The UK has historically had a cross-party consensus on the need to tackle climate change among most politicians and voters. Only five MPs voted against the Climate Change Act in 2008, and both Labour and the Conservatives have committed to the targets enshrined in it at each subsequent election.
However, the election of Kemi Badenoch as leader of the Conservatives is the latest sign that the party may be taking a more combative approach to climate change policy, and that politics surrounding this issue are potentially becoming more fractious.
In 2021, a group of Conservative MPs, concerned about the impact of climate targets, formed the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. This development coincided with increasing commentary on climate change in various rightwing media outlets, and the Brexit party’s reincarnation as Reform UK with opposition to net zero targets becoming one of its core missions.
Cracks in the mainstream party consensus were visible during Rishi Sunak’s premiership. In a high-profile speech in September 2023 he scrapped a series of climate policy measures in a clear attempt to draw a partisan dividing line with Labour over the issue.
If the speech had delivered any polling benefits, the Conservatives probably would have doubled down on the approach during the 2024 election. However, so far it appears the relatively consensual attitudes to climate change among the UK public have held up: a majority of Conservative voters still support the net zero target.
In other contexts, polarisation on the environment among politicians and other powerful people has triggered polarisation among voters. So it will be important to observe whether Conservative politicians adopt a more divisive approach to climate change in the coming years, and if this in turn influences public attitudes.
There is a strong association between those on the right of the Conservative party and scepticism about action to tackle climate change, and Badenoch is clearly on this wing of the party. However, she has also shown herself to be pragmatic at times and not entirely predictable in her stances on particular issues.
As business secretary, Badenoch enraged Brexiteer MPs over her handling of a bill to get rid of retained EU laws. During the leadership election, Badenoch also refused to follow her rival Robert Jenrick in committing to leave the European Court of Human Rights.
At the launch of her unsuccessful leadership campaign in 2022 Badenoch described the UK’s net zero target as “unilateral economic disarmament”, having also described it as “arbitrary”. Confusingly, she did commit to the 2050 target (along with the other candidates) at a hustings, but suggested that she might delay it in an interview around the same time. Subsequently, as business secretary, she highlighted the dangers of moving too fast on net zero.
In this leadership election, Badenoch again did not go as far as Jenrick who committed to “repeal and amend the Climate Change Act” if he had become leader. But her ambivalence about climate change policy was on full display.
Her campaign website emphasised “Net Zero scepticism”, with an attached video clip of her criticising the decision to legislate for the target “without working out how we were going to do it”. She also described herself as a “net zero sceptic” but “not a climate change sceptic” at the recent party conference.
The Badenoch campaign also released an essay entitled Conservatism in Crisis: Rise of the Bureaucratic Class. The central thesis is that there is a growing “bureaucratic class” who extol progressive values and are a drag on economic growth.
Climate change features occasionally in this account, as the bureaucratic class are said to “strongly support rationing meat, gas and electricity to beat climate change, and most want to ban gas stoves, petrol cars, non-essential air travel, SUVs and private air conditioning”. Net zero and environmental issues are also mentioned as drivers of increasingly oversized states around the world.
Now Badenoch has won among the party membership her attention will turn to the public, and the new leader of the opposition will build much of her political strategy around the voters that she feels the party needs to attract to win the next election.
Engaging positively on climate and environmental issues may attract younger voters and help the Conservatives win seats that they lost to the Liberal Democrats in 2024. However, the need to recapture Reform voters may lead Badenoch to take a more hostile approach.
Whatever voter coalition the Conservatives now seek to assemble, it seems a reasonable assumption that the new leader of the opposition will draw a dividing line with Labour on climate change. Labour has ambitious plans, including a target for clean power by 2030.
Even in an optimistic scenario, building significant amounts of infrastructure and making major changes to Britain’s energy system will be noticed by voters, and could prove controversial in some quarters.
The Conservatives may retain a rhetorical commitment to the idea that climate change is a serious issue, and formally endorse the framework setup by the Climate Change Act, while criticising the Labour government’s approach to meeting its targets.
In this sense, the reappointment of Claire Coutinho as shadow net zero secretary represents continuity. Coutinho served as net zero secretary in the Sunak government, and her strident criticisms of Labour’s climate change policies as endangering energy security, threatening jobs and potentially increasing bills are probably a taste of what is to come.
