Ministers understand the science, but they have been cowed by the attacks on net zero. The budget is an opportunity for change
The chancellor during a visit to Gatwick Airport last month (picture: Simon Walker / HM Treasury)
If you are old enough, you might remember the very effective TV advert for Cadbury’s Smash. This had metal aliens laughing at the stupidity of mankind for peeling potatoes when they could instead, so the advert went, get a superior product much more easily from a packet. (“For mash get Smash”).
I wonder if those same aliens would be laughing now at mankind’s response to climate change. Or crying? Or would they simply be scratching their metal heads in bewilderment?
The scientific community has for decades now been united in its view both that human-made climate change is occurring, and that it needs to be urgently curtailed if drastic and unwelcome consequences are to be avoided.
Specifically, in its last report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global emissions had to peak by 2025 and then decline sharply if we were to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the limit of tolerable change.
Yet far from applying the brakes, the world is pressing the accelerator. The media dutifully reports the worsening position, but with those reports given ever less prominence, despite their increasingly shrill tones.
In just the last month, we have learnt the following:
sea levels are rising at their fastest pace for 4,000 years, threatening coastal communities from New York to Hong Kong, and rising faster in the UK than elsewhere;
here in Britain, a study by the insurance company Aviva has concluded that every constituency in the country will face a greater flood risk in the years ahead, with 69% seeing a 25% increase in the number of properties at risk by 2050. Boston and Skegness are the worst affected , with 90% of homes at risk from river and coastal flooding. The towns are represented by Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, who this year said it was “absolute garbage” that human activity is responsible for climate change;
carbon dioxide levels, according to the UN weather agency, are at record highs and are “turbo-charging” climate change;
data centres in the Republic of Ireland now consume 20% of the country’s entire electricity output;
coal use hit a record high last year, according to the annual State of Climate Action report. India’s prime minister, Narenda Modi, publicly celebrated his country surpassing one billion tonnes of coal production for the first time;
in 2024, more than 20 million acres of forest were permanently lost.
You could be forgiven for thinking that governments have given up the battle and no longer see tackling climate change as the top priority it was. Clearly Donald Trump, with his absurd “drill baby drill” policy, and his tilting at “windmills” has had a dampening affect on the world.
Bit by bit, the bold net zero plans are being whittled away
But what of Britain, which for so long was a beacon of hope, the first country to pass a climate change Act of Parliament, and one where carbon emissions fell by a huge 53% from 1990 to 2023, although notably in electricity generation rather than transport, the latter now the biggest sector for emissions.
There is little doubt that ministers understand the science, but they have been cowed by the attacks on net zero that have come from Reform and from the Badenoch Conservatives. There is still some good progress being made, but nobody seems to want to highlight it. This is a new concept called “greenhushing”.
Ed Miliband, who looks ever more isolated and seems to be kept in place as secretary of state for energy and climate change simply to provide some green cover, warned in July that Britain’s way of life is “under threat” from climate change, but nobody seemed really bothered.
Bit by bit, the bold net zero plans are being whittled away. Labour used to argue, and probably still believe, that looking after the environment and boosting the economy are not alternatives, but two sides of the same coin.
Now, the latest suggestion is that ministers are planning to abandon targets to remove all fossil fuels from the energy mix by 2030, and look instead at building more gas power.
Perhaps someone could tell the chancellor who has regressed to 1980s-style Treasury orthodoxy where the environment has to be sacrificed to achieve growth. I thought we might have archived this economic illiteracy but it seems not.
The rhetoric around new roads is straight from the 1980s, promising that these will deal with congestion and create growth. All the hard-earned lessons about new roads generating more traffic have simply been unlearnt.
Nowhere is this tired nonsense more obvious than in airport policy where there is now a gung-ho green light for expansion right across the country.
First came London City Airport where in 2024 permission was given, against the recommendation of the local Labour council, for the airport to handle an extra nine million passengers per year. Luton Airport’s expansion, approved in 2025, will add an annual 14 million passengers to its capacity. Gatwick Airport, with its second runway recently approved, is expected to increase capacity by 29 million passengers each year.
Meanwhile Heathrow Airport has submitted outline plans for a third runway, which would generate a further 57 million passenger trips each year. Stansted Airport has also submitted a new application for an additional 8 million passengers, to add to its already approved plans for an increase of 7.5 million passengers.
This is irresponsible madness. Even the loaded figures provided by the aviation industry suggest the positive impact on growth will be marginal.
Don’t hold your breath for the phrase climate change to pass the chancellor’s lips, or even the word environment
The government weakly argues that the increased emissions will be dealt with by new low carbon fuels and electric planes but these are at best decades away. Action to put a cap on the overall numbers of flights has been ruled out by ministers. In addition, air passenger duty, the only tax on flying, was cut in recent times. There is no tax on the kerosene used to power the planes.
