UK is shining light amid Cop27 smog of gloom

With thousands of diplomats gathered in the Egyptian desert to negotiate new climate deals at Cop27, the mood is pessimistic. The world is well on course to roar past the limits needed to keep warming to just 1.5C, with little sign of the commitments required to reach that goal.

Beneath the gloom, however, there are reasons to be optimistic about where the world might end by 2050, with Britain a leading example.

From the UK’S rapid abandonment of coal to cleaner air, the climate picture, in this country at least, is not as grim as doomsday predictions might have it. The headline figure underlining all this is that Britain’s emissions were down by more than a third on their 2010 levels by 2021, even with emissions bouncing back from lockdown inactivity. That is because of hard work to increase energy efficiency and green the grid.

Thanks to a long-standing commitment to green energy that has survived the last Labour government, the Coalition and a further three Conservative prime ministers, wind and solar power now average 28 per cent of the UK’S energy generation. On particularly windy days, such as yesterday, wind power alone accounted for 52 per cent of all British electricity generation.

At the same time, that commitment to green power saw coal-fired power drop from nearly 16 gigawatts of

‘Green energy, wind and solar power now average 28 per cent of the UK’S energy generation’

generation – around 40 per cent of the total – in 2012 to less than a gigawatt on average today. Indeed, until the arrival of the energy crisis, Britain was capable of going entire summers without coal.

This is, of course, offset by rising emissions elsewhere in the world, including China, whose own emissions were up 24 per cent between 2010 and 2020. China and other growing polluters are also manufacturing many of the goods consumed in western countries where emissions are falling.

The challenge now is to phase out the 44 per cent of power that comes from natural gas, a cleaner fuel than coal but still one that contributes to carbon emissions.

While Britain’s grid has become greener, demand for energy has also dropped sharply thanks to increased energy efficiency on everything from white goods to lightbulbs.

That trend will, of course, go into sharp reverse if government plans to electrify heating and cars succeed, but the extra capacity added to the grid to meet that demand is set to be carbon neutral. Getting rid of coal, rising emissions, and efficiency standards for cars and factories – and now the drive for electrification – have had the added effect of improving air quality across the UK. Compared with 1970, sulphur dioxide emissions are down by 98 per

‘UK emissions are down by 40 per cent on their 1972 peak and are at their lowest level since the 1850s’

cent, according to Defra, while nitrogen oxides are down by 78 per cent. Microparticle pollution has fallen by 80 to 85 per cent.

These are dramatic improvements, although the final stretch could be the hardest. While diesel emissions are responsible for a lot of particle pollution, a significant amount comes from tyres and brake pads, which will remain an issue even if electrification or hydrogen fuel cells become standard.

Looked at in gross terms, the fall in Britain’s emissions is substantial, but it becomes even more impressive when it is considered on a per capita basis.

By that measure, emissions are down by 40 per cent on their 1972 peak and are at their lowest level since the 1850s.

As with air pollution, Britain has, to an extent, plucked the easy fruit.

Building a stable electricity grid without gas power stations, decarbonising home heating and weaning heavy industry off fossil fuels will all be considerable challenges before 2050. Yet 12 years ago, moving Britain away from coal appeared a colossal challenge too.