UK Govt Net Zero Strategy Deemed Unlawful After Legal Challenge

In a judgement published by the High Court on the 18th July 2022, Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth, the Good Law Project and individual litigant Joanna Wheatley, succeeded in winning their legal challenge that stated the UK’s government’s Net Zero Strategy did not meet the requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008.

The UK Royal Courts of Justice, where the case was heard

In effect, the successful challenge established that the Minister in signing off the Net Zero Strategy for meeting the requirements of the Sixth Carbon Budget under the Climate Change Act 2008 did not have sufficient information, and this resulted in insufficiently detailed plans and climate policies to show how the UK would meet the legally binding carbon budgets.

The result of the case is that UK Ministers (and any new incoming Prime Minister) will have to update the climate strategy and present it to Parliament for scrutiny by MPs.

The real significance of the case, where judgement was delivered at the time of the UK’s hottest day since records began, may be in forcing climate change back onto the political agenda, and resisting the pretence that it has somehow gone away because of all the competing claims of the energy crisis, the cost of living crisis or Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

Friends of the Earth’s press release about the ruling can be found here:

https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/govts-climate-strategy-deemed-unlawful-historic-ruling

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