokesperson said setting up similar public bodies has typically taken 2-3 years after legislation has been passed.

The risk of delay comes on top other criticism of the government’s draft plans for the watchdog. Environmental groups worry it would lack the powers to penalise the government for shortfalls and that its oversight won’t extend to climate change measures. The National Audit Office and MPs raised concerns in January that the agency would not be independent of government influence.

In addition, the gap in legislation raises uncertainty for industries that export highly-regulated products, such as chemicals, the institute said. As a result, chemical exporters may need to register in another European Economic Area country to continues their sales.

Prospects of a no-deal, crash-out Brexit on 29 March have intensified in recent weeks. The UK parliament rejected prime minister Theresa May’s withdrawal deal with the EU, then backed her promise to return to Brussels to renegotiate key parts of it. EU leaders, however, have rebuffed any suggestion that the agreement can be revised.

A hard break-up would also raise uncertainty about the security of Northern Irish power supply. Despite assurances from both the UK and Irish governments that they want to maintain the all-island Single Electricity Market, “there is no clarity on progress to date,” the institute said.

A hard Brexit is not expected to disrupt electricity flows between the north and south or lead to new trade tariffs. But it could lead to longer term problems such as a reduction of electricity traded across the border and changes in rules known as network codes on the EU and UK side.

Northern Ireland faces a greater risk of electricity shortages than Ireland does, as its capacity is already squeezed and older coal- and gas-fired power plants are nearing shutdown, said Paul Deane, a research fellow at University College Cork.

Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation. Please read our editorial guidelines for more details.

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The government’s 25-year environment plan, published a year ago, sets out goals to clean the country’s air and water, increase its woodland, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimise waste, among other things. Now London is preparing an environment bill to replace European Union laws and regulation after it leaves the bloc.

That legislation will be key to making sure Britain doesn’t dilute its environmental protections from EU levels, and to replacing the European Commission’s policing role with a national watchdog, the independent audit office said.

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While agreeing with the government’s argument that Brexit offers opportunities to boost environmental protections, the NAO pointed to causes for concern too.

The upside is that Brexit could allow the government’s department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) to review the way performance is reported and monitored and assess whether it “all adds value” to broader UK goals, it said. The downside: Defra still needs to talk to other parts of the government to coordinate the approach.

“There is no clear, single point of ownership for performance as a whole across government on the 25-year environment plan, and more work is needed to embed environmental metrics into government’s core planning and performance monitoring,” the NAO said.

The prospect of the UK crashing out without a deal that would cover continued environmental stewardship was increased on Tuesday after prime minister Theresa May lost a vote in the parliament on the deal she had negotiated with the EU.

The new environmental watchdog is needed to fill a potential governance gap after Britain leaves the EU, since the European Commission has played a role in holding the government to account on environmental measures including air quality. However, indications in the government’s draft of the environment bill – that Defra would fund the watchdog and appoint its chair – raise questions about its independence, the auditors said.

Labour MP Mary Creagh, chair of the parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, welcomed the NAO’s warning that environmental protections should not be weakened after Brexit.

“The 25-year environment plan must work across government departments to ensure transport, business and local government take their responsibility on the environment,” she said.

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Environment secretary Michael Gove and May have both said the UK will have more power to fund and protect its environment after it leaves the EU. “We will use this opportunity to strengthen and enhance the protections our countryside, rivers, coastline and wildlife habitats enjoy, and develop new methods of agricultural and fisheries support which put the environment first,” May said in the 25-year plan.

Environmental advocates, however, worry the UK will lose backup measures and oversight from Brussels – which London is free to build upon – and that the environmental watchdog will lack the power to penalise any shortfalls.

The NAO said the UK’s track record and future outlook on environmental protections are mixed.

It’s a leader in developing data sources to report on progress towards the UN’s sustainable development goals, and its 2008 climate change law established a “robust framework” for measuring both the reduction of emissions and adaptation to changes in climate, it said. However, there is still a timelag in the data the government publishes on the sustainable development goals and there are questions about how well this information feeds into decision-making.

Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation. Please read our editorial guidelines for more details.

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In the strategy released on Monday, the UK government sought to show how it will realise the “Green Brexit” championed by the prominent Leave supporter and environment secretary Michael Gove.

“We will be able to set out a new direction for our environment, based on rigorous scientific research and underpinned by the legal principles that have done so much to improve our environment in the past,” Gove said in an introduction to the clean air strategy. “It is my profound hope that we will use the opportunity presented by leaving the EU to become a world leader in environmental excellence.”

Campaigners welcomed the air pollution limits set out in the strategy, but criticised the government for not giving enough details on how and when it will meet the limits. The question is if and how London will be held accountable without the European Union looking on, they say.

“Under EU law, we have an air quality directive that, as a member state of the EU, we’re expected to meet. Once we’re out of the EU, there will be no air quality directive or legislative framework that at the moment provides checks and balances,” said Jason Torrance, clean air cities director at the UK100, a network of local governments promoting clean energy.

Stoke’s potteries backed remain, now they want May’s deal to reshape climate policy

The strategy commits to tightening the limit on fine particulate matter across the country to an annual average of 10 micrograms – as advised by the World Health Organization – and to halve the number of people living with air pollution above that level by 2025, compared to 2016.

The government says it has already reached the EU’s standard of 25 μg and is on track to meet 20 μg when it takes effect in 2020.

To cut particulate matter further, the government says it will restrict wood- and coal-burning fires and stoves, which account for 38% of the country’s emissions. It also intends to tackle agriculture, which emits 88% of the country’s ammonia, by helping farmers invest in cleaner infrastructure and equipment and creating a code of good practice.

However particulate matter is not the only dangerous pollutant that hovers over Brexit Britain. The UK was one of six countries that the European Commission referred to the bloc’s Court of Justice last May for failing to limit NO2, in large part from diesel cars, in line with EU legislation.

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On transport, the strategy points to an existing plan to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040 and upcoming strategies on aviation and the maritime sector for 2050. But those plans “are in total disarray”, said Simon Alcock, head of public affairs at the environmental law firm ClientEarth.

