Last month the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) produced its latest report, being its 2025 report to Parliament on progress in reducing emissions, pursuant to Section 36 (1) of the Climate Change Act 2008 (CCA). Almost inevitably, it runs to 134 pages (though that does include quite a lot of repetition), so is too long to report on in detail, but it’s worthwhile looking at a few key areas.

A Global Issue

The opening words of the executive summary tell us that “[u]ntil the world reaches Net Zero CO2 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.” It then goes on to scream “Apocalypse Now” as to the consequences to the UK – floods, heatwaves, droughts, rising sea levels.

Section 36 obliges the CCC to report on the UK’s emissions and – in fairness – only on the UK’s emissions. But as is evident from the introductory words above, the UK’s emissions in isolation don’t count for much. And so I suggest that if only in passing the CCC’s report should also make reference to global emissions and the progress (or lack thereof) being made in reducing them. Had it done so, the CCC would have been forced to conclude that global emissions have increased significantly since the UK passed the CCA, and indeed that global emissions are continuing to rise. Instead, the summary gives us a sugar-coated version:

Globally, we are seeing a shift towards low-carbon technologies. In 2024, worldwide, one in seven of all new car sales were fully electric, a record 117 GW of wind generation capacity was installed, and total investment in clean energy technologies and infrastructure reached $2 trillion – twice the investment in fossil fuel technologies. Rising demand and falling prices reinforce each other, creating powerful market forces which, combined with effective policy, mean that rapid change is possible.

All of which may be true, but what matters, in this context, is whether or not global emissions have reduced or increased; whether they are continuing to increase, or whether they are now reducing. And the reality is that they have increased, and they continue to increase, as evidenced by the Energy Institute’s 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy. It talks about the “broader global picture” and tells us that “rapid advances in clean energy coexist with ongoing fossil fuel dependencies, with coal, oil and gas, as well as renewables, all reaching record highs.” The bottom line is that although, as the Climate Change Committee tells us, “wind and solar grew nearly nine times faster than total energy demand, fossil fuels also grew (just over 1%) in 2024.”

All of which completely undermines the case for the UK’s ongoing efforts in this regard. I have made the point before, and I repeat it here without apology, because it goes to the heart of the UK’s Net Zero strategy – the Impact Assessment for the CCA says, at page 7:

It should be noted that the benefits of reduced carbon emissions have been valued using the social cost of carbon which estimates the avoided global damages from reduced UK emissions. The benefits of UK action will be distributed across the globe. In the case where the UK acts in concert with other countries then the UK will benefit from other nations reduced emissions and would be expected to experience a large net benefit. Where the UK acts alone, though there would be a net benefit for the world as a whole the UK would bear all the cost of the action and would not experience any benefit from reciprocal reductions elsewhere. The economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak.

That impact assessment was signed by the Secretary of State who had responsibility for steering the Act through Parliament. His name is Edward Miliband, and he is today the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Even if he has forgotten that he put his name to this vitally important statement, surely it is the job of the CCC to remind him? Instead, their report doesn’t address this fundamental point at all.

Road transport

In assessing the progress made in reducing territorial emissions in the UK, the CCC addresses only territorial emissions, and ignores consumption emissions. This is because that is what the CCA focuses on, and thus it is what the CCC is charged with considering. However, it’s worth noting that it does offer a misleading figure. Bragging about emissions reductions in the UK and ignoring globally increasing emissions might be fine in terms of the CCA, but it does supply a false (and potentially hubristic) picture. For emissions reductions at home are, in part at least, achieved by increasing emissions abroad, as UK manufacturing collapses (in no small part due to high energy prices driven by the high whole-system costs of renewable energy). It means that the UK’s manufacturing is increasingly done abroad, most prominently in China, a country with much higher territorial per capita emissions than the UK. This is well illustrated by the manufacture of electric vehicles.

The Report proudly tells its readers that territorial emissions in the UK have been steadily decreasing, with levels in 2024 being 50.4% below those in 1990. Much of this reduction has been achieved by the steady “decarbonisation” of electricity generation, especially by ending the use of coal for this purpose. In effect, the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. Even this reduction was partially offset by an increase in emissions from flying. The CCC notes that “As a result of this increase, aviation now contributes a greater share of total UK emissions than the entire electricity supply sector. Continued emissions growth in this sector could put future targets at risk”.

