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UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt has delivered his autumn statement, laying out plans for revitalising the economy at a time of inflation and slow growth.

As the US and the EU pour investment into low-carbon technologies and sectors in order to boost their economies, there had been hopes that the UK could take a similar approach.

Hunt promised tax cuts and “110 measures to help grow the British economy”. However, measures that directly helped to reduce emissions were relatively thin on the ground.

Significant announcements included £960m for a “green industries growth accelerator” to expand domestic low-carbon supply chains and measures to fast-track the connection of new power projects to the grid.

But experts argued that the UK would need more ambitious policies to match other nations in expanding low-carbon infrastructure.

Meanwhile, measures such as support for home insulation, which could also help cut people’s energy bills, were barely mentioned in the new statement.

Scene setting

Amid on-going economic challenges, the UK has faced pressure to come up with a climate-related investment plan comparable to the US Inflation Reduction Act or the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan

These strategies involve financially supporting key sectors, such as renewable energy and home insulation, in order to strengthen national competitiveness, while also boosting energy security and cutting bills.

However, while the UK’s opposition Labour party has embraced such a strategy with its proposed “green prosperity plan”, Jeremy Hunt has explicitly distanced himself from it. He wrote in the Times in March that the government would not try to compete with the US and EU on green subsidies:

“Our approach will be different – and better. We are not going toe-to-toe with our friends and allies in some distortive global subsidy race…With the threat of protectionism creeping its way back into the world economy, the long-term solution is not subsidy but security.”

The autumn statement document emphasises that “the UK will not be looking to match countries such as the US pound for pound on the back of policies like the Inflation Reduction Act”.

Instead, it focuses on incentivising private investment and what Hunt has called a “pro-growth regulatory regime”. (See: Green industries growth.)

The statement comes as the UK government withdraws from some of its net-zero policies. In a speech in September, prime minister Rishi Sunak emphasised the burden net-zero placed on British people and announced a rollback of plans to phase out fossil fuel-powered cars and boilers.

As the chart below shows, Hunt used climate-related keywords less in his latest speech than in his first autumn statement in 2022, or in the spring statement earlier this year. He did not specifically mention “climate” at all.

Number of mentions of keywords and phrases related to the climate, in budget speeches since Labour’s Alistair Darling was chancellor in March 2009.
Number of mentions of keywords and phrases related to the climate, in budget speeches since Labour’s Alistair Darling was chancellor in March 2009. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

Observers also noted that there was little in the autumn statement to help people struggling to pay their energy bills. 

Energy bills have doubled in three years – partly due to spiralling fossil-fuel prices amid the war in Ukraine. They are expected to rise even higher in January, with a new price cap announcement coming out the day after the autumn statement.

The government previously brought in an energy price guarantee to limit how much people would spend on their energy bills, but this expired in June.  

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Grid

The autumn statement included a promise to “speed up access to the national grid” through a number of measures.

Grid constraints on the island of Britain (Northern Ireland’s grid is separate) are increasingly seen as one of the biggest challenges for decarbonising the nation’s energy sector. Many renewable energy projects face a 10- to 15-year delay in gaining a grid connection. 

Britain’s electricity network is aiming to be run entirely on low-carbon energy from 2035, but this could be threatened if renewable generation projects cannot connect to the grid quickly enough.

Beyond connecting renewable energy and other low-carbon energy technologies, challenges with grid connections are also holding back the expansion of industry.

Last week, the Guardian reported that the UK energy secretary Claire Coutinho could be granted powers to fast-track connecting projects to the grid, such as Tata’s planned electric battery gigafactory in Somerset. 

Plans are being discussed by the government and the regulator Ofgem that would allow Coutinho to request that energy network companies accelerate upgrades to substations and power lines to connect specific developments, the article noted.

Earlier in November, Ofgem announced that it is introducing rules to remove “zombie” energy projects from the grid connection queue. 

This represents a significant change from the existing “first-come, first-served” system, which has led to a queue of energy projects that could generate almost 400GW of electricity, well in excess of what is needed to power the entire energy system in Britain.

The autumn statement announced a reform to the grid connection process to cut waiting times, including “freeing up over 100GW of capacity so that projects can connect sooner”.

The change will enable the “significant majority” of projects to get their requested connection date with no wait, as well as reduce the overall connection delays from five years to no more than six months.

Additionally, the government announced an action plan, in response to the review by the electricity network commissioner, Nick Winser, within the statement. The review set out 18 recommendations designed to speed up the delivery of strategic transmission networks.

The action plan will halve the time it takes to build new grid infrastructure to seven years, the statement suggests.

The core elements of this are:

  • Proposals for community benefits with up to £10,000 off electricity bills.
  • Consulting on reforms to energy consenting rules in Scotland next year.
  • “Committing to commission” the ESO to work with government to introduce a “strategic spatial energy plan”.
  • Introducing competition into onshore electricity networks in 2024.

These actions will help to lower electricity prices, delivering an estimated net saving of £15-25 on average per household per year out to 2035, the statement notes.