But while the strategy lists a number of commitments, green groups are concerned about how they will be implemented and monitored.

The UK’s existing legal limits on air pollution stem from EU law and will remain in its domestic legislation after Brexit, but they risk eventually being loosened, according to ClientEarth.

The environment bill the government is developing, along with a new watchdog, could set stronger legal standards and penalise any shortfalls. But it’s not yet clear if it will.

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A crash-out departure on 29 March threatens to throw up trade tariffs, border delays and higher pollution charges for the British ceramics manufacturers clustered around Stoke-on-Trent, which sell more than half their exports to the European Union.

In the hopes of avoiding those pitfalls, the British Ceramic Confederation (Ceramfed) has been urging MPs to approve prime minister Theresa May’s contentious withdrawal agreement when they vote on Tuesday.

This, it says, ensures as soft and predictable a Brexit as possible.

On Monday May backed their call in person, giving a speech to factory workers in Stoke-on-Trent – with china bowls stacked behind her – to drum up support for a deal that appears headed for defeat. Not backing the deal, she warned, could lead to no Brexit at all.

“The deal that the UK government has proposed and has been accepted by Europe is the one we want to see going forward,” said Michael McGowan, quality, environmental and energy manager at Ibstock Brick. “We think it will bring economic stability to the UK this year, whereas at the moment it’s just creating instability and uncertainty for business.”

The government also tried to ply the West Midlands city last week. Stoke Central MP Gareth Snell was among the Labour members who met May to discuss how she could change the deal to win their votes, and trade minister George Hollingbery visited ceramics industry representatives to talk about future trade opportunities.

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If the withdrawal agreement is approved, the ceramics industry even sees a potential upside for its energy-intensive businesses: the chance to replace the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS) with a carbon price that is more supportive and less punitive to emitters.

“We see Brexit as a good opportunity to simplify the current approach to decarbonisation,” said Andrew McDermott, technical director at Ceramfed, which is based in Stoke-on-Trent. “There are a lot of overlapping schemes and a lot of complexity, and there are opportunities to have more of an emphasis on support rather than the threat of penalty to drive change. We want more carrot, less stick.”

That, however, requires a gradual withdrawal, once the current ETS trading period ends after 2020. An abrupt no-deal departure, on the other hand, would jack up environmental costs, including through a new carbon tax, and disrupt exports of pottery and imports of raw materials.

Our member @HeraldicPottery show around Trade Minister @GHollingbery with local MP Jack Brereton. Here they look at some of the company’s cutting edge designs pic.twitter.com/0AuUIDAAlc

— British Ceramic Confederation (@ceramfed) January 7, 2019

The industry believes Stoke voters chose Brexit without full knowledge of how it would affect trade and environmental regulation of roughly 300 businesses that employ around 9,000 people out of a population of 250,000.

“I don’t think many people entered the polls thinking about the customs union or REACH [the EU’s chemicals regulations which could complicate future trade of ceramics],” said Tom Reynolds, commercial and public affairs director at Ceramfed.

“Two years down the line, we now have so much more information about the implications that we didn’t know then,” added Alan Ault, owner of Valentine Clays, who opposed Brexit.

But the industry’s support for a soft Brexit is still in sharp contrast to the prevailing views on its home turf.

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Stoke-on-Trent voted 69.4% in favour of leaving, whereas 75% of Ceramfed’s members wanted to remain. Sentiment seems to have shifted only slightly since 2016. A recent poll found that roughly 38% of Stokies wanted to remain, while just over half of the rest said they would choose a no-deal Brexit over May’s withdrawal agreement, StokeonTrentLive reported in December.

“I’d just say, ‘Get out, regardless of a deal’,” said Sam Mawby, who works in a vape shop in the city and opposed EU regulations of vaping. “I don’t think Europe should dictate how we leave and charge us billions of euros to do it.”

Ceramics makers say approval for May’s deal is urgently needed, as the uncertainty is already taking its toll. Ault said a European customer had decided after Christmas to stop buying from the UK, and worries more of these longstanding relationships could follow suit.

A no-deal departure would be even more crippling. Tableware exports to the EU, for instance, would be hit with a 12% tariff under World Trade Organization rules, according to Ceramfed.

Carbon dioxide emissions would be subject to a new UK tax of £16 per tonne, to replace the EU’s emissions trading price, chancellor Philip Hammond announced in October. That would come on top of climate charges such as the UK’s floor price on CO2 from power generation, which passes through to the cost of energy for intensive users such as brick and tile manufacturers, and with no time for companies to budget for it.

WATCH LIVE: PM @Theresa_May gives a speech in Stoke-on-Trent #BackTheBrexitDeal https://t.co/Dfqj3iGQ4c

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) January 14, 2019

May’s withdrawal agreement, instead, opens the opportunity to build a more favourable carbon pricing system and prepare for it, the ceramics industry says. The agreement only says the UK will not backslide on environmental protections, while the political declaration on the future UK-EU relationship says they will consider linking the ETS to a new national carbon market (without confirming that the UK will set one up).

But the preferred choice for ceramics makers: forget carbon trading, the CO2 floor price for power generation and other schemes and set up a single, simple carbon tax. Then use that tax revenue to back new breakthrough technologies and help companies go more green, akin to the £170 million of funding for heavy industry innovation that the government announced in December.

“If businesses can plan for that in their budgets, it helps them make investment decisions,” McGowan, from Ibstock Brick, said of a carbon tax. “As a responsible business we accept that we have to reduce our carbon, but at the moment it’s all about generating revenue for the government in the UK with the many different schemes.”

The Stoke-on-Trent roofing materials maker Marley, for instance, would need to replace its older gas-fired kilns and dryers with more efficient models before it can make significant CO2 cuts. A new kiln would cost £10 million or more and reduce Marley’s production capacity while it is being installed, said Annabelle Brayford, the company’s environment manager.

However, government support could also come in the form of guidance on other ways to snip pollution.