Despite the government’s massive (and expensive) focus on continuing to decarbonise the grid, with its plan to reduce gas to 5% of electricity production by 2030, the CCC notes that “Over 80% of the required emissions savings between now and 2030 need to come from sectors other than energy supply.” This is a profound observation, as is this statement: “Surface transport alone contributes almost 30% of the emissions reduction required during this period.” The really sobering part of its assessment (to my mind at least) is this:

The pace of emissions reductions in sectors outside energy supply needs to increase in order to meet the 2030 NDC and the Sixth Carbon Budget…Emissions from sectors other than energy supply have fallen by 8 MtCO2e per year on average since 2008…However, the pace will need to more than double towards the end of this decade, with the CBDP [Carbon Budget Delivery Plan] requiring the average annual reduction to increase to 19 MtCO2e. This pace is then maintained over the Sixth Carbon Budget period.

A key factor here, we are told, is the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs). Given its importance to the plan, the CCC seems to be remarkably insouciant about this. It tells us that market share of electric car sales increased to 19.6% in 2024, and although that’s “slightly below” the ZEV mandate of 22%, the growth in the market tells us (contrary to the evidence, I would suggest) that the mandate is working. There are now approximately 1.5 million electric cars on UK roads, a figure that the CCC says has doubled in the last two years. That sounds impressive, until one puts it into context. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) tells us that there are (as of 2024) a record 42 million vehicles on UK roads (no wonder so many places seem to be gridlocked), as volumes increased by 1.4% year on year. The number of cars was up 1.3% with 36,165,401 cars on the road. The SMMT says 1.3 million of those are EVs which is rather different to the CCC’s “approximately 1.5 million” but I will give the CCC the benefit of the doubt and assume that another 200,000 electric cars appeared on the UK’s roads in the first half of 2025. Interestingly, the SMMT also says that people are keeping hold of their cars for longer. My (admittedly biased) take on this is that this is because people neither want nor can afford new electric cars. If so, this causes a big problem for the ambitions of the CCC and of Mr Miliband with regard to electric car sales.

Another problem is the fact that the volume of vehicles other than cars on UK roads is also remorselessly increasing. This is a sector where electrification is even more difficult. And the CCC has no option other than to concede that “[t]he market share of new electric vans did not grow in 2024, remaining at only 6.3% compared to 10% in the ZEV mandate.” They buck themselves up with the thought that “[e]arly 2025 data look more promising, with market share in the first quarter increasing to 8.3%.”

The CCC also admits that van-kilometres per capita grew by nearly 3% in 2024 and are now 8% above 2019 levels. They diffidently say that it is too early to say how this compares to their Seventh Carbon Budget Balanced Pathway.

However, they also acknowledge that both electric car and electric van sales will need to accelerate fast if their targets are to be achieved. They seem to think that this will be achieved by falling prices and ongoing government (i.e. taxpayer) support, but I don’t see it myself. Early success, such as it is, has been achieved by giving employees huge tax benefits from having an electric company car, and also by take-up of new electric cars by enthusiasts and climate alarmists. The rest of the market will, I suspect, be a much tougher nut to crack.

Only the other day the Guardian reported that June’s car sales were buoyant: “[s]o far in 2025 electric sales have made up 21.6% of all sales, the SMMT’s preliminary data suggested. [But] That is below the 28% target…”. Indeed it is, and has been achieved only because “the numbers have been flattered by discounts which [the motor industry] says are unsustainable.”

Worse still, according to the BBC:

Around 18,944 cars made by Chinese-owned brands, including MG and Polestar, were sold in June, which is 10% of overall UK sales, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). That is up from 6% in the same month a year ago.

Across the first half of this year, more than 8% – or 1 in 12 – cars sold were Chinese, up from 5% in 2023 and 2024. This was mainly but not exclusively electric vehicles.

These aren’t simply Chinese brands, they are cars made in China. It’s a massive problem, because it undermines UK car manufacturing, it further damages the UK’s already desperately bad balance of trade figures, and it represents an increase in the UK’s consumption emissions, since these vehicles are manufactured using electricity predominantly generated by coal, then they are transported to the UK in diesel-powered ships. But hey – so long as the UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions continue to fall, who cars about jobs, balance of trade and global emissions? Not the CCC, apparently.

