Countdown to COP26

Three months to go to COP26, the UK is scrambling to produce long awaited strategies that are badly needed to give its ‘world leading’ commitment to Net Zero by 2050 some credibility.

So, what is happening? Well, a few chickens are coming home to roost.

In December 2020 we had an energy white paper that continued the now established trend – high on ambition, low on detail but went further than it might have. It envisaged a brave new world of digitally enabled consumers managing their energy consumption through the smart grid and promised a flood of consultations and more detailed sectoral strategies to be followed up by the grand overarching net zero strategy before COP 26.

The progress of the strategy publications for the major emitting sectors looks like the departures board at Kings Cross on a bad night:

Even the powerful Public Accounts Committee, sitting in January this year, was unable to extract a predicted timetable for publication of the strategies from BEIS. However, it is now widely reported that Heat, Hydrogen, and Net Zero strategies are bogged down by haggling with HMT over costs.

We will await the detailed strategies and comment as they are published. There is however an elephant in the room. The National Audit Office (Ref 1) got a glimpse of it but let it get away, the Public Accounts Committee (Ref 2) saw it and now the BEIS Select Committee has joined the hunt. The BEIS Select Committee has launched an enquiry into ‘Net Zero Governance’ and called for evidence to be submitted by 27 August (Ref 3 – Net Zero Governance - Committees - UK Parliament).

The Elephant is the disconnect between high ambition, strategy and delivery. Atkins has repeatedly called for the creation of an Energy System Architect. The current BEIS / OFGEM consultation on the future of the Energy System Operator (Ref 4 - Proposals for a Future System Operator role - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) is an opportunity to fill a yawning gap in the UK’s Net Zero commitment. The consultation calls for evidence to be submitted by 28 September.

We urge all interested parties to respond to both the Net Zero Governance and the Future System Operator consultations.

More coming soon on this in our next paper – Towards Net Zero - Watch the Numbers

References

1           Achieving Net Zero, National Audit Office, December 2020

2           Achieving Net Zero, Public Accounts Committee, March 2021

3           Net Zero Governance, BEIS Commons Select Committee, June 2021

4           Energy Future System Operator Consultation, BEIS & OFGEM, July 2021