‘25 by 2025’ – This ‘Mission Zero’ approach should set out long term missions across ten years, between 2025 to 2035 | By Chris Skidmore MP.

OPINION | The Net Zero Review was established three months ago to undertake a review into how the UK might meet its net zero commitments in a more affordable and efficient manner, one which is pro- business, pro-enterprise and pro-growth. This report has set out clearly the international opportunity for future investment and economic growth that net zero presents.

This opportunity must be seized however, if the UK is not only to maintain its international leadership on climate action, but also if the UK is to realistically compete with other nations who are making important strategic decisions over their own energy transitions.

There is no denying the fact that, forty-two months on from the UK signing net zero into law, we are now in a net zero race. To stand still, delay or maintain the status quo is not an option. International markets and investors are seeking to make decisions now on where to invest for the future. The UK can either seek to provide the incentives for investment— as outlined in this Review— along with the wider opportunities for job creation and local and regional regeneration, or else these markets will go elsewhere.

There is an active, strategic choice to be made. Does the UK wish to compete in the net zero race, with the chance to lead, or do we wish to simply observe from the sidelines? On the one hand, to lead, and to seek first mover advantage, brings with it the opportunity to attract inward investment, to generate new supply chains and lower the costs of wider deployment of clean technologies and industries. On the other hand, to follow, risks witnessing the opportunities for jobs, infrastructure and investments that could have been onshored in the UK go elsewhere in the world. We have reached a tipping point. The risks of ‘not zero’ are now greater than the associated risks of taking decisive action on net zero now.

The Review has outlined what is needed to effectively ‘deliver’ net zero investments: what must be achieved to deliver the certainty, clarity, and consistency needed from government policy and investment to de-risk the costs of private investment and capital expenditure.

There is a vital requirement for stable, long term, programmes, rather than piecemeal, short term, projects, if the UK is to meet its net zero ambitions in an affordable manner. Long term certainty for investment, allowing for supply chains to be created and secured, will drive down the costs of net zero at the same time as making the UK a more attractive place to invest.

This is why we need a new approach to our Net Zero Strategy. One which identifies stable ten-year missions that can be established across sectors, providing the vision and security for stakeholders and investors. This ‘Mission Zero’ approach should set out long term missions across ten years, between 2025 to 2035, with clear mandates or missions to be achieved in this timescale. These Missions must include the infrastructure and governance requirements needed to achieve them, but also set ambitious goals that reflect the reality that by 2025, when the UK should fully launch its ten ‘Mission Zero’ missions, we will be just five years away from our 2030 NDC commitment, ten years away from our 2035 commitments to decarbonise the power sector and end petrol car sales, and ultimately twenty five years from the net zero 2050 target.

The establishment of a stronger, better planned and co-ordinated, long-term delivery for net zero across a core ten-year mission approach, does not prevent this government taking further action immediately, to better deliver net zero and maintain our climate leadership.

There are no regrets policy options that the Review believes the Government should adopt now, that are equally no excuses policy requirements in order to maintain our progress to deliver on our net zero commitments. While reflecting on the importance of creating more informed and accurate decision-making processes, there remains a substantial risk that to delay any further on certain policy requirements only diminishes the UK’s ability to act upon and deliver its net zero commitments. The risks of inaction will only damage further the ability of the UK to attract investment and scale up its infrastructure requirements, in the face of growing international competition.

The Review recommends that, alongside the comprehensive prescription of policies across all sectors outlines in the Report, that the Government meet the net present danger of not acting fast enough by taking forward a series of no regrets and no excuses policy recommendations that can be delivered now, as soon as possible. We have termed these the ‘25 by 2025’ that the Government must seek to take forward recognising that there is no time to waste. This is not to suggest that these are the most important recommendations in the report— but to recognise the essence of acting sooner rather than later. The ‘25 by 2025’ set out twenty-five policies that the Review believes that the Government can take forward now, to deliver meaningful change that will have a positive impact on the UK’s net zero ambitions. Of course, other recommendations must be taken forwards, but we recognise the need to above all build long term certainty and stability for these measures to succeed. The ‘25 by 2025’ can provide an immediate signal of the Government’s intent to deliver on net zero, but also to remove the barriers that are preventing business and industry going further, faster.

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