“When I’m trying to look at renewable energy [supplies], for example, there are so many companies that I have no idea where to start,” said Brayford. “Normally they just whack up the rates and off you go trying to find your way around it. … To have a network of organisations that could be on board with the process would be quite helpful.”

But while Brexit presents an opportunity for a more appealing carbon pricing system, there is also the risk that – as one of the EU’s biggest proponents for tougher emissions market rules – the UK will actually go beyond the EU in pricing pollution.

“Given its attempts to be on the more ambitious side, we have a concern that that could mean UK companies are faced with higher targets and higher costs compared to the EU,” said McDermott, of Ceramfed. “We’d like to see more carrot, so that whatever targets we’ve got, we’ve got the support to meet them.”

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The draft withdrawal agreement, agreed by the EU and backed by the Theresa May’s cabinet on Wednesday night, ensures the UK’s environmental laws, regulations and practices do not fall below continental standards at the end of the Brexit transition period in 2021. It also says the UK will create a “transparent system” with an independent body in charge of monitoring, reporting, oversight and enforcement of the environmental standards.

Those includes measures to tackle climate change, limit air and industrial emissions, conserve nature and biodiversity, manage waste and dispose of chemical substances.

But the deal would not guarantee the standards remain in sync after the divorce – meaning the UK could fall behind future EU policies after it leaves, Labour’s Brexit shadow secretary Keir Starmer told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Thursday.

“It’s a non-regression clause – in other words you can’t take away what you’ve got now. It certainly isn’t a clause that keeps us up-to-date with standards as they evolve in Europe,” Starmer said.

Under the draft withdrawal agreement, the UK is only required to adopt the EU’s existing package of clean energy and climate change policies, which extend to 2030, said Chaitanya Kumar, a senior policy advisor at the Green Alliance think-tank.

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The government plans to create an environment watchdog, replacing the EU’s role in making sure member countries meet their commitments. But proposals for the agency earlier this year drew criticism for excluding oversight of climate change policies.

Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions targets are already locked in national law, and set higher than the EU’s reduction goals. Yet around 55% of the rules designed to make sure the goals are met, such as targets for adding renewable energy and improving efficiency, are covered by EU law, rather than national, according to the UK’s independent advisory Committee on Climate Change.

“The pre-emptive measure is to make sure the watchdog has oversight of UK climate law,” Kumar said.

That said, the fact that the draft mentions climate change in its list of environmental protections suggests the government will have to include it in the new watchdog’s role, said Liberal Democrat Lord Robin Teverson.

“This, to me, requires it,” Teverson told Climate Home News on Wednesday. “Although it’s not perfect … hopefully that would at least put some pressure on the government to make a system that has rather more teeth than it would perhaps want it to have.”

The draft deal would also make sure the UK has a carbon pricing scheme that is “of at least the same effectiveness and scope” as the EU’s emissions trading system, without making clear whether the country would leave the bloc-wide market.

In an outline of a political declaration on the future EU-UK relationship, Britain said it would consider the potential for linking a national emissions trading market to the EU’s. The UK government has been weighing different options for pricing carbon emissions after Brexit, including creating a national market and possibly linking it to the EU’s, or setting a domestic carbon tax.

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Clean growth and energy minister Claire Perry appeared before a House of Lords committee last month to talk about the impact of an abrupt exit on the UK’s energy supplies, carbon pricing and research for energy innovation.

But her answers were incomplete, Liberal Democrat Lord Robin Teverson, chair of the sub-committee on EU energy and environment, said in a letter to Perry published on Wednesday.

The UK government has made clear that a no-deal departure would pull the country out of the European Union’s internal energy market, with which it shares electricity and gas interconnectors. Asked how this would affect consumer energy prices, however, Perry failed to answer, Teverson wrote.

“We are disappointed that you were not able to respond on this issue, and we are concerned that the government may be making decisions without having fully considered their potential impact on consumers,” he said. “We therefore restate the question.”

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Similarly, Perry failed to provide “concrete information” on the progress in talks between London, Dublin and the European Commission to ensure that the single electricity market on the island of Ireland remains intact even without a withdrawal agreement, the letter stated.

Instead, she said only that there is “a growing sense of confidence that that market will be maintained”.

The government’s intention to maintain the Irish single market, however, could be complicated by its separate plan to impose a national carbon emissions tax on Northern Ireland, the letter noted.

Northern Ireland is currently exempt from the UK’s floor price of CO2 emitted from power plants, because it would otherwise distort prices on a market shared with the Republic of Ireland. But if the UK leaves the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS), the government plans to immediately replace the carbon market price with a tax.

“You yourself acknowledged that ‘there is an argument that carbon pricing would hinder, in the short to medium term, the effective functioning of that market,'” Teverson said. Perry’s comment, that the issue will need to be considered, is not satisfactory, he said, asking for clarification.

Brexit: What it means for UK-EU energy trade

The House of Lords committee also wants more answers on how an abrupt departure from the EU ETS would affect carbon pricing in the country and on the continent.

The government said in its 2018 budget late last month that it would immediately impose a domestic tax of £16 per tonne on CO2 emitted from all stationary installations that currently trade on the EU market. “On what basis was that value selected?” Teverson asked. “And is there any intention for it to be adjusted over time to mirror the EU ETS carbon price?”

He also expressed concerns about a letter the Scottish and Welsh governments wrote to London in October, saying they would object to replacing a carbon market with a tax and asking for ministerial talks.

“This disregard strikes us as extremely concerning,” Teverson said, and asked if further discussions with Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast have taken place and whether there is progress on reaching a deal. Jonathan Holyoak, Perry’s director of EU energy and climate change, told the committee during the hearing that business, energy and industrial strategy department had discussed the issue with the devolved governments.

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The department is currently working on 73 exit issues, of which one of the trickiest is preparations for leaving the EU’s internal energy market, Perry said during the hearing. While British regulators and operators can prepare new UK access rules to make sure trading continues despite a no-deal exit, it is up to other countries to set rules on their side, she said.

Prime minister Theresa May is meeting with cabinet ministers on Wednesday evening to discuss a Brexit withdrawal agreement reached on Tuesday. However, it still faces strong opposition from both the leave and remain sides of the parliament.

Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation. Please read our editorial guidelines for more details.

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Europe’s staunchest advocates for tougher climate change measures are concerned about the one-two punch of Brexit and a German government weakened by September’s election.

When the UK leaves on 29 March next year, EU members pushing for strong policies, mostly from northern and western Europe, will lose a reliably ambitious ally. The UK is one of their heaviest hitters in the Council of the EU, where votes are weighted by population size. Germany is the biggest.

“Given we are towards the most ambitious end of the spectrum, it would change the centre of gravity, so you would expect less ambitious outcomes to be reached,” said Peter Betts, who left his position as director of international climate and energy at the UK’s energy department last week.

Brexit Explained: Avoiding the nuclear fallout

“I also think we’re a bit more pragmatic than some of the other ambitious countries – so we’re prepared to talk to Poland about gas, or about [carbon capture and storage technology], or whatever,” he told a conference hosted by the Green Alliance in London on Monday.

But the rot has already set in. During recent negotiations among the EU’s 28 members, the UK’s calls for strong climate action carried far less weight than they used to, according to seven Brussels-based officials on both sides of the EU climate policy debate, to whom Climate Home News spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Unfortunately, Brexit and this German wobbling come at the same time,” a diplomat from the most ambitious group of countries said. “The UK has been by far the most influential member state on climate policy up until the Brexit referendum. With the loss of that influence, the EU could start to go in the other, less ambitious, direction.”

Brexit: EU has ‘strong’ interest in safeguarding energy supply – UK minister

At the same time as Brexit, diplomats in that more ambitious camp worry another powerful partner is breaking ranks: Germany.

September’s federal election weakened chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition between her centre-right bloc and the Social Democrats, amplifying her need for support from industries, including coal and cars.

The EU’s climate-ambitious members such as Netherlands, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Finland may now find it harder to fight more resistant members including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria over efforts to boost the emissions reduction target for 2030, the goal for 2050, and other policies.

The shifting balance was noticed during negotiations earlier this month over the council’s position on CO2 limits for cars and vans up to 2030.

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The eventual call for a 35% reduction target for cars, is midway between the European Parliament’s 40% goal and the 30% proposed by the European Commission. But countries on both sides of the spectrum say it was largely cemented when Germany agreed to go up from a call for 30%, while France came down from 40%, according to sources who followed the negotiation. The UK backed the higher target, but was largely ignored.

Germany was always going to oppose the toughest target for an industry so close to its economic heart, said Greg Archer, director of clean vehicles at the NGO Transport & Environment, adding that the 35% target was the most likely to win a majority.

Diplomats, however, saw it as a practical test for a government that speaks in favour of strong climate action internationally, while stressing the need for a gradual transition at home.

“There is a split. On the one hand, they’re talking very ambitiously, on the other, they talk about the needs of their manufacturers,” a diplomat from a country that backed 40% said.

An official from a Central and Eastern European country said German support was crucial in fighting a 40% goal, though their country would have preferred an even lower target. The council and parliament must now the negotiate the final policy.

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“Germany is still very ambitious when it comes to fighting climate change and when it comes to CO2 reductions,” a German diplomatic source said.  “As a member state that has a strong economy and industry, it has to balance both sides and has to see that the transformation of its economy to a CO2-neutral economy has to be done step by step.”

The government has confirmed a climate protection plan that sets out a path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and is working on a law to implement it, a spokesperson for the environment ministry said.

Still, the country’s image as a climate leader was tainted by several developments this year: confirmation that it is falling short of its EU-mandated goal for lowering emissions by 2020; clearing of the Hambach Forest to make way for a lignite mine; and slow progress in the commission tasked with setting a timeline for phasing out coal, which meets again on Wednesday.

Brexit Explained: What it means for UK-EU energy trade

Merkel’s opposition to a suggestion from European climate action and energy commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete this summer – that the EU’s clean energy targets for 2030 allow the bloc to reduce emissions above its existing goal – further rattled the pro-climate action side.

All of this feeds concerns that climate-ambitious EU countries will be outnumbered in negotiations over the bloc’s goals for 2050, likely to begin in the council in March or May. Weaker, more divided policies at home would likely diminish the EU’s influence in international climate negotiations, where it is under pressure to align its policies to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal for limiting the temperature rise to 1.5C, rather than below 2C.

“We’ve seen we can no longer be confident that Germany will continue to be stable in the ambitious group,” the diplomat from that group said. “This is a concern for raising the EU’s level for 2030 and for its long-term vision.”

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If Britain leaves without a withdrawal deal on 29 March, imports and exports of power and gas will cease to be governed by EU trading rules. While energy is highly unlikely to stop flowing, it could make trade slower and more expensive.

Britain shares power links with France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Northern Ireland, with more in planning stages. British regulators are working with electricity interconnector operators to make sure that new UK access rules for trading are approved by the time Britain leaves the EU, added Jonathan Holyoak, director of EU energy and climate change at the business, energy and industrial strategy department (Beis).

It is up to the EU to prepare rules on their side, but it’s in their interest to make sure trade can be as efficient as possible if there is no divorce deal, he and Perry told a House of Lords’ subcommittee.

“The French like it because they are exporting their nuclear power to us, and they don’t have anywhere else to send it – they send it to Germany, but no one’s allowed to know that,” Perry said. “There is a strong commercial reason to keep these flows.”

Brexit: What it means for UK-EU energy trade

Perry told the subcommittee that Beis was handling 73 EU exit issues. The minster said three of those were currently “off-track” – including issues relating to the single energy market the European Union’s global satellite navigation system Galileo.

“The thing that’s tricky is the single energy market, and partly I think because of the dependence on other countries,” she said. Still, she stressed that the energy supply taps will not be shut off.

Brexit is particularly concerning for the two Irish countries, which share a single power market. The republic also relies on the UK for gas supplies and emergency oil stocks.

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Perry was more confident about no-deal preparations for leaving the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS), even though it would lead to an immediate break with the market.

