The “cost” of cutting UK emissions to net-zero is less than the cost of a single fossil-fuel price shock, according to a new report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
Moreover, a net-zero economy would be almost completely protected from fossil-fuel price spikes in the future, says the government’s climate advisory body.
The report is being published amid surging oil and gas prices after the US and Israel attacked Iran, which has triggered chaos on international energy markets.
It builds on the CCC’s earlier advice on the seventh “carbon budget”, which found that it would cost the UK less than 0.2% of GDP per year to reach its net-zero target.
In the new report, the CCC sets out for the first time a full cost-benefit analysis of the UK’s net-zero target, including the cost of clean-energy investments, lower fossil-fuel bills, the health benefits of cleaner air and the avoided climate damages from cutting emissions.
It finds that the country’s legally binding target to reach “net-zero emissions” by 2050 will bring benefits worth an average of £110bn per year to the UK from 2025-2050, with a total “net present value” of £1,580bn.
The CCC states that its new report responds to requests from parliamentarians and government officials seeking to better understand its cost assumptions, amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis in the UK.
The report also pushes back on “misinformation” about the cost of net-zero, with CCC chair Nigel Topping saying in a statement that it is “important that decision-makers and commentators are using accurate information to inform debates”.
Co-benefits outweigh costs
The CCC’s new report is the first to compare the overall cost of decarbonising with the wider benefits of avoiding dangerous climate change, as well as other “co-benefits”, such as cleaner air and healthier diets.
It sets the CCC’s previous estimate of the net cost of net-zero – some £4bn per year on average out to 2050 – against the value of avoided damages and other co-benefits.
These “co-benefits” are estimated to provide £2bn to £8bn per year in net benefit by the middle of the century, according to the report.
The CCC notes that this approach allowed it to “fully appraise the value of the net-zero transition”.
It concludes that the net benefits of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 are an average of £110bn per year from 2025 to 2050.
These benefits to the UK amount to more than £1.5tn in total and start to outweigh costs as soon as 2029, says the CCC, as shown in the figure below.
In addition, the CCC says that every pound spent on net-zero will bring benefits worth 2.2-4.1 times as much.
This updated analysis includes the value of benefits from improved air quality being 20% higher in 2050 than previously suggested by the CCC.
However, the “most significant” benefit of the transition is the avoidance of climate damages, with an estimated value of £40-130bn in 2050. The report states:
“Climate change is here, now. Until the world reaches net-zero CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions, with deep reductions in other greenhouse gases, global temperatures will continue to rise. That will inevitably lead to increasingly extreme weather, including in the UK.”
The CCC’s conclusion is in line with findings from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in 2025, which suggested that the economic damages of unmitigated climate change would be far more severe than the cost of reaching net-zero.
The CCC notes that its approach to the cost-benefit analysis of the net-zero target is in line with the Treasury’s “green book”, which is used to guide the valuation of policy choices across UK government.
It says that one of the key drivers of overall economic benefit is a more efficient energy system, with losses halved compared with today’s economy.
It says that the UK currently loses £60bn a year through energy waste. For example, it says nearly half of the energy in gas is lost during combustion to generate electricity.
In a net-zero energy system, such energy waste would be halved to £30bn per year, says the CCC, thanks to electrified solutions, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps.
For example, it notes that EVs are around four times more efficient than a typical petrol car and so require roughly a quarter of the energy to travel a given distance.
Collectively, these efficiencies are expected to halve energy losses, saving the equivalent of around £1,000 per household, according to the CCC.
Net-zero protects against price spikes
The CCC tests its seventh carbon budget analysis against a range of “sensitivities” that reflect the uncertainties in modelling methodologies and assumptions for key technologies. This includes testing the impact of a fossil-fuel price spike between now and 2050.
In the original analysis, the committee had assumed that the cost of fossil fuels would remain largely flat after 2030.
However, the report notes that, in reality, fossil-fuel prices are “highly volatile”. It adds:
“Fossil-fuel prices are…driven by international commodity markets that can fluctuate sharply in response to geopolitical events, supply constraints, and global demand shifts. A system that relies heavily on fossil fuels is, therefore, exposed to significant price shocks and heightened risk to energy security.”
It draws on previous OBR modelling of the impact of a gas price spike. This suggested that future price spikes would cost the UK government between 2-3% of GDP in each year the spike occurs, assuming similar levels of support to households and businesses as was provided in 2022-23.
The CCC adapts this approach to test a gas-price spike during the seventh carbon budget period, which runs from 2038 to 2042.
It finds that, if a similar energy crisis occurred in 2040 and no further action had been taken to cut UK emissions, then average household energy bills would increase by 59%. In contrast, bills would only rise by 4%, if the UK was on the path to net-zero by 2050.