Analysis published by the department for energy security and net-zero (DESNZ), reviewed by the Energy Systems Catapult and referenced within the statement, estimates that, once embedded, the grid reforms could increase investment temporarily by an average of £10bn per year over the next 10 years. This would speed up the transition to net-zero, it notes.

The autumn statement did not include a battery strategy, only noting that the government will “shortly set out more on its actions to support investment and growth in the manufacturing sector with the publication of the advanced manufacturing plan and UK battery strategy”. 

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Green industries growth 

Jeremy Hunt reiterated the £4.5bn for strategic manufacturing sectors, including £960m earmarked for a “green industries growth accelerator”, which the Treasury announced on 17 November. 

The investment is designed to support the expansion of “strong, home-grown, clean energy supply chains”, including carbon capture, utilisation and storage, electricity networks, hydrogen, nuclear and offshore wind.

This will “enable the UK to seize growth opportunities through the transition to net-zero, building on our world-leading decarbonisation track record and strong deployment offer,” the government’s statement notes. 

The investment was welcomed by the renewable industry, with trade association RenewableUK’s chief executive Dan McGrail saying in a statement

“The chancellor has been clear that the green industries growth accelerator is for strategic industries, targeted to unlock maximum private investment where the UK can be competitive – and there couldn’t be a better fit for that than offshore wind and renewables. With the right support, the likes of which we’ve seen from government today, industry estimates that the offshore wind supply chain alone could boost the UK’s economy by £92bn by 2040.”

The fund will sit alongside the range of long-term deployment support set out in Powering Up Britain, published in March, which will “ensure the government delivers the clean energy transition and boosts green investment and job creation across the country”, the statement notes.

Within the autumn statement, the next set of investment zones are named, including the East Midlands, which will have a focus on green industries and advanced manufacturing. This is expected to help leverage £383m in private investment and create 4,200 jobs in the region over the next 10 years, it says.

Beyond this, the autumn statement announces permanent full expensing, including the 50% first-year allowance for special rate assets. This applies across the economy, with the statement highlighting the impact on capital-intensive, low-carbon industries, such as solar and offshore wind. 

Additionally, permanent full expensing can support companies looking to decarbonise by investing in solar panels and heat pumps, as well as “greener” machinery, the statement notes. 

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Reacting to this, Rachel Solomon Williams, executive director at the Aldersgate Group, said:

“We welcome the announcement that capital full expensing will be made permanent, as it can drive business investment in decarbonisation – but it is not enough on its own. This urgent need for action is demonstrated in clean energy investment, where the UK has fallen from fourth to seventh in attractiveness to investors, in part due to global competition from the US and the EU, but also a lack of consistent policy support from the government.

“A comprehensive response to the US Inflation Reduction Act remains critical, as part of a clear industrial strategy which provides the UK economy with a clear direction that businesses can rely on.”

The autumn statement also mentions the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF), which provides funding to support industrial sites to invest in more energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies. 

IETF was initially announced in the 2018 budget, with £315m of funding made available up until 2027 at the time. The fund is now into its third phase, with the £185m – mentioned in the autumn statement – announced in March 2023

This funding will come from the £6bn announced in the autumn statement in 2022, to support energy efficiency from 2025. Further allocations are set to come out “in due course”, the 2023 statement notes. 

Under the six-year Climate Change Agreement scheme, set to start in 2025, the government is providing around £300m a year in tax relief in exchange for meeting energy efficiency targets. Additionally, it is expanding VAT relief available on the installation of energy-saving materials in residential buildings or those used solely for a relevant charitable purpose. 

In addition to the focus on offshore wind as a strategic sector, the autumn budget outlines plans to bring forward legislation to provide the Crown Estate with borrowing and wider investment power “as soon as parliamentary time allows”. 

This will help to unlock a further 20-30GW of offshore wind seabed rights by 2030, the statement notes.

The government is also working with the Crown Estate to bring forward additional floating wind in the Celtic Sea through the 2030s, which has the potential to see 12GW of generation deployed.

This would be alongside the 4.5GW auction round due to open soon, which has the potential to deliver £20bn in direct employment, the statement says. 

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Energy efficiency and heating homes

There have been persistent calls for the government to scale up support to help people insulate their homes.

The UK has some of the least efficient housing in Europe. Improving this situation would cut emissions, reduce reliance on fossil-fuel imports and save billions on people’s energy bills.

In last year’s autumn statement, Hunt pledged £6bn of new government funding between 2025 and 2028 to improve energy efficiency in households, businesses and the public sector. He also announced the formation of a new energy efficiency taskforce to help deliver “energy efficiency across the economy”.

Since then, there has been little information about the new funding and the taskforce was scrapped in September, amid the government’s rollback of net-zero policies. 

Sunak also withdrew a policy that would have required landlords to improve the efficiency rating of their rental properties by 2028. This continued a long trend of Conservative governments announcing home-insulation schemes and then scrapping them.