The cross-party environmental audit committee, in a report published on October 24, warned that emissions from the aviation sector “puts the government’s delivery of net zero in serious jeopardy.” It also complained about a lack of any real evidence to justify expansion plans.
Of course the attraction to the government is that all this investment comes from the private sector, whereas investment in rail comes from the public purse. That, it seems, trumps any environmental consideration.
A comparison by mode for a journey from London to Glasgow reveals that train travel generates the fewest emissions, just 20kg of CO2 per passenger, cleaner even than electric cars at 21.19kg per person. Petrol and diesel cars give a figure upward of 90kg per person, while the figure for flying is between 137 and 175kg per passenger.
Yet the Treasury’s policy is upside down, rewarding air travellers the most, then car drivers, whose fuel duty has been frozen for almost 15 years now, and then train travellers who get an inflation or even above inflation increase in ticket prices every year. Do none of the financial boffins at the Treasury, let alone the ministers, realise than the price of an activity, and its relative price compared to other options, helps determine consumer choice?
The answer is of course they do, which leaves the only conclusion that they don’t really care if what they do increases carbon emissions and pollution.
If the government won’t listen to environmentalists putting a climate argument to them, perhaps they could at least pay heed to the Joint Intelligence Committee. Their latest report is said to warn that the UK’s national security is coming under severe threat from climate change and the looming collapse of vital ecosystems, constituting one of the biggest risks facing Britain. Said to, because just before its planned launch in early October, its release was blocked by No 10. Perhaps if they just shut their eyes, everything can carry on as normal.
It is also worth noting that our defence chiefs – hardly sandal-wearing, weed-smoking beardies – have been warning about the climate crisis for at least 20 years, even calling for climate finance to be considered part of national security spending.
This month sees the next UN climate summit, to be held in Brazil. Apparently the prime minister was intending to go but is wavering as he thinks he will be attacked by Reform for going. How pathetic. Stand up for what you believe in, man. If he doesn’t go, he will be the first prime minister not to do so.
Meanwhile here at home, we have the long-awaited and much trailed budget. Don’t hold your breath for the phrase climate change to pass the chancellor’s lips, or even the word environment. Fiddling while Rome burns.
But as she is strapped for cash, let me offer her a handful of money-raising options which might appeal.
She could massively increase the air passenger duty for the category of planes with 19 or fewer seats.
She could raise fuel duty, an easy way to fill much of the £30bn black hole (or has it gone up again?).
She could substantially increase road tax on the heavy, anti-social SUVs which are much more dangerous for children in the street, which pollute our towns and cities, and which take a heavier toll on our road surfaces, often just to take Tarquin 500 yards to school, or to pop down to the supermarket where they find their hulk no longer fits in the parking space provided.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
Climate crisis, what crisis?
by Passenger Transport on Oct 31, 2025 • 12:37 pm No CommentsMinisters understand the science, but they have been cowed by the attacks on net zero. The budget is an opportunity for change
If you are old enough, you might remember the very effective TV advert for Cadbury’s Smash. This had metal aliens laughing at the stupidity of mankind for peeling potatoes when they could instead, so the advert went, get a superior product much more easily from a packet. (“For mash get Smash”).
I wonder if those same aliens would be laughing now at mankind’s response to climate change. Or crying? Or would they simply be scratching their metal heads in bewilderment?
The scientific community has for decades now been united in its view both that human-made climate change is occurring, and that it needs to be urgently curtailed if drastic and unwelcome consequences are to be avoided.
Specifically, in its last report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global emissions had to peak by 2025 and then decline sharply if we were to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the limit of tolerable change.
Yet far from applying the brakes, the world is pressing the accelerator. The media dutifully reports the worsening position, but with those reports given ever less prominence, despite their increasingly shrill tones.
In just the last month, we have learnt the following:
You could be forgiven for thinking that governments have given up the battle and no longer see tackling climate change as the top priority it was. Clearly Donald Trump, with his absurd “drill baby drill” policy, and his tilting at “windmills” has had a dampening affect on the world.
But what of Britain, which for so long was a beacon of hope, the first country to pass a climate change Act of Parliament, and one where carbon emissions fell by a huge 53% from 1990 to 2023, although notably in electricity generation rather than transport, the latter now the biggest sector for emissions.
There is little doubt that ministers understand the science, but they have been cowed by the attacks on net zero that have come from Reform and from the Badenoch Conservatives. There is still some good progress being made, but nobody seems to want to highlight it. This is a new concept called “greenhushing”.
