Plans by the Conservatives to replace the Climate Change Act come as divisions over emissions-cutting measures widen.
The Conservatives have pledged to replace the UK’s world-leading climate legislation with a strategy for “cheap and reliable” energy.
Ahead of the party’s annual conference this weekend, leader Kemi Badenoch has announced a policy to scrap the Climate Change Act.
The legislation was brought in by the last Labour government in 2008 and committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80% by 2050, with five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track towards the goal.
Under Theresa May’s premiership, the Conservatives increased the ambition of the Act to cutting greenhouse gases to zero overall, known as “net zero”, by 2050.
But under Mrs Badenoch’s plans the party would “scrap the failed targets”, and replace the Climate Change Act with an energy strategy that puts “cheap and reliable energy as the foundation for economic growth first”.
The move was quickly met with condemnation from environmental groups, who painted it as “political suicide” and a “monstrous act of economic and environmental vandalism”.
Campaigners also warned against prolonging dependence on gas amid high prices from imports as levels of North Sea basin fossil fuels continued to deplete.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called the move “desperate” and said it would be an “economic disaster”, while the Liberal Democrats said it showed the Tories were only interested in “following Farage”.
The Conservative Party said its environmental focus will be on prioritising, enhancing and preserving the natural environment.
Mrs Badenoch said: “We want to leave a cleaner environment for our children, but not by bankrupting the country.
“Climate change is real. But Labour’s laws tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions.
“Previous Conservative governments tried to make Labour’s climate laws work – they don’t.
“Under my leadership we will scrap those failed targets.
“Our priority now is growth, cheaper energy, and protecting the natural landscapes we all love.”
Mrs Badenoch has previously said it is “impossible” for the UK to meet its net zero targets and pledged to scrap them and “maximise extraction” of oil and gas in the North Sea.
In an interview with The Spectator, she said she had discussed the issue with Donald Trump at the recent state dinner at Windsor Castle.
The US president praised a speech she made about it in Aberdeen, where he owns a golf course, and told her: “I hear me and you agree on so many things,” Mrs Badenoch said.
Ministers have to do “lots of stupid things” that are unaffordable or impractical to hit the net zero target target mandated by the Act, she said.
“We need to do what we can sensibly to tackle climate change but we cannot do it alone. If other countries aren’t doing it, then us being the goody-two-shoes of the world is not actually encouraging anyone to improve,” Mrs Badenoch said.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has also vowed to fast-track North Sea oil and gas licences and scrap net zero targets if the party wins the next election, claiming it will save £30 billion a year.
The Tory announcement comes just hours after Mr Miliband – who passed, with near-universal support from MPs, the landmark climate legislation in the same role as part of Gordon Brown’s Labour government in 2008 – doubled down on clean energy and pledged to permanently ban fracking at his party’s conference.
He said: “This desperate policy from Kemi Badenoch if ever implemented would be an economic disaster and a total betrayal of future generations.
“The Conservatives would now scrap a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour government with Conservative support 17 years ago.
“This anti-jobs, anti-worker, anti-young people lurch is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at a culture war which the British people do not want.”
When the Climate Change Act was introduced, it was a world-first for climate legislation, although many countries have since followed suit and nations agreed the world’s first comprehensive treaty to curb global warming in Paris a decade ago.
Scientists warn the world must cut rapidly emissions to zero to prevent global temperatures rising to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which worsening sea level rises, severe storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and the collapse of natural systems such as coral reefs will occur.
But political division has grown over the measures needed to tackle climate change, even as the costs of clean energy have plummeted and the impacts of rising temperatures such as heatwaves and wildfires have become more severe.
The Conservatives claimed the Act has forced ministers to bring in regulations that pushed up energy bills, hit growth and supported wood-burning power stations such as Drax, and shifted British industry abroad.
While UK emissions have halved since 1990, global climate pollution has increased and countries such as China have not followed Britain’s lead, the party said.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: “Despite our efforts, emissions around the world are rising.
“When things aren’t working, we should say so.
“Our priority will be to make energy cheap, double down on innovation and protect nature.”
Friends of the Earth chief executive Asad Rehman said the move would put the Tories in the company of “climate denialists, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists” who want to ignore the effects of climate change.
He said: “For a mainstream political party to turn its back on the science in a desperate race to the bottom with those being bankrolled by discredited billionaires and dirty business, who want to stop climate action because it threatens their profits, is political suicide.”
Ed Matthew, UK programme director for the independent climate change think tank E3G, said: “The Climate Change Act was a world first for the UK government and has cleaned up our air, created hundreds of thousands of jobs in clean energy, saved households hundreds of pounds on their energy bills, and increased investment in measures to protect people from flooding.
“Repealing this Act would be a monstrous act of economic and environmental vandalism and sends a clear signal that the Conservatives care far more about the profits of oil and gas companies than they do about the British people.”
Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said there is “no way to lower bills or energy security by prolonging our dependence on gas” and that doing so would “increase the misery of people unable to afford the sky-high prices”.