The UK government said earlier this month that it would immediately replace the European carbon price with a tax, and will provide more details in the 2018 budget announcement on Monday.

Backlash to a tax from Scotland and Wales, which have devolved powers over environmental policy, was not “quite fair,” Perry said. “Ultimately, we’re trying to maintain a very strong price signal for carbon reduction, and we’re trying to do something that replaces an EU ETS market that we have been told we would have to leave in the event of a no deal.”

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In a note on Friday the UK government said that if no-deal is reached with Europe, London would initially replace the bloc-wide emissions trading system (ETS) with a country-wide tax, beginning in 2019.

It said it will provide more details with the 2018 budget, due on 29 October, and the finance bill for 2018-2019.

But environment policy, including measures to reduce carbon emissions, is devolved to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments – and so would require their approval. The concern for Edinburgh and Cardiff is a tax would shift accountability for emissions reductions to the treasury in London.

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“This replaces a devolved mechanism, collectively agreed by all four administrations, with a tax reserved to HM Treasury in which all devolved administrations have no involvement,” Roseanna Cunningham, Scotland’s environment secretary, and Lesley Griffiths, Wales’ cabinet secretary for energy, said in a letter sent on Friday evening to British chancellor Philip Hammond and energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry.

“It is plainly unacceptable for the UK government to seek to replace long-standing emissions trading arrangements… with a unilateral carbon tax, and to do so without any discussion at [the] ministerial level,” they added.

The country’s four governments have not yet held any ministerial discussions on options for the UK’s relationship with the EU’s emissions market after Brexit, Cunningham and Griffiths said.

Scottish ministers wrote to London in October 2017 asking for “urgent formal” talks, and stressing their preference to remain in the ETS, they said. The UK government replied a few days later offering a call, but it has yet to be arranged.

London is now considering different options pricing carbon emissions after Brexit, including remaining in the ETS until the end of 2030, setting up a domestic carbon market that could be linked to the EU system, or imposing a domestic carbon tax.

As Climate Home News reported last month, however, the Scottish government would oppose a tax.

Prime minister Theresa May will meet EU leaders on Wednesday in a final push to agree on a withdrawal deal, after negotiators failed to do so over the weekend. Without a deal, the UK will crash out of the bloc on 29 March.

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These concerns posed by its planned departure from the 61-year-old Euratom treaty have spurred London to act more decisively than in many other areas of Brexit prep work over the past two years.

In a progress report sent to the parliament earlier this week, the government said it had new inspection staff in training and key cooperation agreements either in place or in the making.

It also promised fill in for lost Euratom funding of research and development, so as to carry on a government goal to become a “world-leader” in nuclear energy innovation.

But if the UK and EU fail to clinch a deal on their future relationship before March 29, the timeline to finish these preparations will evaporate. The country will break away that day, without a Brexit transition period up through 2020.

Talks will move into their final stages when EU leaders meet in Brussels next week, amid continuing disagreement.

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“If there isn’t a deal, the presumption is that all of that falls through,” said Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association.

“The longer the situation goes on, the more risk there is that there would be a shortage [of power],” he added. “The more risk there is that there may be planned maintenance that means a power station is not operating and there could be delays in moving components backwards and forwards.”

Euratom is governed by a standalone treaty that predates the European Union, but covers all 28 of its member countries.

It manages nuclear fuel supply throughout the bloc, inspects civil nuclear sites to make sure they’re not being used for weapons, and holds cooperation agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other countries active in the industry. It also allows for free movement of nuclear workers and equipment between members, facilitates the construction of new projects and funds research and development, including the EU’s portion of an international nuclear fusion pilot project in France.

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A no-deal ‘Brexatom’ on March 29, without replacements set for Euratom’s role, could lead to significant problems in the UK’s energy market, both in the nearer and longer terms.

Nuclear energy generates around a quarter of Britain’s electricity from seven power stations. It’s one of the few European countries intent on building a fleet of new, expensive but emissions-free nuclear stations, starting with the Hinkley Point C plant already under construction by French energy utility EDF.

The longer the gap between Euratom and a new domestic regime, the more likely plants would be to run out of fuel (when that happens depends on how much fuel the operators can stockpile before Brexit day). Even with fuel, however, Britain’s generators would have to stop if they can’t meet international non-proliferation standards. That requires a new domestic system to inspect all UK sites, with approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Imported supplies of medical radioisotopes, used for cancer treatments and diagnoses, could also be interrupted immediately after Brexit. Radioisotopes only last a few hours, and the UK cannot produce them at home.

Kosovo: World Bank dumps plant, ending support for coal worldwide

In the longer term, the UK could struggle to attract the workers or import the reactor components needed for Hinkley and other new nuclear plants, as well as maintenance work on existing reactors.

With all these potential risks, the UK government’s rush to create a seamless transition out of Euratom, and its early agreement with the EU on issues such as the ownership of fissile materials that Euratom now holds in the UK, are all reassuring.

As part of its preparation, the government was quick to pass a nuclear safeguards bill this year that gives the Office of Nuclear Regulation the power to inspect civil nuclear sites for compliance with non-proliferation rules.

The nuclear regulator, which was traditionally responsible for safety, “remains confident” that it will have the new safeguards regime in place by March 29, the government told the parliament this week. It’s expected to need at least nine safeguards inspectors by then, and has so far hired and started training 14 of them, it said.

The progress report doesn’t solve the sticky problem of medical isotopes, which could be left useless if they are stuck in border queues. The government said it was still considering options to avoid a shortage.

Meanwhile, the government is firming up bilateral deals with key international nuclear players. It signed an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in June, and is close to finalising cooperation deals with key nuclear countries – the US, Australia, Canada and Japan – before March 29, it said.

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Deals agreed with Australia in August and the US in May are making their ways through those parliaments for ratification, and are expected to be presented to the UK parliament this autumn. The government also expects to sign a deal with Canada later this year and is in talks with Japan on additions to an existing nuclear cooperation deal between the two, it said.