The committee says that when considering the impact on households, businesses and the government, a single fossil-fuel price shock of this nature would cost the country more than the total estimated cost of reaching.
The finding is particularly relevant in the context of rising oil and gas prices following conflict in the Middle East, which has prompted some politicians and commentators to call for the UK to slow down its efforts to cut emissions.
In his statement, Topping said that it was “more important than ever for the UK to move away from being reliant on volatile foreign fossil fuels, to clean, domestic, less wasteful energy”.
Angharad Hopkinson, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, welcomed this finding, saying in a statement:
“Each time this happens it gets harder and harder to swallow the cost. The best thing the UK can do for the climate is also the best thing for the cost of living crisis – get off the uncontrollable oil and gas rollercoaster that drags us into wars we didn’t want but still have to pay for. Inaction on climate is unaffordable.”
Benefits remain even if key technologies are more expensive
In addition to testing the impact of more volatile fossil-fuel prices, the CCC also tests the implications if key low-carbon technologies are cheaper – or more expensive – than thought.
It concludes that the upfront investments in net-zero yield significant overall benefits under all of the “sensitivities” it tested. As such, it offers a rebuttal to the common narrative that net-zero will cost the UK trillions of pounds.
The net cost of net-zero comes out at between 0% and 0.5% of GDP between 2025 and 2050, says the CCC, under the various sensitivities it tested.
“This sensitivity analysis shows that an electrified energy system is both a more efficient and a more secure energy system,” adds the CCC.
Finally, the report takes into account the costs of the alternative to net-zero. It looks at what would need to be spent in an economy where net-zero was not pursued any further.
The CCC says that the gross system cost of the balanced pathway falls below the baseline cost from 2041, which is consistent with its previous seventh carbon budget advice.
As shown in the chart below, costs fall under a net-zero pathway between 2025 to 2050, whereas they rise in the baseline of no further action.
Moreover, the total costs of the alternatives are broadly similar, with the relatively small difference shown by the solid line.
The decline in energy system costs shown in the figure above is broadly driven by more efficient low-carbon technologies, says the CCC, helping costs to fall from 12% of GDP today to 7% by the middle of the century.
The CCC’s new analysis comes ahead of the UK parliament voting on and legislating for the seventh carbon budget, which it must do before 30 June 2026.
The post CCC: Net-zero will protect UK from fossil-fuel price shocks appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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Climate Change
Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
Countries attending a first-of-its-kind fossil-fuel summit have been asked to consider “action recommendations” such as “halting all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel”, according to a preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief.
Around 50 nations will gather in Santa Marta, Colombia from 24-29 April to debate ways to “transition away” from fossil fuels, in the face of worsening climate change and sky-high oil prices.
The talks come after a large group of nations campaigned for, but ultimately failed, to get all countries to formally agree to a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.
The nations gathering in Santa Marta for the summit co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.
Ahead of country officials arriving in Santa Marta, a global group of academics will gather in the city this week to present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on fossil-fuel phaseout, which will then inform debate among policymakers.
A preliminary scientific “synthesis report” circulated to governments attending the talks and seen by Carbon Brief offers 12 “action insights” for countries to consider, along with a wide range of “action recommendations”.
These recommendations range from “phase out subsidies on fossil-fuel production and consumption” to “kick-start a forum to develop a legal framework to ban fossil-fuel advertisements”.
‘Rapid’ assessment
The preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief – titled, “Action insights for the Santa Marta process” – is the result of some rapid work by an “ad-hoc” group of around 24 scientists.
It is designed to present governments attending the talks with concrete and actionable recommendations for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The preliminary version, which includes recommendations such as “halting all new fossil fuel expansion”, has already been circulated to governments, with a view that this could help them to prepare for the talks in advance.
It will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the academic segment of the Santa Marta talks, before a final version is made public towards the end of April, Carbon Brief understands.
The process to produce the report began shortly after the conclusion of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November, explains its lead author, Dr Friedrich Bohn, a research scientist and co-founder of the Earth Resilience Institute in Germany. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When [Brazil] announced there would be a Santa Marta conference led by Colombia and the Netherlands, I was sitting listening with a small group of scientists. We thought: ‘This is great news, but it should be supported by scientific expertise.’”
One of the members of Bohn’s group had a pre-existing relationship with the Colombian government, allowing a dialogue to quickly be established, he continues:
“In the beginning, the idea was to just write a peer-reviewed paper. But, because of this close connection to the Colombian government and some feedback from them, the synthesis paper evolved.”