Heat pumps

Even the CCC is struggling to spin the situation here as good news. Despite being listed as one of the “indicators of delivery progress” and despite government (i.e. taxpayer-funded) grants recently being increased to £7,500 per installation, it seems that progress is rather poor. The increase in funding produced a 56% increase in installations in 2024, which sounds extremely impressive, until one realises that it amounted to fewer than 100,000 heat pumps in the year, with a government target of 600,000 installations annually by 2028. According to the CCC: “Currently, only around 1% of homes are heated with a heat pump in the UK, among the lowest in Europe, so installation rates will need to continue to accelerate.” You can say that again! By the way, it’s worth pondering the numbers. It seems that volumes of installations have increased largely because of the availability of taxpayer funding. It seems likely that such funding (and more) will probably be needed to persuade the less enthusiastic/more recalcitrant householders to follow suit. If current levels of funding were left in place, and 600,000 installations took place every year, that would come at a cost to the taxpayer of £4.5 billion per annum. The mind boggles at the cost – both to householders and to taxpayers – to achieve a heat pump in every home.

Electricity used in industry

We are offered a short summary of the situation (on page 15 of the report), which glosses over, and doesn’t begin to do justice, to the scale of the issue:

[T]he proportion of industrial energy use coming from electricity is currently 28%. This will need to increase rapidly, as many industrial processes electrify. The UK’s high electricity-to-gas price ratio is a barrier to some industries choosing to electrify. The ratio of industrial electricity-to-gas prices remains above 4:1.

As we will see below, the report talks at some length about the issue of electricity prices being four times higher than gas prices, and it offers what it purports to suggest are solutions. However, as we shall see, they miss the point completely – the point being that it is the increasing proportion of renewable energy that is driving up the price of electricity.

Renewable energy generation

Renewable energy capacity (which, of course, isn’t the same thing as generation, given the variability in wind speeds and sunshine from year to year) increased last year by more than in any of the previous six years. (I don’t have time to go down that rabbit hole, but I am intrigued by the choice of a six year time frame. We have been installing renewables for decades now, so I can only assume that this represents cherry-picked data, to put the best possible spin on the statistics). However, whether or not 2024’s progress is impressive, it won’t be enough to achieve the Government’s ambition in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which will require significant acceleration of the renewables roll-out.

Annual wind power (both on- and off-shore) installations will have to triple, and solar installations will have to quadruple, compared to the average rate seen since the start of this decade. With the “pipeline” of renewables coming down the track, the CCC claims that wind capacity is on-track (despite the decision by Ørsted not to progress with the Hornsea 4 offshore wind project). Personally, I doubt that very much, as I think it represents the first step in a campaign by the renewables industry to screw higher prices out of the government in the next few Contracts for Difference Allocation Rounds. The industry knows that the government has nailed its colours to the mast regarding the “decarbonisation” of the grid by 2030, and it can’t afford many more U-turns. Thus, in all probability, it is going to be held to ransom.

Somewhat casually, the CCC adds: “However, solar capacity is judged to be off track.”

Aviation

This is, as we saw above, an area that worries the CCC. It is pinning its hopes on the share of Sustainable Aviation Fuel increasing to 10% by 2030 (compared with 2.1% in 2024). It notes that “[e]missions in aviation are very close to the indicative sectoral pathway in the CBDP and are increasing. Aviation emissions will likely exceed the CBDP trajectory if they continue to increase, posing a risk to the UK’s emissions targets.” So that’s not looking good either.

The CCC’s summary of the required emissions savings to achieve the 2030 NDC

Credible plans exist for 38%. This mostly covers emissions savings from the projected roll-out of renewable electricity generation and EVs, as well as some progress in decarbonising the iron and steel sector in industry.

Some risks are attached to 23%. These are predominantly delivery risks for planning, grid connections, and successful Contracts for Difference auctions to deliver the rest of the renewables deployment required by 2030 under the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. There are also some risks around the ability of the Clean Heat Market Mechanism to deliver the required roll-out of heat pumps.

Significant risks are attached to 20%. This is predominantly for policies to drive industrial electrification and the uptake of CCS in industry, improvement to efficiencies of petrol, diesel, and hybrid vehicles, the decarbonisation of public sector buildings, and plans for peatland restoration and tree planting.

Insufficient plans exist for 14%. The key area this applies to is the roll-out of heat pumps, where existing programmes and funding cover only a portion of the required market scaleup. There are also insufficient plans for a proportion of the engineered removals required in the Government’s plans. There is a gap of 4% between the quantified plans in the CBDP and the 2030 NDC.