But the UK is also keen to keep close ties with Euratom – something the nuclear industry is intent on seeing.

The government told the parliament it wants to negotiate a “mutually beneficial” civil nuclear relationship with Euratom. “This would be more comprehensive and broad than any existing agreement between Euratom and a third country, and would help ensure the UK’s standing as a leading and responsible civil nuclear state is maintained,” it said.

The relationship should give the country an association with European research and training programmes and funding, protect existing nuclear material supply contracts after Brexit, simplify export controls for sensitive nuclear materials, equipment and technology between the two, and allow the UK to continue cooperating in the supply of medical radioisotopes, among other benefits.

The UK, for one, certainly has something to gain from these post-Brexit ties, the government said. “These objectives form part of government’s wider ambition to develop an economic relationship with the EU that maximises future prosperity in line with the industrial strategy, and a new trading relationship that includes a free trade area for goods.”

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But while the British government says it wants to maintain close energy ties after it leaves, the details remain fuzzy. The whole question hinges on whether the overarching deal for a future EU-UK relationship leaves room for continued links between the two and the possibility that Britain breaks away without agreement on March 29.

Gas and power will continue to flow along interconnectors between the UK and its neighbours after Brexit, regardless of how it departs the European Union, because trade isn’t restricted to its members. But a sharp exit will heighten the risk of supply shortages in the UK and Ireland during emergencies like last winter’s Beast from the East cold snap, and could push up energy bills for consumers (see below for why).

Both the UK and EU rely on energy imports and exports. The more power cables, the easier it is to export renewable generation when the weather peaks and import it when it slumps. In the UK, gas imports are increasing as its ageing North Sea fields decline.

The UK government has acknowledged the value of these links, and stressed it would like to protect them.

“I think it’s very much in our interest to not only continue to participate in the energy market, but also expand those interconnections,” business, energy and industrial strategy minister Greg Clark told parliament in 2017. “I think it would be better if it continued and it would be a bad thing if it were disrupted.”

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Britain now imports around 5% of its power and 12% of its gas from the EU, according to the industry group Energy UK. The two sides are connected by four power cables, with eight more in the planning.

But continued energy cooperation is especially crucial for Ireland and Northern Ireland. The two share a single electricity market that dates back to the Good Friday agreement, and are now bolstering it with a second power cable and a new wholesale market. Ireland also relies on Britain for gas and oil supplies.

What Britain wants 

Whitehall spelled out options for maintaining energy ties, including on the Irish island, in the Brexit white paper it published in July.

In short: It wants to agree “broad cooperation” on gas and power trading arrangements. Negotiators have so far made “good progress” on a legal provision that would support the Irish single market in the EU withdrawal agreement, the paper stated.

If the UK does leave the internal energy market, it said the government will explore what is needed to continue trading with EU countries.

If it remains, the two would need to broker common rules for energy trading and carbon pricing – although this does not extend to climate change and environment rules, the paper said. Whitehall is already weighing up options for domestic carbon pricing measures in case it leaves the EU’s emissions trading system – either setting up a carbon market, which could be linked to the EU’s, or a tax.

The government’s paper also gave a nod to concerns that the UK might loosen restrictions on state aid for fossil fuel-fired power plants, by saying it’s committed to applying common rules for state aid and maintaining cooperation between competition regulators.

But questions remain

London’s preference for a softer Brexit from the EU energy market should give the gas and power industries some reassurance. Yet, there’s still plenty of uncertainty.

Ultimately, cooperation with the internal market can only go as far as the broad EU-UK relationship allows. And there is concern that negotiations are headed for a harsher split, with staunch differences remaining. The EU could see the UK’s push for continued energy ties as cherry-picking in an area where the country stands to lose more than the bloc (other than Ireland).

It depends, for example, on whether EU-UK disputes can still be resolved in the European Court of Justice, which Britain ruled out in the July white paper, or under a new tribunal system.

It also depends whether the UK is willing to become a rule-taker, which it has also dismissed. If it remains in the internal energy market, like Norway, the UK will have limited influence over market rules negotiated among the EU27.

Even the effects of a hard and fast energy Brexit would be slow to emerge. At first, gas and power trade are likely to continue without disruption, since they’re not restricted to European Union membership.

But over the years, the division would lead to more costs and obstacles. Energy trade inside the EU is governed by legally binding rules, known as network codes, designed to harmonise markets across the bloc and allow for faster trade. If the UK leaves, its network codes would eventually diverge from the EU’s.

Dublin is well aware of this risk, and is putting more effort into developing new gas and power links with continental Europe, Irish climate action and environment minister Denis Naughten told reporters in Brussels in 2017.

For consumers, the biggest risk is steeper power and gas prices, and less reliable supplies during emergencies, such as cold snaps or unplanned outages.

Closer energy ties make it faster and cheaper to send gas and power between countries, reducing prices and carbon emissions. That said, Brexiters see an upside: they say freeing the UK of EU environmental regulations will help the country lower its energy costs and boost the competitiveness of its industry.

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Whitehall is weighing up options for either keeping closer links to the European Union’s emissions trading system (ETS) after its exit or building its own measures.

If it leaves, it could create a domestic cap-and trade market, and possibly link it to the EU’s, or set a carbon tax. If it’s a softer Brexit, the country could remain in the EU emissions market until the next trading period ends in 2030 – the preferred choice for many businesses and climate advocates.

But to remain in the ETS up to 2030, the UK and EU will have to strike an overarching agreement that allows for ties in certain sectors. Negotiations so far have failed to find this kind of common ground.

If the UK leaves the EU system, a proposal for a nationwide policy will need to satisfy Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; the three devolved governments have the power to set their own environment policy, including on climate change.

Scotland is waiting to hear more on the UK government’s plans before coming out with a detailed public position. But the government told CHN it would not accept a carbon tax, which would shift accountability for Scotland’s emissions to the treasury department in London.