Ahead of this year’s autumn statement, various MPs, housebuilders, charities and climate experts said Hunt should prioritise retrofitting people’s homes. Among the measures proposed were widening access to insulation schemes and more long-term clarity on how existing funds would be spent.

The Daily Telegraph reported on a plan to give new homeowners some of their stamp duty money back if they insulated their houses within two years of moving in. According to the newspaper, this idea was “in the running” for Hunt’s statement.

Expert groups and thinktanks also recommended new financial incentives to encourage landlords to insulate their homes.

In the event, there was very little in the statement on home energy efficiency. The only mention of the £6bn fund was a chunk that would be allocated for industrial sites. (See: Green industries growth.) Juliet Phillips, a senior policy adviser at the thinktank E3G, tells Carbon Brief:

“Our analysis suggests that £6bn would barely cover the costs of domestic retrofit, let alone industrial energy efficiency as well. The mammoth task of improving the UK’s leaky homes can’t be underfunded; and we’d encourage additional funding to be put aside to support industry.”

There was more on decarbonising heating, following on from Sunak’s recent announcement that he would increase grants under the boiler upgrade scheme from £5,000 to £7,500, in order to incentivise the switch from fossil-fuel boilers to electric heat pumps.

The government says it will launch a consultation into changing planning regulations to “end the blanket restriction on heat pumps one metre from a property boundary in England”. It adds that this will “reduce delays”.

It also commits to expanding the VAT relief available on the installation of energy-saving materials to additional technologies, including water-source heat pumps.

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Levies

The autumn statement confirmed the energy profits levy will end no later than 31 March 2028. This was brought in in 2022 in response to the enormous profits made by oil-and-gas majors due to the elevated global price of fossil fuels. 

It was initially set at 25%, before being raised to 35% by Hunt during the autumn statement in 2022. 

Within the autumn statement, an investment exemption for the electricity generator levy has now been introduced.

The windfall tax was introduced during the spring budget 2023, applying a 45% levy on electricity generators who have made excess profits amid high power prices. 

Since its introduction, the energy sector has been calling for the introduction of investment allowances, which allows generators to re-invest tax expenditures into low-carbon technologies.

An investment allowance was always included in the energy profits levy, a move that trade body Energy UK said sent the “wrong signal to investors”, as oil-and-gas extraction would face “a lower rate of effective tax than low-carbon generators”. 

New electricity generation stations or expansions of existing generation assets made on or after 22 November 2023, will now not be subject to the levy. The electricity generator levy is also set to end on 31 March 2028.

The government is going to freeze main and reduced rates of climate change levy in the UK in 2025-26, the autumn statement notes.

As such, the levy for electricity and gas will be frozen at £0.00775/kWh, liquid petroleum gas (LPG) at £0.02175/kWh and any other taxable commodity at £0.06064/kWh.

Reduced rates will be frozen at 92% for electricity, 77% for LPG and 89% for gas and any other taxable commodity, it notes.

Alongside the autumn statement, the government has published the conclusion to the review of the oil and gas fiscal regime, as well as set out the final design of the energy security investment mechanism. This includes future adjustments to the mechanism’s price thresholds in response to inflation. 

This package will “provide certainty and predictability for investors and operators in this crucial industry in the short-, medium- and long-term”, the statement notes.

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Best of the rest

Beyond these key energy and climate announcements, the autumn statement also saw reforms to the emissions trading scheme (ETS).

These were set out in July 2023 and will reduce the number of ETS permits available for purchase from the government by 45% between 2023 and 2027, the statement notes. 

Additionally, the scheme will be extended to cover emissions from domestic maritime and energy from waste in 2026 and 2028, respectively, marking an “important step in achieving net-zero ambitions”.

The autumn statement also announced that the government will look to remove unnecessary planning constraints by accelerating the expansion of the electric vehicles (EV) charging infrastructure.

This builds on actions laid out already in the government’s EV infrastructure strategy, which set out the government’s EV vision for 2030. 

The government will consult on amending the national planning policy framework to prioritise the rollout of EV charge points, including EV charging hubs, the statement says.

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As of the end of October 2023, there were 51,516 EV public charging points across the UK at 30,360 charging locations, according to charging services provider Zapmap. This was a 45% increase in the number of charging devices since October 2022. 

With sales of EVs continuing to surge in the UK, charging infrastructure will need to keep pace, to facilitate the transition from petrol and diesel vehicles.  

Despite pressure from the Treasury to raise fuel duty, the autumn statement left it frozen at 57.95p, the same level it has been at since 2011. Fuel duty was only mentioned once in the autumn statement, in reference to the drop in inflation.

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CCC: England’s approach to climate adaptation is ‘not working’

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The “vast majority” of the UK government’s plans to prepare for climate hazards have made virtually no progress over the past two years, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC).

In that time, the world has experienced the hottest year on record, while England has seen its wettest ever 18-month stretch between 2022 and 2024.