Hilariously (well, it would be funny where it not so serious an issue) the CCC is most upset about the fact that “there has been no progress on our first recommendation last year, to make electricity cheaper.”

Cheaper electricity

This remains the CCC’s highest priority, which is good to know. Less gratifying is its complete failure to understand the reason why electricity prices are high, and its proposed solution, which isn’t a solution at all. Put simply, they say that the government should remove policy costs from electricity prices. By policy costs, of course, they largely mean (though they don’t say) the costs associated with the net zero policy. They don’t say, either, how those costs should be paid instead, though box 3.3 on page 102 notes that the options seem to be to shift policy costs onto gas bills; to shift them onto the Exchequer (i.e. the taxpayer); or to go for a mix of shifting them onto both gas bills and the Exchequer. However, whether they are added to general taxation (a difficult sell for the government, given that taxes already seem bound to increase substantially following this year’s autumn budget) or added to the price of gas (in a desperate attempt to persuade us that gas is more expensive than electricity) we all – including what’s left of our industry – will still have to pay these costs. It doesn’t solve the problem, it simply moves it. But the CCC doesn’t care. It sees it as a magic wand, which will shift the cost disparity between electricity and gas from 4:1 to somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1. It believes (surely wrong-headedly) that this will encourage the faster take-up of heat pumps.

Substantial acceleration required in the building sector

Heat pumps represent something of an obsession with the CCC. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, since we are told that “emissions reductions from heat pump deployment are also growing but do not yet register meaningfully as a proportion of sectoral emissions.” So much government (aka taxpayer-funded) support, and we have nothing meaningful to show for it!

Aviation is critical, and the building sector is critical:

Substantial acceleration is needed in the buildings sector to meet the 2030 NDC. It is not clear that current policy is sufficient to ensure the growth in installations needed. Despite rapid growth in recent years, the number of heat pumps installed to date is not yet sufficient to make a significant difference to total sectoral emissions. Action in this sector is particularly crucial to targets beyond 2030, with one-fifth of the emissions savings required by the end of the Sixth Carbon Budget period projected to come from buildings.

Oh dear. It’s not going to happen, is it?

Emissions from imports

In fairness, the CCC doesn’t seek to duck this issue, though it does fudge it, claiming that “UK territorial emissions have fallen since 1990 while imported emissions rose until 2007 and have been broadly flat since.” However, when one looks at the graph that accompanies that statement, it appears that imported emissions have risen by about 15% since 2009. Perhaps I have cherry-picked my data, but then so has the CCC. Imported emissions fell quite sharply between broadly 2007 and 2009 (i.e. the time of the financial crisis), but have (save for a fall during the early stages of covid) been rising steadily since then. It’s also worth noting that the graph, while continuing until 2024 in demonstrating the ongoing fall in territorial emissions, stops at 2022 (as does the CCC’s written narrative, as this is the latest year for which the data is available) regarding the level of imported emissions. It could be that imported emissions have continued to rise since 2022, such that we are fast approaching the point where territorial emissions are about to be exceeded by imported emissions. Certainly, even the CCC has to admit that the 2022 data “shows a year-on-year rise of 7% compared to 2021, with imported emissions now at their highest level since 2007”.

Since writing the above, (but before I published) Jit has posted an excellent article that links in very closely to this point. I recommend reading it in tandem with this piece.

Conclusion

I don’t entirely blame the CCC – it is doing what the CCA mandates it to do. However, there is an element of Alice through the looking glass when it comes to the CCC’s analysis of the cost of electricity, its ongoing insistence that high electricity prices in the UK are due to the price of gas, and its claim that strike prices under CfDs are set to fall. Annex 3 from page 127 onwards is well worth a read in this regard.

My own conclusion is that the CCC is rather whistling in the dark to keep its (and Parliament’s) spirits up. The net zero agenda will become increasingly fraught and expensive now that the quick fixes have all been put in place. Imported emissions will continue to grow while territorial emissions fall. Most of the rest of the world will continue to increase their emissions, in both absolute and per capita terms (for instance, China’s per capita emissions are now well over 1.5 times higher than ours in the UK). Given global developments, the CCA is, in the terms of its own impact assessment, rendered pointless. It’s high time the CCA was repealed and the CCC abolished, to put it and us out of the ongoing net zero misery.