“Scottish ministers have written to the UK government expressing their concern about the lack of clarity on [the] ETS and the impact on stakeholders,” a government spokesperson said, adding that they are urging London to discuss the issue with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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The Scottish government still believes the most cost-effective way to cut carbon emissions is to remain in the European scheme, because it provides “access to larger markets and protection against carbon leakage,” the spokesperson added. But continued membership depends largely on whether the UK leaves the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction, as it said it intends to do in a paper laying out Britain’s vision of a future relationship in July.

“As our white paper sets out, we are seeking broad energy cooperation with the EU, as part of our commitment to deliver cost-effective, clean and secure energy supplies,” a UK government spokesperson said. “The UK will discuss options with the EU for maintaining robust, equivalent carbon-pricing mechanisms.”

The UK is expected to give more details on how an immediate Brexit could affect emissions pricing in the coming weeks, when it releases additional notices on no-deal preparations for different sectors. It published the first batch earlier this month.

Until then, the business department is quietly listening to what industries, NGOs and other experts have to say about the ETS, according to a source involved in those discussions.

“It’s been a one-sided process of trying to understand stakeholder views on how different options could be implemented … rather than setting out a preferred government approach,” the source said.

However, uncertainty about Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish positions adds to concerns that London would struggle to draw up a complex and contentious new carbon pricing system before leaving the EU market.

UK energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry told the parliament in March the government would like to remain in the ETS through to 2020. That would coincide with the end of the EU market’s current trading period and the proposed transition period for implementing the Brexit deal.

At best, that position leaves the government less than two years to prepare a replacement. That is already a tight window, but it’s luxurious compared to a sharp no-deal departure on March 29, which would yank the country out immediately.

“With the carbon market, how do you set that up? This is big, it took us a long time to get the ETS in place,” said Matt Hinde, senior vice president and director of energy, transport and trade at the consultancy Fleishman Hillard in Brussels, and a former UK civil servant.

“A tax is simpler, but only when you look at it at first. Are we doing it economy-wide, or just for power generators? What about energy-intensive industries? What about this sector? What about that one?”

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If the UK leaves without an ETS replacement, it could bring the EU’s cornerstone carbon-cutting tool to the “verge of collapse,” said Annalisa Savaresi, an environmental law lecturer at Scotland’s University of Stirling. And this just as the ETS price is rising in response to recently agreed reforms — putting pressure on energy-intensive industries after years of stagnation.

In the UK, it would free British industrial factories, power plants and airline flights from obligations to pay for their pollution. (Although power generators would still be subject to a slightly lower national floor price for emissions). In the EU, it could flood the market with unneeded UK pollution permits.

Neither a domestic market nor a tax fits with what stakeholders ranging from power generators to energy-intensive industries to environmentalists really want: ETS membership through 2030, when the new reforms expire. Perry’s confirmation that the government would like to remain until the end of 2020 has not entirely reassured them.

For one, the position relies on the UK and EU agreeing an exit deal, which looks more questionable as negotiations enter the final stretch. For another, the uncertainty is already weighing on financial decisions, such as electricity sales that should be based on future fuel and carbon costs, said Simon Henry, EU policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association.

“They won’t know what those carbon costs will be,” Henry said. “It could be the EU ETS price, which is easy to hedge because you can buy a carbon allowance for, say, delivery in 2021. Or it could be some other UK carbon pricing scheme, but no one has any idea whether that would happen, what it would look like, or what the levels would be.”

Correction: Annalisa Savaresi, is an environmental law lecturer at Scotland’s University of Stirling.

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In a batch of papers released on Thursday, the department for exiting the EU detailed how it is preparing for a possible crash Brexit on 29 March — while stressing that it continues to negotiate for a “good and sustainable future relationship” with the European Union.

The 25 notices set out the government’s plans for a no-deal departure in a wide range of policy areas, including industrial and vehicle emissions, nuclear energy, farming, medicines, product labelling, money and tax, and applications for EU funding. This is the first instalment of notices, and more are expected this month.

They’re meant to quell business and public concerns as Brexit day looms and the potential for a no-deal departure grows more realistic, particularly with little progress in negotiations for the overarching EU-UK relationship.

With just over six months to go, critics argue the government is moving too slowly and has given few details on preparations such as the new environmental watchdog agency.

“Repeated (& welcome) refrain of continued commitment to high standards — but will the statutory instruments be ready in time to bring over all EU law by exit day? Complex process that must be watertight, and we haven’t even seen drafts yet. Tick, tock…” tweeted Amy Mount from the Greener UK coalition of environmental organisations.

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The EU’s biggest tools for cutting greenhouse emissions and boost clean energy are not mentioned.

The government was expected to include a notice on preparations for the emissions trading system, which applies to 11,000 factories and power plants across the EU, plus air travel within the bloc. It is now planned for a later instalment, a government spokesperson said.

There is also no mention of policies setting national emissions reduction goals for sectors such as transport, buildings and agriculture, or of EU renewable energy and energy efficiency targets and the internal energy market.

Cars, coolants and industrial plants

Instead, Thursday’s publication sets out London’s plans for replacing the EU’s CO2 emissions targets for cars and vans registered in the bloc.

In a no-deal Brexit, EU rules would stop applying to new vehicles registered in Britain. The country’s department for transport would therefore take over the European Commission’s role, with the aim of setting rules that are “at least as ambitious as current arrangements,” the notice stated.

The same goes for limits on ozone-depleting and potent greenhouse gas emissions from coolants, according to another notice. EU regulation requires the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in line with the international Montreal Protocol. As part of it, the European Commission hands out HFC quotas to businesses, gradually reducing them every few years.

If Britain crashes out next year, the majority of the EU’s rules for this group of pollutants will continue to apply, the government said. It would allocate quotas in the same way and on the same schedule, just through a UK agency rather than Brussels.

1/6 There are several environment-related papers amongst today’s #NoDealBrexit preparedness notices, but many of #GreenerUK‘s questions are still unanswered – & some new risks have emerged https://t.co/3oJVqImOTn

— Amy Mount (@ASmallAMount) September 13, 2018

The government will also continue to apply air pollution rules for large combustion power plants, waste incineration plants and other industrial sites under new legislation, it said.