(Climate adaptation – outside of some issues such as defence – is mostly a devolved matter, with separate plans in place from the administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)

The previous government introduced a new adaptation strategy for England in 2023, covering plans for rising temperatures and more extreme weather in the country.

However, in its latest analysis of the government’s progress, the CCC states that the current approach to adaptation in England is “not working” and requires “urgent strengthening”.

The government is failing to make “good” progress in adapting to climate change on any of the 46 outcomes measured by the committee, ranging from better healthcare during heatwaves to preparing financial institutions for climate risk.

The report marks the latest in a series of appraisals by the CCC that have repeatedly identified large gaps in the nation’s adaptation efforts.

This time, with a relatively new Labour government that has said it will act on adaptation, the committee says its report “must serve as the turning point”.

But the CCC also says it is “seriously concerned” that the government will cut funding for adaptation, ultimately leading to much higher future costs as temperatures continue to rise.

Climate adaptation is ‘vital’

There is “unequivocal evidence” that climate change is already making extreme weather in the UK “more likely and more extreme”, the CCC says.

The report lays out major risks facing the country, noting that the number of properties at risk from flooding is set to increase from 6.3m today to 8m by 2050. Roads and railways at risk from flooding could increase from a third of the total length to half over the same timeframe.

At least 59% of top-quality farmland is already at risk from flooding, the report says, adding that this could also increase over the coming decades.

Meanwhile, annual heat-related deaths could increase “several times over” to pass 10,000 in an average year by 2050, the CCC says.

It also cites an Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) report from 2024 that concludes the UK’s GDP could be around 3% lower by 2074, even under the Paris Agreement’s “below 2C” goal. It says this could increase to 5% in a “below 3C” scenario, according to the OBR.

High-quality climate adaptation is therefore “vital to ensure that these risks are managed most efficiently and at least cost”, according to the committee. Otherwise, government policy could “lock in” risks or even make them worse.

The CCC reports on adaptation progress in England every two years, as required under the 2008 Climate Change Act. These reports have consistently highlighted adaptation as an issue that has been “underfunded and ignored” by successive governments.

There have been a few major developments since the committee’s last report.

Notably, the previous Conservative government launched its third national adaptation programme (NAP3), which is the cornerstone of the nation’s adaptation policy, in summer 2023. (NAP3 covers adaptation policy in England, as well as non-devolved issues that affect the whole UK, such as defence.)

In a highly critical initial appraisal of the programme, the CCC concluded that it fell “far short of what is needed” and “must be strengthened”. NAP3 has also faced an ultimately unsuccessful legal challenge from activists, arguing that it breached people’s human rights.

Another big development since the committee’s last report is Labour winning the general election in 2024. The CCC acknowledges that the new government “inherited a NAP that fell short of the task”, but says it finds “little evidence of a change of course”.

What progress has been made?

The report looks at both the “policies and plans” underpinning climate adaptation, as well as the actual “delivery and implementation” of those plans. It states:

“Whilst there is some evidence of policies and plans improving [since 2023], it is clear that NAP3 has been ineffective in driving the critical shift towards effective delivery of adaptation.”

The CCC assesses the planning and delivery of 46 outcomes from adaptation policy across five overarching themes. It scores them using roughly the same monitoring framework used in its last report in 2023.

It notes that 11 policies and plans have improved over the past two years, including a new adaptation strategy from the Ministry of Justice and a green finance strategy.

Over the same period, it says four have gotten worse, among them investment in flood protection projects, as plans no longer align with their stated objectives”.

The lack of significant improvement between 2023 and 2025, based on the CCC’s scoring system, can be seen in the chart below.

Climate adaptation outcome scores for “policies and plans”, assigned by the CCC in its progress report.
Climate adaptation outcome scores for “policies and plans”, assigned by the CCC in its progress report. This chart compares the 2023 CCC report, which is based on an assessment of 45 outcomes, with the 2025 report, which uses the same outcomes plus one extra, bringing the total to 46. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of CCC adaptation progress reports from 2023 and 2025.

As for the government actually delivering on its plans, the CCC says the “vast majority of our outcomes have received the same score as in 2023, most at low levels”.

The small number of improvements mainly relate to the latest round of implementation of the “adaptation reporting power”, which allows the government to ask infrastructure providers to disclose how they deal with climate risks.

The chart below, which compares the scores given to different adaptation outcomes between 2023 and 2025, demonstrates the lack of progress in the intervening years.

The CCC concludes that none of the outcomes could be classified as making “good” progress, in terms of delivery. Only four of them saw improvements over this period.

It highlights the water supply as an area where there has been backsliding over the past two years, noting that “continued slow rate of leakage reduction is now clearly inconsistent with meeting the sector’s targets”.

Climate adaptation outcome scores for “delivery and implementation”,  assigned by the CCC in its progress report.
Climate adaptation outcome scores for “delivery and implementation”, assigned by the CCC in its progress report. This chart compares the 2023 CCC report, which is based on an assessment of 45 outcomes, with the 2025 report, which uses the same outcomes plus one extra, bringing the total to 46. The 2023 report used the category “mixed” instead of “limited” or “partial”, both of which are used in 2025. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of CCC adaptation progress reports from 2023 and 2025.

