Government needs to shift momentum to reach climate goals

The National Audit Office has stressed that it is not yet clear that the government has in place what it needs to meet its long-term environmental goals.

In 2011, government set an ambition for this to be the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state that it inherited. In 2018, the government published a 25 Year Environmental Plan to achieve this ambition, and position the UK as a global environmental leader.

The NAO has now examined how government has set itself up to deliver its long-term environmental goals, highlighting the most significant potential strengths and areas for improvement, as well as key risks that it will need to manage.

The watchdog says that the Environment Plan marked a step forward in setting direction for environmental policy, but its headline ambitions are a mixture of ‘aspirations, legally binding targets and policy commitments’, with varying and unclear timescales. In January 2020, the government presented a wide-ranging Environment Bill to Parliament, which would help clarify ambitions for five of government’s environmental goals.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Bill’s progress through Parliament paused between March and November 2020. Even so, ministers say that the government has not yet set a course for developing a comprehensive set of objectives and delivery plans to achieve its environmental goals. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has developed its plans to improve air quality and reduce waste, but has not set a timetable for working out whether it is doing enough to meet government’s environmental goals as a whole, or how much it might cost to meet these ambitions, which creates a risk that funding decisions are made in a piecemeal way.

Defra knows it will need to help people and businesses to change their behaviour if it is to meet its aims but is only just beginning work to look at how it will do this in a co-ordinated and evidence-based way. It should prioritise its behaviour change work to capitalise on positive changes brought about by the pandemic, such as walking and cycling, and ensure this aligns with related behaviour change work being carried out in other parts of government.

The report concludes that Defra’s approach to monitoring and reporting progress against its environmental goals is developing but has some serious gaps. While it has increased the scope of its environmental reporting, it does not expect to have complete data to measure overall performance against its environmental goals until 2024 at the earliest.

The NAO argues that Defra should start to report against a comprehensive set of milestones for the Environment Plan, and track how it has responded to recommendations from the new Office for Environmental Protection, which will take over scrutiny of the Environment Plan in 2021.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “The government wants this to be the first generation to leave the natural environment in England in a better state than it inherited. However, it is now nine years since the government set this ambition and it still does not have the right framework to achieve it. Some progress has been made on elements of the Environment Plan but significant action is needed across national and local government, working with business and the public, if the environmental goals are to be met.”

David Renard, Environment spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: “This report underlines the key role that councils can play in tackling environmental issues, from improving air quality to ensuring local developments support the natural habitat.

“However, it rightly highlights the significant pressures councils are under as a result of Covid-19, and the need for local government to have the right powers and resources so they can ensure local areas can be green and climate-friendly. We would also like to see the government establish a national framework where it works with councils and businesses to tackle the climate emergency, setting out clear roles and a commitment to co-operation from all public sector bodies.”