Without a Brexit deal, the UK would leave an EU process for setting environmental permitting standards. However, it plans to pass a law that makes sure the bloc’s existing “best available techniques” apply in the country, and allows the country to adopt new ones.

The government is also introducing the country’s first Environment Bill in 20 years, which will set rules for clean air and other protections in England and set up an independent Environment Agency, it said.

However, the government acknowledged it may not be ready in time. “We are considering what interim measures may be necessary in a no-deal scenario after March 29, 2019 and before the Environment Act is passed and comes into effect.”

Nuclear, oil and gas

London has worked quickly to set up a national inspections regime for nuclear energy sites in the country, to fill in for the EU’s atomic energy community, Euratom, and expects to have it in place by 29 March, according to a notice.

The inspections system — to make sure the country’s nuclear power plants, fuel processing sites, research centres and other facilities are not used to make nuclear weapons — is crucial to keeping Britain’s seven nuclear power stations running after a no-deal Brexit. They generate around a quarter of the country’s electricity, which would likely be replaced with gas or coal-fired power if not available.

But Euratom also oversees nuclear fuel supply around the EU, and some nuclear fuel supply contracts will need to be re-approved once the UK leaves, the government said. It urged companies to talk to Euratom and their contract counterparts about the process.

While the country would also lose Euratom funding for nuclear research — including its participation, with the rest of the EU, in the nuclear fusion pilot project ITER in France — the government stressed that it plans to step up with its own money to keep the programmes going.

One area that will see little change from an immediate departure, instead, is the rules for oil and gas licensing and environmental protection. UK law already addresses environmental requirements for offshore oil and gas drilling and licensing on- and offshore, but the government said it will amend rules to make sure there is “broad continuity”.

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A: The EU

Coverage of the future of the EU-UK relationship has been a constant, cicada-like drone this summer. But the media has ignored crucial questions that will define UK and European climate and energy policy for a generation.

Climate Home News plans to change that.

We are delighted to announce that Sara Stefanini, former senior energy writer at Politico Europe, will be joining our team in September.

Sara will lead the news agenda, breaking stories and highlighting the biggest outstanding climate and energy questions that Whitehall and Brussels must answer before 29 March, 2019.

Our readers can help us broaden her reporting by joining our list of patrons. It’s fast, safe and we are only asking for $7 (that’s £5.50 or €6.15) per month.

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The more support our readers can give, the more time Sara will be able to spend reporting. If we reach our target of 100 patrons – that means just forty more people giving $7 per month – we will produce a weekly Brexit newsletter, filled with tips, short takes and extra analysis. It will be a vital resource for anyone tracking the negotiations.

If you want to understand how CHN’s reporting can create ripples that turn into waves, read this short blog.

From the future of the atmosphere to the price of electricity, these issues are too important to be lost in the noise

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That’s one of the few climate takeaways from a white paper on the future relationship, released on Thursday by Theresa May’s government.

The document, which sets out in the most detail yet the UK’s ambitions for a deal it will negotiate with Brussels in the coming months, said the government “recognises the UK’s and the EU’s shared interest in global action on climate change and the mutual benefits of a broad agreement on climate change cooperation”.

The UK’s domestic laws are already “more stretching than those that arise from its current obligations under EU law”, said the government. “The UK will maintain these high standards after withdrawal.”

What a future broad agreement could look like, said think tank E3G’s Pete Clutton-Brock, was a continuation of the UK’s involvement in the EU’s interaction with the Paris climate agreement.

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The UK is currently a signatory to the EU’s Paris pledge to cut its carbon and negotiates as part of the EU bloc at UN talks. The UK could change that arrangement after it leaves, forcing the EU to submit a new promise.

The loss of the UK, which has made faster cuts to emissions than many other EU nations, would mean the EU would have to push its remaining nations to do more.

“This sends an important signal to EU,” said Chatham House’s Georgina Wright. “But it is vague.” It doesn’t outline, for example, how the UK would participate in EU discussions on policy in future.

That “could upset the balance in favour of lower levels of climate ambition [in the EU]” she added.

Convincing reluctant eastern states to increase their action would be made harder if the EU were to increase its pledge: a strong possibility, according to its energy commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete.

Clutton-Brock said the UK could use this to its advantage in the negotiations. May has made it clear that the UK wants access to the EU’s internal energy market once it leaves. But in the white paper, the government said it “does not believe that participation in the IEM should require a common rulebook on wider environmental and climate change rules”.

“There might be a trade-off,” said Clutton-Brock, although warned against viewing the negotiations in terms of tit-for-tat transactions. The EU was quick to hint on Thursday that aspect of the paper may cross its red lines. But observers see climate and energy as opportunities for cooperation and building goodwill.

If the EU accepts UK participation in the energy market (by no means a given), the white paper says the UK would continue to participate in the EU emissions trading scheme. This would bolster a wide range of businesses who have been working inside the scheme since 2005.

Climate commissioner: EU can increase 2030 pledge to Paris Agreement

In general, the white paper contained “really very little extra detail” on energy and climate change, said Clutton-Brock. “It’s at the end game and that we don’t have detail on these things is worrying.” But he added that the inclusion of a climate change section in the paper could be seen as positive, given erstwhile secretary of state David Davis’ antipathy toward climate regulations.

New Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, who took over from Davis this week, has ties to a free market network that funds climate sceptic and anti-EU groups, DeSmog UK reported on Monday.

In another, more fleshed out section of the paper, British toaster sovereignty remained unreclaimed.

One of the consistent bugbears of the UK’s red top press has been the EU’s imposition of manufacturing requirements for fridges, freezers, toasters, TVs etc. This includes energy consumption.

The EU even put new kettle and toaster regulations on hold before the 2016 vote in order to avoid bad news stories that could sway the vote.

That intervention failed to convince the Brits. But now May has said the UK would accept EU rules as part of broad customs arrangements she is calling a “common rulebook”.

The same proposal would be a relief to the wind power and electric car industries, said think tank E3G’s Pete Clutton-Brock, who have complicated cross-channel supply chains a customs border would make impossible.

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