The CCC also points out that “tracking progress on adaptation remains challenging due to limited national-scale, up-to-date and relevant data”.

While there has been an improvement since 2023, nine of the 46 assessed outcomes for England still lacked enough evidence to assess progress, the report says.

These include important areas such as the impact of climate change on food supplies and the vulnerability of telecommunications and information and communication technology (ICT) assets.

In addition, ahead of NAP3, the CCC recommended – as part of its 2023 progress report – a list of 89 actions to close what it viewed as “policy gaps in government’s adaptation planning”.

It suggested that these could be dealt with either in NAP3 itself, or as part of other policy programmes.

However, only four of these recommendations have been achieved, with a further 14 seeing “partial progress”.

The report highlights food security, community preparedness and buildings as some of the areas where the government did not follow through on its recommendations.

What does the CCC recommend?

The CCC’s report echoes previous advice that, despite some improvements in NAP3 on previous efforts, the nation’s climate adaptation strategy needs an overhaul:

“The UK’s current approach to adaptation policy making is not working. Adaptation is not the cross-government priority that it needs to be, which is holding back delivery.”

NAP3 covers a five-year period from 2023 to 2028. With the latest report coming at a halfway point in this cycle, the committee says it “must serve as the turning point” for the government on climate adaptation.

As part of the “urgent strengthening” suggested in the report, the committee sets out key areas that it says should be improved.

“Adaptation” can mean different things in different contexts. The CCC stresses the need for a set of “specific and measurable sectoral targets” that can be used to guide progress, with clarity on how to monitor them and who is responsible.

The government has signalled its intention to strengthen adaptation objectives. The committee says that such objectives “must” be developed as a priority, no later than the end of 2025.

The CCC report highlights the “data gaps” that need to be closed, with “monitoring and evaluation…still not treated with sufficient urgency”. It says the government should direct relevant agencies to collect data on climate risks and the delivery of adaptation measures.

Adaptation is a topic that affects every area of government, from healthcare to education. Yet the CCC highlights that there is not enough coordination of activities between departments and says this should be improved.

In order to carry out adaptation policies, the CCC also stresses that the government “needs to ensure sufficient funding is available” as it undertakes its spending review. Baroness Brown, chair of the CCC’s adaptation committee, told journalists in a press briefing:

“We are seriously concerned that resilience and climate adaptation may be cut in the spending review. [The] government needs to recognise that this is not a future problem, this is today’s problem…I know the government is under a lot of pressure to make cuts, but this isn’t the easy one.”

Given the cost of future climate risk, the committee stresses that ignoring adaptation would not, ultimately, save money. In fact, acting early would “minimise the overall costs of tackling climate change”, it explains.

In the press briefing, CCC chief executive Emma Pinchbeck emphasised the “real need” for the government to think about the future when implementing key policies, such as home-building programmes and other major infrastructure developments.

“If you think about potential waste in terms of investment into the NHS, if we then have to retrofit hospitals to make them cooler,” she said, as an example.

How prepared are different sectors for climate change?

The CCC progress report looks at specific outcomes broken down across five broad sectors.

Within these, it highlights key problems and makes specific recommendations for each area.

Land, nature and food

The CCC highlights various “foundational” strategies covering farming and land that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is expected to publish in the coming months, including the land-use framework and the food strategy.

Delays in publishing such documents have “hampered” adaptation progress. However, the report highlights them as opportunities to set out clear objectives and responsibilities for the sector.

As it stands, important issues such as boosting climate-resilient farming and protecting food supply chains are rated “insufficient” for both government planning and implementation.

The CCC highlights the relatively new “environmental land management schemes” (Elms), which constitute England’s successor to the EU’s farm payments policy.

The report says these schemes lack guidance for climate adaptation, adding that the government should provide “certainty” about how much farmers will be paid for such measures.

As for the fishing industry, the report has downgraded its climate-adaptation plans, noting that they “no longer look credible”. It says the government’s marine strategy, published earlier this year, “does not include any specific or targeted adaptation actions”.

Infrastructure

According to the CCC, when the government publishes its 10-year infrastructure strategy, it should set out “clear resilience standards” for new infrastructure projects.

It also notes that major funding packages – for new roads and electricity networks, for example – should include incentives to fund climate adaptation.

Two out of the three adaptation policies that are scored as “good” are in the infrastructure sector, namely the plans for maintaining reliability in the road and rail networks.

Despite this, actual progress in improving transport resilience is largely “stagnant”, the committee says. It highlights increased flooding on railways and an increased number of roads deemed “susceptible” to flooding.

This is also the sector that has seen the most improvement in terms of delivery and implementation. The water, energy, telecommunications and transport sectors are all described as improving the identification and management of “interdependencies”.

This refers to better evidence of links between different sectors, which is being unveiled via adaptation reporting power. Notably, none of the sectors that have seen improvements are rated as “good”, indicating they still have work to do in this area.