Ed Miliband, who looks ever more isolated and seems to be kept in place as secretary of state for energy and climate change simply to provide some green cover, warned in July that Britain’s way of life is “under threat” from climate change, but nobody seemed really bothered.
Bit by bit, the bold net zero plans are being whittled away. Labour used to argue, and probably still believe, that looking after the environment and boosting the economy are not alternatives, but two sides of the same coin.
Now, the latest suggestion is that ministers are planning to abandon targets to remove all fossil fuels from the energy mix by 2030, and look instead at building more gas power.
Perhaps someone could tell the chancellor who has regressed to 1980s-style Treasury orthodoxy where the environment has to be sacrificed to achieve growth. I thought we might have archived this economic illiteracy but it seems not.
The rhetoric around new roads is straight from the 1980s, promising that these will deal with congestion and create growth. All the hard-earned lessons about new roads generating more traffic have simply been unlearnt.
Nowhere is this tired nonsense more obvious than in airport policy where there is now a gung-ho green light for expansion right across the country.
First came London City Airport where in 2024 permission was given, against the recommendation of the local Labour council, for the airport to handle an extra nine million passengers per year. Luton Airport’s expansion, approved in 2025, will add an annual 14 million passengers to its capacity. Gatwick Airport, with its second runway recently approved, is expected to increase capacity by 29 million passengers each year.
Meanwhile Heathrow Airport has submitted outline plans for a third runway, which would generate a further 57 million passenger trips each year. Stansted Airport has also submitted a new application for an additional 8 million passengers, to add to its already approved plans for an increase of 7.5 million passengers.
This is irresponsible madness. Even the loaded figures provided by the aviation industry suggest the positive impact on growth will be marginal.
The government weakly argues that the increased emissions will be dealt with by new low carbon fuels and electric planes but these are at best decades away. Action to put a cap on the overall numbers of flights has been ruled out by ministers. In addition, air passenger duty, the only tax on flying, was cut in recent times. There is no tax on the kerosene used to power the planes.
The cross-party environmental audit committee, in a report published on October 24, warned that emissions from the aviation sector “puts the government’s delivery of net zero in serious jeopardy.” It also complained about a lack of any real evidence to justify expansion plans.
Of course the attraction to the government is that all this investment comes from the private sector, whereas investment in rail comes from the public purse. That, it seems, trumps any environmental consideration.
A comparison by mode for a journey from London to Glasgow reveals that train travel generates the fewest emissions, just 20kg of CO2 per passenger, cleaner even than electric cars at 21.19kg per person. Petrol and diesel cars give a figure upward of 90kg per person, while the figure for flying is between 137 and 175kg per passenger.
Yet the Treasury’s policy is upside down, rewarding air travellers the most, then car drivers, whose fuel duty has been frozen for almost 15 years now, and then train travellers who get an inflation or even above inflation increase in ticket prices every year. Do none of the financial boffins at the Treasury, let alone the ministers, realise than the price of an activity, and its relative price compared to other options, helps determine consumer choice?
The answer is of course they do, which leaves the only conclusion that they don’t really care if what they do increases carbon emissions and pollution.
If the government won’t listen to environmentalists putting a climate argument to them, perhaps they could at least pay heed to the Joint Intelligence Committee. Their latest report is said to warn that the UK’s national security is coming under severe threat from climate change and the looming collapse of vital ecosystems, constituting one of the biggest risks facing Britain. Said to, because just before its planned launch in early October, its release was blocked by No 10. Perhaps if they just shut their eyes, everything can carry on as normal.
It is also worth noting that our defence chiefs – hardly sandal-wearing, weed-smoking beardies – have been warning about the climate crisis for at least 20 years, even calling for climate finance to be considered part of national security spending.
This month sees the next UN climate summit, to be held in Brazil. Apparently the prime minister was intending to go but is wavering as he thinks he will be attacked by Reform for going. How pathetic. Stand up for what you believe in, man. If he doesn’t go, he will be the first prime minister not to do so.
Meanwhile here at home, we have the long-awaited and much trailed budget. Don’t hold your breath for the phrase climate change to pass the chancellor’s lips, or even the word environment. Fiddling while Rome burns.
But as she is strapped for cash, let me offer her a handful of money-raising options which might appeal.
She could massively increase the air passenger duty for the category of planes with 19 or fewer seats.
She could raise fuel duty, an easy way to fill much of the £30bn black hole (or has it gone up again?).
She could substantially increase road tax on the heavy, anti-social SUVs which are much more dangerous for children in the street, which pollute our towns and cities, and which take a heavier toll on our road surfaces, often just to take Tarquin 500 yards to school, or to pop down to the supermarket where they find their hulk no longer fits in the parking space provided.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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