Rishi Sunak announces delays to near-term net zero targets

In an unusual televised speech, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a set of changes to current net zero legislation. Most notably, Sunak confirmed delays to the dates on which the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles, and separately new gas-fired boilers, would be phased out.

The delays are to net zero targets that the Conservative Party itself set.

Sunak also announced that he would be ‘scrapping’ a number of policies, which in fact had not been implemented in the first place. This included ruling out any ‘new taxes’ on flights.

The changes were positioned as protecting households – already stretched by a prolonged cost-of-living crisis – from unreasonable burdens in the pursuit of net zero.