28th February 2025
The carbon budgets are produced by the Climate Change Committee at regular intervals to advise the Government of the pathway to achieve its legally binding targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The seventh carbon budget, published this week, sets out what needs to happen over the next 15 years to keep emissions reductions on track.
If the government does act on the advice laid out in the report, emissions in the UK would be a quarter of what they are.today, and 87% less than 1990. Importantly, while the Climate Change Committee (CCC) acknowledge the targets are ambitious, they make clear that they are deliverable and lay out an achievable pathway across different sectors.
Here are some key takeaways from the report.
Energy supply
The carbon budget lays out the need for massive growth of renewable energy generation from wind and solar by 2040, with less reliance on fossil fuels. This transition will bring significant benefits to people’s health including reduced air pollution, lower energy bills, and protection from fossil fuel price shocks, which have caused around half of the UK’s recessions since 1970. Achieving this will require upfront investment that will lead to significant savings in the future as inefficient fossil fuel technologies are replaced. The carbon budget makes clear there is no role for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in the UK’s energy future.
Our view: For years the UK has entrenched dependency on fossil fuels through subsidies, estimated to be a net total of £15.9bn in 2022. Instead, subsidies could be used as incentives and infrastructure for renewable energy production and access. In our energy transition for the good of health policy report, we highlight the harms that BECCS causes to nature and health. The Government should follow the advice laid out in the carbon budget and not extend subsidies to large-scale biomass generation when they expire in 2027.
Homes
One third of the UK’s emissions reductions come from households in the carbon budget pathway. In practice this means a rapid and massive uptake of heat pump installations combined with home insulation and energy efficiency measures. The report illustrates how far behind the UK is in rolling out heat pumps and makes clear that it needs to catch up with the current rate of 60,000 heat pumps installed every year increasing to 1.5million a year by 2035. Achieving this will require incentives and support for home-owners and landlords.
New homes should be built with high efficiency standards and low-carbon heating systems. In practice this means no new homes will be built with fossil fuel heating systems or gas grid connections. Supply chains for low-carbon heating and energy efficiency need to be scaled up rapidly and the domestic heating industry urgently needs to develop a workforce with the skills to design, install, and service heat pumps at scale.
Achieving this would reduce levels of fuel poverty in the UK. Firstly, improvements in energy efficiency would see the number of households in fuel poverty fall by 11% by 2030. After this, as households switch to low-carbon heating and electricity prices fall (due to renewables deployment), the number of households in fuel poverty falls by a further 66% by 2050.
At least £650 million in wider co-benefits from reduced excess cold and dampness (including direct health impacts of 4,100 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per year) is predicted by 2040.
Our view: Millions of households across the UK are living in fuel poverty driven by increasing costs of oil and gas, which most households depend on for heating, combined with poorly insulated homes that are more expensive to heat. This has major implications for health. Children living in cold, damp homes are more susceptible to respiratory tract infections and asthma, negative mental health outcomes and missed school days.
The UK has fallen too far behind in bringing homes up to energy efficiency standards and supporting the transition to heat-pumps. The CCC has set out a pathway for the UK to bring homes up to standard, the Government must now back this up with a credible plan to encourage uptake of heat pumps and home insulation. Doing so will reduce fuel poverty and deliver health benefits. The government must also ensure dirty fuels, including wood burning stoves, have no place in new-build homes.
Transport
Transport is the highest emitting sector in the UK economy, accounting for 24% of emissions. It is also an area where there is huge scope for almost completely decarbonising by 2050 through rapid electrification.
The Government needs to provide clarity on the phase-out date for ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles, ideally by 2030. The Government should also confirm the 2040 phase-out for new diesel HGVs, restore the 2030 date for vans, and consider including hybrid cars in the phase-out.
The pathway laid out by the CCC requires delivery of better public transport and walking and cycling infrastructure that brings the UK closer in line with countries such as Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. Achieving this will require more funding and powers for local authorities to deliver the changes needed combined with action to make public transport and active travel more attractive, affordable, and accessible. The pathway sets a target of 7% of current car demand shifting to active travel and public transport over the next decade. Here, long-term clarity is needed on what funding streams will be available to implement plans and additional powers for local areas to deliver an integrated public transport offer.
Our view: The health damage associated with diesel vehicle emissions is about 20 times greater than electric vehicles and five times greater than petrol vehicles. Diesel vehicles account for nearly 90% of the £6bn annual health costs attributed to cars and vans in the UK. Switching to electric vehicles offers substantial health benefits. It is estimated that switching 1 million diesel cars for electric would save more than £360 million in health costs annually. Increasing the adoption of electric vehicles requires a combination of financial incentives, charging infrastructure development, policy measures and public engagement, and must happen as soon as possible.
