LONDON, September 20 (Internews): Britain\u2019s interior minister said on Wednesday the country needed to take a pragmatic approach to reaching net zero because it could not \u201csave the planet by bankrupting the British people\u201d.
\nThe comment by Suella Braverman comes ahead of a speech by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week where he is expected to delay some of the government policies which underpin Britain\u2019s long-term plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
\n\u201cWe have to adopt a pragmatic approach, a proportionate approach and one that also serves our goals, and we\u2019re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people,\u201d Braverman told Times Radio.
\nBritain was the first major economy to create a legally binding target to bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and it was quick to build up its renewable energy capacity in earlier years.
\nBut Sunak\u2019s government has recently appeared to waver on some of the measures needed to hit that target as the cost of decarbonising everything from travel to the heating of homes has crystalised during a prolonged cost-of-living crisis.
\nWith a parliamentary election looming next year, Sunak sees scaling back some green policies as a way to win over swing voters – a striking reversal for a country which until recently was a self-proclaimed leader in climate policy.
\nOne area of speculation is that the government could delay the introduction of a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars to 2035 from the current target of 2030.
\nThat would put Britain in line with the European Union which has also adopted a 2035 target, but such a move could dismay the car industry which is looking for certainty as it spends heavily to switch to the production of electric vehicles.
\nWith speculation swirling, Sunak released a statement late on Tuesday saying Britain needed to move towards its net zero goals in a \u201cmore proportionate way\u201d and that he would set out an \u201cimportant long-term decision\u201d this week.
\nChris Skidmore, a former energy minister who signed Britain\u2019s 2050 net zero commitment into law in 2019 but has since left government and recently led a review into the country\u2019s progress towards its targets, said any delay would hit future jobs and investment.
\n\u201cIt will potentially destabilise business confidence that could have created thousands of jobs. Instead they will go elsewhere,\u201d he said on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON, September 20 (Internews): Britain\u2019s interior minister said on Wednesday the country needed to take a pragmatic approach to reaching net zero because it could not \u201csave the planet by bankrupting the British people\u201d. The comment by Suella Braverman comes ahead of a speech by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week where he is expected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-357308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n