A landmark judgment from the UK High Court has ruled the government’s milestone Net-Zero Strategy as inadequate and unlawful as it failed to provide the right assurances on how the targets that aim to decarbonize the country’s economy to Net-Zero by 2050, could be met.
The impact: A major embarrassment for the government on a day that London blistered with an all-time high temperature, the High Court in a judgment published Monday said that the proposals for achieving Net-Zero approved by the Secretary of State were too vague to enable him to be satisfied that the statutory targets would be met. Besides, it said that the report placed before Parliament lacked the specificity necessary to meet the Secretary of State’s duty to inform Parliament and the public of his plans.
- The High Court said that government must come up with an updated strategy by March 2023.
The case: The legal challenge was filed by environmental groups — Friends of the Earth, Good Law Project, Joanna Wheatley, and ClientEarth, arguing that the UK government's flagship climate change strategy had illegally failed to include the policies it needed to deliver the promised emissions cuts.
- The green activists said that the climate change strategy did not spell out how carbon emissions cuts would be achieved.
- UK’s landmark Net-Zero Strategy, first published last October in the run-up to COP26 in Glasgow, was a comprehensive run-through of how the nation will decarbonise in a way that "transforms every sector of the global economy".
Who is Who
- Good Law Project is a not-for-profit campaign organisation that uses the law to protect the interests of the public. We fight cases that defend, define or change the law and we use litigation to engage and educate. We challenge abuses of power, exploitation, inequality, and injustice.
- ClientEarth focuses on changing the system – informing, implementing and enforcing the law, advising decision-makers on policy and training legal and judicial professionals. Because a future in which people and planet thrive together isn’t just possible: it’s essential.
- Friends of the Earth is a bold voice for justice and for the planet.