Built environment and communities

Flooding is highlighted as the key risk facing many communities around England.

While the Environment Agency-led flood defence programme has been successful, “its budget in real terms is shrinking as risks are escalating, meaning delivery is falling short of targets and the condition of flood defence assets is declining”, according to the CCC.

The government’s investment programme needs “long-term” targets for cutting the risk posed by floods and coastal erosion, supported by sufficient funds, the report concludes.

It also recommends a “long-term cross-sector plan to manage future heat risk and drive joined-up action”.

The CCC is currently unable to track many of the important measures around heat risk, such as how many buildings are overheating, due to a lack of data.

Overall, none of the efforts to implement better protections for homes and communities have seen any positive change since 2023, despite this being a record period of heat and flooding.

Health and wellbeing

The CCC notes that there are only “limited” policies and plans in place to protect population health and healthcare delivery in the face of escalating climate hazards.

Extreme heat is the main risk identified in this context. As it stands, there are long-term, increasing trends of heat-associated deaths and overheating in hospital settings, the committee says.

In this context, the report recommends that the government develop an “improved climate and public health adaptation plan” that builds on the existing adverse weather and health plan.

Also, as part of the government’s decade-long plan to improve the NHS, the CCC says any upgrades must “make it more resilient to climate extremes today and in the future”.

Economy

The committee says that while businesses can take action to protect their own affairs from climate change, “barriers remain” and adaptation finance “remains nascent”.

It therefore highlights an important role for the government in removing these barriers, providing high-quality information and “correcting market failures”.

The report recommends setting up a portal for adaptation-related data that can be accessed by companies.

It also says the government should ensure that the UK’s sustainable disclosure requirements incorporate “adaptation-related disclosure”, to better prepare the private sector for climate risks.

The CCC also points out that an adaptation finance “deliverables and action plan”, promised for 2024, has not been produced. Among other things, this plan should lay out ways to “mobilise” private investment into adaptation projects, it adds.

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Trump’s first 100 days: US walks away from global climate action

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As in his first term, US President Donald Trump has again kick-started the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the global pact to tackle climate change. But this time, he has launched a barrage of additional efforts to end US participation in international climate action during his first 100 days in office.

He not only signed an order for the US to leave the Paris Agreement on his first day in the White House on January 20, a process that takes a year from when the UN is notified. His administration has also crippled international climate finance by cutting aid and saying it will not deliver on pledges to climate funds, financed major fossil fuel projects abroad and undermined environmental treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“It is the policy of my Administration to put the interests of the United States and the American people first in the development and negotiation of any international agreements with the potential to damage or stifle the American economy,” said Trump’s day-one executive order on global environmental deals.

However, the implications could be far-reaching and weaken the US geopolitically, analysts warned.

“The Trump Administration is fundamentally dismantling the ability of the US government to project influence around the world,” said Jesse Young, former chief of staff at the Office of the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate under John Podesta, a political adviser to Joe Biden’s government.

“If you take the ball and go home, everyone else still shows up to these fora. It’s not like the party’s cancelled,” Young added. “By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and doing all this stuff, you make China look better by standing still.”

It is still unclear whether the US will send a delegation to the COP30 UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil, in November, where more than 190 countries are set to discuss a new climate finance roadmap and present updated national climate plans. A no-show for the US would be an unprecedented move for the world’s second-largest carbon polluter.

“The world will keep going,” said Tom di Liberto, public affairs specialist and former climate scientist with the US government. “What we’ve seen is a complete rejection of America’s role in the world.”

Thousands of people fill midtown  in Manhattan to protest the Trump administration's attacks on the government, climate, tariffs, immigration, and education among many other issues. (Photo : Andrea RENAULT /Zuma Press) Trump's first 100 days: US walks away from global climate action
Thousands of people fill midtown in Manhattan to protest the Trump administration’s attacks on the government, climate, tariffs, immigration and education, among many other issues. (Photo: Andrea RENAULT /Zuma Press)

Bowing out of the UN climate process

The US leaving the Paris Agreement – although falling short of pulling out of the underlying UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – was the first step in a series of actions meant to undermine climate action on the global stage.

In February, the Trump administration prevented its scientists from attending a key meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held in China, where researchers from UN member states discussed the outlines and deadlines for the world’s upcoming flagship climate science reports.

As part of Trump’s first-day orders, the US also halted all financial contributions to the UNFCCC, leaving the UN climate body with a 22% shortfall in its core budget. In 2024, US contributions totalled $13.3 million.

Shortly after the announcement, American billionaire Michael Bloomberg pledged to fill the funding gap left by the US. Bloomberg Philanthropies had already stepped in during Trump’s first term and is already the UNFCCC’s largest non-state donor.

After Trump’s pullback, Bloomberg promises to fill US funding gap to UN climate body

The United States also failed for the first time to report its climate-warming emissions to the UN, a commitment the US had upheld ever since the UNFCCC was adopted over three decades ago.

