UK climate minister: We need to re-make the case for net zero

Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planetGet our free Climate emailGet our free Climate emailAmid the U-turns and Keir Starmer’s personal approval ratings, it’s easy to forget that Labour was elected in 2024 on a platform of optimism. Less than two years on, manifesto promises to “stop the chaos” and “grow our economy” are proving difficult to fulfill. Yet, there remains one area where the government appears to be performing well.The UK’s target to reach net zero by 2050 is “within reach, provided the government stays the course”, according to a 2025 progress report from the Climate Change Committee, which is the public body whose role it is to advise the government on its progress in meeting its legally-binding climate targets. This is not only being driven by the power sector - with wind energy soaring and the UK’s last coal-fired power station closing in 2024 – but also through heat pumps and electric vehicles decarbonising heating and transport: areas considered much more fiddly to go green. The Labour government’s high profile target for a clean electricity system by 2030, widely mocked by many on the right at the time, is also on track, Climate Minister Katie White tells me, when I meet her in parliament for what is her first sit-down interview. “We have been gifted with Chris Stark, who is an excellent mission lead on this,” she says. “He’s constantly monitoring what is happening. And if anything is not happening correctly, he is diving in and figuring it out. I am very confident in him, and he is very confident that we can deliver on this.”Smiley and fast-talking, with a big mane of curly blonde hair and an easy sense of humour, something of that 2024-era Labour optimism seems to live on in White, whose rise has been rapid after first being elected in that Labour landslide of two years ago. Not a minute after we meet in a stuffy, wood-panelled Parliamentary meeting room, White whisks out a plastic tupperware filled with curry that some primary school children had just given her. “The school is now making chickpea korma instead of chicken korma after campaigning from the school kids, which I think is just brilliant,” she exclaims.Working under Cabinet Secretary Ed Milliband, White’s broad brief covers everything from international climate finance and net zero strategy, to citizen engagement on green issues. The ministerial role comes off the back of two decades of working on climate, including in campaigns with Friends of the Earth for the UK’s Climate Change Act in the 2000s, and latterly as director of advocacy at wildlife charity WWF.Climate Minister Katie White on a site visit in Yorkshire, not far from her Leeds North-West constituency (Shaun Curry)Yet for all White’s personal enthusiasm, there has undeniably been a big mainstream shift away from net zero in recent years. What perhaps started with Rishi Sunak’s watering down of green policies around boilers and cars in 2023, has snowballed into both the Conservatives and Reform outwardly calling for net zero to be scrapped, and editorials in the UK press now for the first time more likely to oppose that support climate action. Misinformation on the climate is now rife, with last year’s blackout on the Iberian peninsular widely blamed on intermittent solar and wind despite actually being due to weak grid management. Just this weekend, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote that the UK’s answer to Iran blocking of the Strait of Hormuz is to prioritise oil and gas extraction from the North Sea - ignoring the fact that around 90 per cent of fossil fuels from the UK share of the basin have already been extracted.What does the Climate Minister think that we should do to counter the rising tide of climate scepticism?“Well first of all, I would say that from conversations that I am having, there is still a huge amount of support for our low carbon transition,” she says. “When I was campaigning for the Climate Change Act back in 2008, we had the Conservatives, the CBI [Confederation of British Industry], and Conservatives supporting us. And I would say that now we still do have a lot of Conservatives, the CBI, and the Church supporting us.”Climate action also remains extremely popular among the British public - with a recent study suggesting 64 per cent of people continue to support net zero by 2050, compared to 29 per cent who don’t. “Any political party would bite your hand off to get polling numbers this good,” says White. A lot of people on the right who have started to speak out against net zero are simply “posturing”, White adds. “People like Gavin Barwell and Theresa May have come straight out and said: ‘this is ridiculous’,” she says. “And I think when you get into the details of what is going on, it’s clear that we are going in the most sensible direction.” At the same time, White acknowledges that there has been a “fracturing” of the consensus, driven by “some unhelpful interventions”. This now needs to be addressed. “We need to make sure that we re-make the case for climate action,” she says. “I have been involved in this for over 20 years, and we