Rishi Sunak is facing mounting criticism for putting politics above the fight against climate change, amid clear signs that ministers are backtracking on plans to allow more onshore windfarms in England before a general election.
The Observer understands that a much-vaunted government consultation on ending what has in effect been a ban on new onshore wind projects will lead to a minimal relaxation of planning rules – because ministers do not want to anger potential Tory voters who oppose huge wind turbines in their neighbourhoods.
On Saturday night – as the Conservative party threatened to split over green policy – the former Tory environment secretary and outgoing chair of the climate change committee, Lord Deben, said it was simply unacceptable that the government was still discussing whether it was in favour of onshore wind or not when it was widely recognised as one of the cheapest forms of energy generation. The danger was also that UK industry would lose out in the resulting green industrial revolution for renewable energy to the US, China and the EU.
Deben, who is retiring this weekend after 11 years as chair of the committee that officially advises government, told the Observer: “It is unacceptable to have spent so much time discussing something which should be immediate for government. Why we need to go through all this palaver [of consulting] I am not sure.
“In effect we have stopped onshore wind. Having a basic opposition to it is just not a sensible thing.”
On Friday, Sunak was rocked by the resignation from the government of Tory peer and green enthusiast Zac Goldsmith, who said the prime minister was “simply uninterested” in the environment and the climate emergency.
Goldsmith said in his resignation letter that the Tories would be punished by voters for the party’s “apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced” and said his position had become untenable because of Sunak’s lack of commitment.
Sunak countered shortly afterwards in a letter suggesting Goldsmith’s departure had in fact been linked to No 10 asking him to apologise for having undermined the House of Commons privileges committee’s inquiry into Boris Johnson and Partygate.
The former prime minister Theresa May also broke ranks against Sunak on climate policy last week, saying the UK was falling behind other countries and had been too slow to act in response to subsidies for green industries introduced by the US and the EU.
Without a clear response the UK was “putting at risk its reputation as a leader in climate policy”, May said.
Instead of taking a lead on climate matters, Sunak and his ministers are, critics say, crudely trying to create a “wedge issue” with Labour over net zero policy in a general election, including attacking the opposition for its decision to oppose new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
Two weeks ago energy secretary Grant Shapps accused Labour of becoming “the political wing of Just Stop Oil – and other eco-extremists who use ordinary people’s lives as their weapon”.
While such comments will have pleased green sceptics on the Tory benches, they also angered Conservatives who believe their party is sacrificing responsible green policy to address a global emergency for what it believes will be short-term political gain. They fear they will suffer in blue wall seats unless their party is seen to have a credible and serious approach to tackling the climate crisis.
At a meeting last week of RenewableUK, a not-for-profit trade association representing the green industry, the Tory MP and former energy minister Chris Skidmore, who wrote a widely acclaimed report for the government on net zero strategy, made clear he disagreed fundamentally with Shapps’s attack on Labour.
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“When it comes to the narrative of net zero, when it comes to the rhetoric we need to deploy, no one is in the pocket of Just Stop Oil. Nobody wants to see disruption on our streets. It simply is not an extreme opinion to believe that one day we are going to have to end our use of fossil fuels,” Skidmore said.
Sam Hall, director of the Conservative Environment Network, which includes many dozens of Tory MPs, said it would be a mistake for the Conservatives to make oil and gas a dividing line, as if it did then oil and gas rather than green energy would become the main subject of debate. He added: “The Conservatives should focus on their positive message around renewable energy ahead of the election, which has been one of their greatest achievements in government.”
James Robottom, head of onshore wind at RenewableUK, said there was now no expectation that ministers would make any significant changes to planning rules to allow more onshore wind projects in England as a result of its consultation.
He said his organisation was “bitterly disappointed” by the evident lack of movement that was clear from suggestions made in the process, and the fact that there had been no response from government to the industry’s views over the past three months. The result would be the loss of huge numbers of jobs and billions of pounds of domestic and overseas investment.
Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for net zero, said: “Mainstream Conservatives are right to be alarmed by the climate failure and lurch towards a culture war on the part of Rishi Sunak and Grant Shapps.
“The Tory leadership is way out of line with the British people, who do not want to see the consensus for climate and environmental action broken.”
Robottom said obstacles to new onshore wind development would “severely hinder investment in the onshore wind industry and its supply chain due to the high level of risk and uncertainty they create. We are being denied the opportunity for thousands of new jobs and billions in private investment in England.”
He added: “Even if a few new projects will be able to get planning permission, it will be extremely difficult for them to source wind turbines, with markets in Germany, Scotland and elsewhere being far more attractive, and crucially with clear government backing and deployment targets.”
The Department for Levelling Up said it had no statement to make on the planning rules consultation other than that it was ongoing and that it would take time to consider responses.
No 10 promised last year to dismantle the effective ban on onshore windfarms in England, which was put in place in 2015 by tightening planning restrictions in the national planning policy framework. However, after pressure from rightwing Tory MPs, the most that is now expected are modest changes that will do little to boost the number of English windfarms.
The former prime minister David Cameron brought in the de facto onshore wind ban in 2015 after coming under pressure from more than 100 Tory MPs. As a result just 16 new turbines were granted planning permission in England between 2016 and 2020 – a 96% drop on the previous five years.
Recently theGuardianrevealed that Ukraine had built more onshore wind turbines than England since it was occupied by Russian soldiers.
Only two onshore wind turbines have been installed in England since February last year, generating 1 megawatt (MW) of electricity in the Staffordshire village of Keele.
Ukraine’s Tyligulska wind power plant, meanwhile – the first to be built in a conflict zone – has begun generating enough clean electricity to power about 200,000 homes just 60 miles from the frontline in the southern region of Mykolaiv, with 19 turbines providing an installed capacity of 114MW.