And this month, the Trump administration dismantled the entire State Department’s Office for Global Change, which oversees global climate policy and aid, by terminating all of its employees. This was part of a wave of bureaucratic layoffs led by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by unelected tech billionaire Elon Musk, who owns electric vehicle maker Tesla and social media platform X.

One of the agencies targeted by DOGE was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which could suffer an almost 30% budget cut despite being in charge of key global weather and climate data. Di Liberto was one of the scientists fired from NOAA.

“We’re already seeing the impacts, especially in our national weather service, where we already today cannot forecast the weather 24/7 at local forecast offices,” Di Liberto told journalists on an online briefing.

Many developing countries rely on NOAA’s forecasting to prepare for extreme weather events like hurricanes or drought. In a world of increasing climate impacts, the move could “jeopardize most people’s access to life-saving information”, the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said in a statement.

Also in April, the Trump administration dismissed all the authors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment – a quadrennial scientific report mandated by Congress since 1990 – saying it is being “reevaluated”.

“Trying to bury this report won’t alter the scientific facts one bit, but without this information our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change,” warned Rachel Cleetus, one of the authors who is a senior policy director for UCS’s Climate and Energy Program.

Crippling climate finance

In his initial executive order to quit the Paris Agreement, Trump made very clear his intention to dramatically cut US contributions to international climate funding by ordering the US Treasury to “immediately cease or revoke any purported financial commitment” under the UNFCCC.

One of the administration’s first targets was the US government aid agency, USAID, which has suffered a dramatic mass layoff of staff and was subjected to a funding freeze. USAID is the world’s largest grant-based bilateral agency, overseeing hundreds of climate programmes now at risk of disappearing.

Speaking to Climate Home in February, workers at USAID-funded projects in Africa warned of “devastating” consequences to the world’s poorest, warning it would make them more susceptible to extreme weather.

USAID’s climate projects included an $84.5 million clean energy rollout across Southern Africa that would grant first-time electricity access to tens of thousands, as well as $22 million to help farming communities in Iraq deal with climate-related drought, and $18.5 million to boost climate resilience in Palestine.

A Rohingya refugee girl holds a jar with USAID logo imprinted, at the refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 16, 2025. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
A Rohingya refugee girl holds a jar with USAID logo imprinted, at the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, March 16, 2025. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

The US has also walked out of coal-to-clean energy Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam, set up by a group of donors to phase down fossil fuels and boost renewables in these growing economies. Together, the deals are worth a combined $45 billion.

Trump has also targeted international climate funds, rescinding a large pledge to the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) in February, leaving a $4-billion shortfall and an empty seat on the fund’s board. The country also gave up its seat on the board of the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, although the previous administration made good on a previous $17.5-million contribution.

In addition, the US government is putting pressure on global financial institutions that support development around the world. During April’s Spring Meetings, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to drop their climate work, amid fears of a US exit from those agencies.

He said the IMF “devotes disproportionate time and resources to work on climate change, gender and social issues”. The IMF and World Bank chiefs have so far not indicated they will scale back their climate programmes.

Rush for gas and minerals

While cutting funding for climate mitigation, the Trump administration has invested efforts in redirecting international support towards fossil fuel projects, in particular gas.

For instance, back in March, the US Export-Import Bank approved a $4.7-billion loan for a major gas plant in Mozambique described as a “carbon bomb” by experts. The project operated by TotalEnergies is set to emit 121 million tonnes of planet-heating carbon dioxide every year and it would become Africa’s largest-ever energy project.

Trump has also encouraged other countries to buy into the US’s fossil fuel expansion plans, urging Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to commit to a controversial $44-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Alaska. Asian countries reportedly have diverging views on this, with Taiwan expressing interest and South Korea more hesitant over the costs.

In line with this, the US government has also pushed gas at international energy gatherings. This month, at the International Energy Agency’s Summit for the Future of Energy Security in London, Trump’s envoy criticised renewables, blaming them for recent power cuts in Puerto Rico without providing evidence.

At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables

Critical minerals – whose global production is currently dominated by China – have featured too in Trump’s foreign policy. Minerals like lithium and cobalt as well as rare earths are key for manufacturing solar cells, batteries and other clean energy technologies. But Trump has set his sights on the military uses of these minerals, analysts told Climate Home.

At peace talks to end the conflicts in both Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the US government has offered “minerals-for-security” deals in an effort to secure key reserves of cobalt and copper in DRC, and graphite and lithium in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in defiance of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Trump administration in April signed an executive order to fast-track controversial deep-sea mining projects planned by Canada-based The Metals Company (TMC). For years, diplomats have tried to set rules for mining the ocean floor at the International Seabed Authority, an UNCLOS body. Trump’s unilateral permitting is set to create international backlash, experts warned.

Xi commits China to full climate plan but emissions-cutting ambition still unclear

Amid the US president’s snubbing of the UN climate process and other global environmental pacts, COP30 host Brazil has called on countries to stay committed to the UNFCCC. China, for example, recently announced it will produce an upgraded national climate plan ahead of COP30, covering all economic sectors and greenhouse gases for the first time.