The report came out of a “very rapidly evolved process” that relied on the “goodwill” and “enthusiasm” of the academics involved, adds coordinating author Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of climate change economics at Australian National University. (Jotzo is a former Carbon Brief contributing editor.) He tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s an attempt to get broad coverage on relevant topics from researchers with good expertise and reputation.”
The group of 24 scientists involved spent around two months compiling the “action insights” for the report, drawing on their expertise and the latest available research, says Jotzo.
Given the rapid nature of the report, it does not aim to be “completist”, has not been externally reviewed and did not follow a stringent process for author selection comparable to that used by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, he adds.
The contributors to the report currently skew to the global north and include more men than women, adds Bohn.
‘Direct guidance’
In a departure from IPCC reports, the preliminary Santa Marta synthesis report offers “very direct guidance to action”, says Jotzo.
The report lists 12 “action insights”, each with three “action recommendations”. (The list was cut down from a shortlist of about 40-50 insights, Carbon Brief understands.)
One of the most striking in the draft is “action insight 5”, which says:
“Take immediate measures to prevent future emissions. Ban new fossil infrastructure, mandate deep methane cuts, accelerate electrification and inscribe fossil-fuel phase-down targets in NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and clean-energy pathways support to low and middle income countries (LMICs).”
The accompanying three “action recommendations” include “halting all new fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure projects ahead of a final investment decision”, “implementing deep, legally binding methane cuts in the energy sector” and “inscrib[ing] targets for fossil-fuel phase down, electrification and green exports in NDCs”.
(The draft report includes multiple references to “phasing out” and “phasing down” fossil fuels, rather than the “transition away from fossil fuels” language that was, ultimately, agreed by countries at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai in 2023.)
Another action insight says “public support for climate action is broadly underestimated and undermined by interest groups, but it can be strengthened by debunking greenwashing narratives”.
One recommendation for this insight is that nations “reject natural gas as a bridging technology and CCS [carbon capture and storage] techniques as scalable compensation”.
In a letter introducing the report to governments and civil society, the scientists note that making direct recommendations is a “challenge for our community”, but added:
“However, in the spirit of a constructive collaboration between science and policymaking, we allowed ourselves to identify some potential courses of action that our community would recommend for each particular issue – and we invite you to weigh these against your own circumstances and pick up whatever seems most useful for you and your colleagues.”
The prescriptiveness of the recommendations – something strictly prohibited in IPCC reports – was an explicit request from the Colombian government, Bohn says:
“The idea of actionable recommendations was introduced by the Colombian government.
“There was some discussion within the team about this. It’s a tricky area when you leave science and move to consultation. Therefore, we agreed, in the end, to call them ‘actionable recommendations’ and to make them as precise as possible, from the scientific perspective.”
Jotzo, a veteran of the IPCC process, tells Carbon Brief that it was “very liberating” to work on a report with a “free-form process”:
“The bulk of policy-related research is very readily deployed to recommendations pointing out what countries could do. The IPCC process, for example, just doesn’t allow that. As far as the summary for policymakers in the IPCC is concerned, it will usually be governments that filter out anything that could be interpreted as a specific recommendation.”
He adds that the hope is that some of the action insights might be reflected in the high-level segment of the Santa Marta conference:
“No one is under any illusions that governments will walk away from the Santa Marta conference and will have made a decision to implement recommendations one, seven and nine – or something like that. But it is a chance to insert directly applicable action points into national and plurilateral policy agendas.”
Colombia calling
The preliminary report will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the “pre-academic segment” of the Santa Marta talks.
This is taking place from 24-26 April, ahead of the “high-level segment” involving ministers and other policymakers from 28-29 April.
The pre-academic segment will also separately see the launch of a new advisory panel on fossil-fuel transition and a scientifically led roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels, Carbon Brief understands.
The high-level segment is expected to be attended by representatives from around 50 countries, including COP31 host Turkey and major oil-and-gas producers such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway.
Countries expected to attend account for one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production, according to the Colombian government.
At the end of the conference, countries are due to release a report featuring a “menu of solutions” for transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres.
This report is in turn set to inform a global “roadmap” on transitioning away from fossil fuels being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is due to be presented at COP31 in Turkey this November.
The Brazilian COP30 presidency offered to bring forward a “voluntary” fossil-fuel transition “roadmap” outside of the official COP process, after countries failed to formally agree to one during negotiations in Belém.
The post Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Pygmy Blue Whale Management Plan
To secure their approvals, Woodside had to develop a plan for how they would manage the significant risks to threatened green turtles if the project proceeds. We’ve had two independent scientists provide a technical assessment of Woodside’s management plan for whales and turtles and their findings are gobsmacking.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could make Scott Reef’s unique green turtles extinct.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Turtle Management Plan
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Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
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