cannot expect that the current generation will listen to the same case that was being made 20 years ago.”Just how we do that involves reminding people of all that is at stake if we do choose not to act. “Yesterday I was with Caribbean leaders, and they were talking about how they're looking at having to make a new category of hurricane because they're getting so intense,” says White. “But here in the UK, also, the Met Office has said that all the rain we have had recently is partly because there is 10 per cent more rain in our clouds because of climate change. The implication of all of this - even just on our potholes - is vast.” But as well as climate risks, there is also a need to be speaking much more loudly about the economic opportunities that climate action is bringing, believes White. Over the same period that UK emissions fell 54 per cent, the economy grew by 80 per cent - so any argument that decarbonisation automatically hinders growth is incorrect, she says.“Our plan for a low carbon transition is bringing new industries to parts of the country that need opportunity and renewal,” she says. The new green economic opportunities in the Humber region, for example - which includes one of the world’s largest carbon capture projects, hydrogen production, and low carbon steel production - are bringing a new sense of “pride in community” and a “sense of purpose”. White also believes that we need to shift the narrative away from talk of the “cost of net zero” towards emphasising the value of the energy transition. “Costs are front and centre of what I am thinking about, particularly given the cost of living concerns that so many people have,” she says. “But the thing is, we are going to have to invest in our energy system in any case. So should we invest in our crumbling existing system that relies on expensive fossil fuels, or should we invest in low-cost renewables?”The ongoing war in Iran - which has reminded us just how damaging it is to have our energy system tied to volatile fossil fuel markets - has only strengthened the economic arguments on net zero. Recent modelling from the Climate Change Committee, published earlier this month, has found that a well-managed transition to net zero is set to add around four per cent to average household energy bills, compared to the 60 per cent increase in energy costs that just one fossil fuel market shock similar to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine would add. The same report finds that net zero 2050 will cost around £4bn per year to 2050, when savings from efficiency improvements and the shift to renewables are taken into account - a pittance compared to the 4 to 10 per cent reduction in UK GDP that will be lost if global warming hits 4C about pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. White suggests that the government needs to regain the confidence to share talking points like this, and speak proudly on the UK’s climate action once again.“I think sometimes we can get held back because of a tendency to think: ‘Oh my goodness, let's, let's make sure everything's absolutely perfect’, before speaking out,” she says. “And there can be a built-in reticence to shout out, because people don't want to get shouted down.“But net zero is a good thing for the British economy, for British security, and for the climate, and we absolutely need to start shouting about this again.” Despite the UK’s clear strengths on net zero, there remain shortcomings. On climate adaptation, for example, the Climate Change Committee has described the UK’s apparoach as “piecemeal and disjointed”. Our National Adaptation Plan, it adds, is falling “short of the task of preparing the UK for the climate change we are experiencing today, let alone that coming in the future”. The UK has also been roundly criticised for cutting the amount of aid it is providing to developing countries to address climate change - something it is required to do under the terms of the Paris Agreement - when the climate needs of such countries are growing, not falling. White acknowledges that the decision to cut climate aid has been disappointing on a personal level - but sticks to the government line that it was necessary given government funding restraints and the need to invest more in defence. “Cutting the aid budget was a really tough decision. And as a government, we are facing a lot of tough decisions and difficult times,” she says. “Within the reduced aid allocations, there is still a lot of aid for climate, and I think the focus now should be on how we can deliver that most effectively.” Politics is, after all, the “art of the possible”, says White. But even if compromises must sometimes be made, that does not mean that the government’s commitment to the climate cause is in any way in doubt.“I am incredibly ambitious for the UK and for the world to solve this crisis, and to do it in a way that regenerates us and renews us,” she says. “It’s a genuine privilege to be in a government that is so committed to this agenda, and I want to keep throwing everything at it.” This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project

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