“Now, we have to make an even greater effort to ensure that multilateralism prevails, and this
has to involve Brazil, China, India, the European Union, South Africa, and all remaining [UNFCCC]
parties,” Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva said in a statement. “Only intense multilateral action can tackle climate change.”

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Canada votes to keep Carney as leader, over anti-climate Conservatives

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Canadians chose Mark Carney, a former central banker and UN climate envoy who leads the ruling Liberal Party, as their prime minister in Monday’s election, rejecting the anti-climate action Conservative Party of Pierre Poilievre.

The election result means that the climate policies of the world’s 12th-biggest emitter will be broadly unchanged, as the Liberals – under Justin Trudeau and now Carney – have governed the North American nation since 2015. At the time of publication, it was still unclear whether the centre-left party had won a majority of seats in Canada’s parliament.

Poilievre’s Conservative Party had promised to scrap climate polices like a carbon tax on industry and to boost oil and gas production and exports.

Meghan Fandrich, who survived a devastating wildfire driven by climate change in her village of Lytton, said there was “some comfort in knowing that Canada has rejected the Conservative leader – someone who voted against climate policies over 400 times, planned to accelerate fossil fuel production, and whose platform would have driven emissions higher, fuelling even more climate disasters”.

Canada’s new leader culls carbon tax seen as burden on voters

A Carbon Brief analysis suggests that a Conservative victory would have led to a rise in Canada’s emissions, whereas a Liberal government would keep emissions falling – although not fast enough to meet its own climate targets.

Trump drives Carney comeback

Climate change did not play a major role in the election, particularly as Carney scrapped an unpopular carbon tax on consumers soon after taking over from Trudeau in March.

Polls had suggested that the Conservatives were on course for a huge victory until January, when Trudeau resigned and US President Donald Trump charged big tariffs on Canadian exports and threatened to annex the country, causing many voters to back Carney over Poilievre, who is more ideologically aligned with Trump.

Canadian opinion polls since the 2021 election. The Liberals are in red, Conservatives in blue and the left-wing New Democratic Party in yellow. (Source: Undermedia)

Carney is an ex-banker with a long history of climate action. As governor of the Bank of England, he called on investors to take their money out of fossil fuel companies.

After leaving the bank, he promoted carbon offsets through the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets and helped launch a coalition of financial institutions trying to reduce emissions called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

Ana Toni, the Brazilian CEO of this year’s COP30 UN climate summit, said it was “very positive to have Mark Carney who has a deep knowledge of climate change and economics at the helm in Canada, and knows that the best path ahead is through the energy transition”.

After Trudeau announced in January that he would resign, Carney won the Liberal Party contest to take over from him as prime minister in March and has now won a general election, giving him a mandate to rule the country for up to four years.

Pick a lane on energy

Caroline Brouillette, head of Climate Action Network Canada, said Carney now had the chance to prove his climate credentials as Canada’s leader: “With the election over, Prime Minister Carney has the opportunity to practice what he has preached for years, and kickstart a green transformation that will build our country’s resilience for decades to come.”

But, she said, that means “picking a lane with regard to energy: no more flirting with fossil fuel expansion and new pipelines, which would come with staggering costs to our wallets and our planet”.

Trump throws lifeline to Canadian deep-sea miner, setting scene for international clash

Under pressure from Conservatives labelling him “Carbon Tax Carney”, the prime minister scrapped the controversial tax on consumers – which had been his party’s signature climate policy since 2019 – this March.

The tax, which a March poll showed two-thirds of Canadians wanted to get rid of, was paid by some drivers filling up their cars with gasoline or diesel and by people buying heating oil for their homes.

Carney said he would replace the tax with measures to retrofit homes for energy efficiency and install heat pumps, saying the changes “will make a difference to hard-pressed Canadians” and “ensure that we fight against climate change”.

Carbon tax on industry stays

But he did maintain the carbon price on big industries, which the Conservatives had promised to scrap. Analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute suggested that, while the consumer carbon price grabbed the headlines, the industrial price was expected to drive three times more emissions reductions by 2030.

At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables

Carney’s election manifesto also promises to boost electric vehicle production and use, as well as infrastructure to transmit electricity across the country and carbon removal and storage technology.

The Conservative manifesto pledged to “unleash Canadian resources”, by scrapping the emissions cap on oil and gas production, enabling construction of gas export terminals on Canada’s west coast and approving oil exports from Arctic ports.

Canada this year holds the G7 presidency and will host a leaders summit for the group of big, wealthy countries in the oil-rich province of Alberta in June.

Harjeet Singh, director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation in India, said that, as the G7 chair, Carney “must summon the political courage to champion bold global climate action – starting at home by rejecting new oil and gas projects and urging other G7 nations to dramatically scale up public climate finance to support developing countries in deploying renewable energy and addressing escalating climate impacts”.

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