Switching from polluting to clean motor vehicles is only one part of the solution and must be balanced against targets to reduce the number of cars on the roads by greater uptake of public transport and active travel, which bring a wide range of co-benefits for local communities by saving residents the need to drive to access services, encouraging activity, improving air quality, and access to green spaces. To ensure policy interventions aimed at achieving net zero reduce rather than widen inequalities, communities must be consulted and provided with targeted support to overcome any mobility barriers that could be introduced by policy changes, including by investing more in public and active travel combined with accessible transport options. Making active travel and public transport more accessible will bring major benefits for health, improve productivity and reduce pressure on the health service associated with air pollution, physical inactivity and social isolation. Active travel routes also provide green corridors to help cool places, and enable connection with nature. Local authorities must be given the clarity, funding and powers to deliver.
Food
The pathway to net zero will require the average UK person to cut their dairy intake by a fifth and their meat consumption by a quarter over the next decade, with a greater reduction in red meat consumption (40% by 2050). The reduced consumption of meat and dairy will be balanced against reductions in livestock numbers in the UK, which will result in a 32% reduction in emissions and 68% increase of land released for woodland and other uses by 2040.
A citizens assembly to inform the carbon budget found that there was a lack of knowledge among members of the public regarding the emissions impact of different foods and that the government should proactively provide this information to the public to support the shift towards lower-carbon foods. People wanted healthier, home-cooked options and saw education around plant-based meal preparation as a way to achieve the shift. The price of plant-based alternatives needs to be reduced to make these more attractive options. Changes to diets are expected to have minimal impacts on household food costs in the short term and lead to slight reductions in food costs in the longer term as alternative proteins develop that are cheaper to buy than meat and dairy.
Farmers must be supported to enable the transition through incentives to diversity land use and management into woodland creation, peatland restoration, bioenergy crops, and renewable energy. The opportunities and impact to farmers will vary across the UK and government financial support will be required to ensure appropriate incentives and rewards are available.
Our view: The average UK person currently eats twice the recommended limits of meat, so achieving a target of 20% reduction by 2035 should be very achievable. Shifting from meat and dairy to plant-based whole foods could bring major benefits for health, climate and nature. Modelling studies have found that if everyone in England switched to a plant-based diet the monetary savings from improved health and reduction in chronic conditions would result in a saving of £6.7 billion per year which could fund the annual salaries of 60,923 consultant doctors. A systemic transformation is necessary to reduce the consumption of red meat and dairy while increasing the uptake of fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes and nuts. This transition would drastically reduce land, water usage and greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality, biodiversity and health. The new food strategy expected to be published this year is an opportunity to lay out how this will be delivered and must include a focus on improving public awareness. The health sector can lead the change by normalising plant-based food and removing red meat and processed meat from hospital menus.
Farmers must be supported to transition to producing more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and other horticultural products through effective subsidies, grants and low-interest loans. There also needs to be stronger legislation to regulate and ban intensive livestock farming operations in the UK and ensure UK farmers are not undercut through food imports with lower welfare or environmental standards.
Nature
In the carbon budget pathway, nature-based measures, including planting new woodland and restoring peatlands, are integral in growing land-based carbon sequestration. They also provide opportunities for farmers to diversify their income streams away from livestock farming. In the CCC pathway, tree plant rates more than double to 37,000 hectares per year by 2030 such that 16% of the UK is covered in woodland by 2040. The proportion of UK peatlands increases from 26% today to 55% in 2040. On this pathway, by 2050, nature-based sequestration offsets the residual emissions from the agriculture and land use sectors.
Peatlands provide significant benefits alongside their ability to hold vast stocks of carbon. They provide habitat for a unique assemblage of plants and animals. Their rewetting and restoration can help regulate water availability and quality across catchments, and is an important aspect of the historic landscape, particularly in the uplands. When sited appropriately and using suitable species, new woodlands provide a range of wider benefits such as for biodiversity, which itself enhances the resilience of the woodlands, alongside adaptation benefits such as flood and heat alleviation. Careful adaptive management of woodlands, alongside other ecosystems is important to build resilience in the face of climate change, pests, and diseases, and improves productivity in terms of carbon capture and timber quality.
Our view: Biodiversity has been declining at its fastest rate in human history, and the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. The loss of biodiversity is a direct consequence of human interference in the natural environment, such as by reshaping natural habitats to create farmlands and the extraction and use of natural resources. In the UK, over 14% of native species are facing extinction and over 40% are in decline. A healthy, biodiverse environment is essential for human health and much more needs to be done to restore nature.
The health benefits of nature through the removal of air pollution is estimated to be about £2bn a year, while enabling people to spend sufficient time in nature each week (about two hours) brings multiple physical and mental health benefits.
The Government must deliver action to protect, restore and regenerate nature and biodiversity. This will need multi-level cross-sectoral partnerships and collaboration that maximises the co-benefits for improving the health of the population.
In summary
If the UK follows the pathway laid out in the seventh carbon budget, fifteen years from now we will have
- Cleaner, home grown energy
- Energy efficient homes powered by clean energy
- More active travel and public transport routes
- Significantly reduced pollution from motorised vehicles
- Healthier diets with less meat and more plants
- More trees and diverse natural habitats
It’s an achievable future worth working for.