The UK High Court ruled Friday that the Government’s climate strategy is inadequate and therefore violates the UK Climate Change Act 2008. The ruling comes nearly two years after a previous High Court judgment ordered the Government to strengthen its net zero strategy to bring it in line with the Climate Change Act.

The action was originally brought in 2022 by Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and The Good Law Project, who argued that the Government’s policies were ineffective in achieving significant emissions reductions and would not align with legally-binding carbon budgets.  The High Court ordered that the Government should strengthen their net zero strategy. The Government issued a revised net zero strategy, entitled the “Carbon Budget Delivery Plan.” However, the Claimants brought another claim in the High Court, asserting that the revised plan still remained insufficient to constitute a credible strategy as mandated by law.

They argued that the strategy overlooked the risk that the plan would not attain the requisite, legally binding reductions in emissions. Furthermore, the Minister, Grant Shapps, had approved the plans without having sufficient information as to those issues. The strategy relied heavily on future technologies without acknowledging their inherent risks, with the proposals appearing uncertain and vague. Consequently, serious doubts arose as to the feasibility of the strategy achieving its aims.

In the judgment, Mr Justice Sheldon upheld four of the five grounds. He stated, “If, as I have found, the secretary of state did make his decision on the assumption that each of the proposals and policies would be delivered in full, then the secretary of state’s decision was taken on the basis of a mistaken understanding of the true factual position.”  He went on to say that “it is not possible to ascertain from the materials presented to the Secretary of State which of the proposals and policies would not be delivered at all, or in full.”

The Government will now have to revise their plan within 12 months and ensure that the UK meets its legal responsibilities for both carbon budgets and its pledge to reduce emissions by over two-thirds by 2030.

Kyle Lischak, ClientEarth Head of UK, said:

We are pleased that ClientEarth, through taking action in this case and in our 2022 case, can help ensure that the UK Climate Change Act – one of the world’s first pieces of long-term domestic climate legislation – is being implemented by the government in a way that makes the actual achievement of its Net Zero target a realistic proposition.