Recommendation 28

HM Government Acknowledged

Placing climate at the centre of Government decision-making is vital to ensure the UK remains on track to achieving net zero emissions. Our governance is a critical way that we understand the links across Net Zero, and between Net Zero and other priorities. Net Zero and adaptation are at the heart of Government decision-making, and this is driven, first and foremost, by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister chairs the Climate Action Strategy Committee (CASC) which considers matters relating to the delivery of the UK’s domestic and international climate strategy. The COP26 President chairs the Climate Action Implementation Committee which considers matters relating to the delivery of COP26, Net Zero and building the UK’s resilience to climate impacts. The Climate Action Committees and supporting governance structures help to drive progress by creating multiple forums empowered to identify and address interdependencies both within Net Zero and with other Governmental priorities. These committees are supported by well-established and robust governance at official level – including a cross-government Director General group that was established in 2019 to ensure a whole-of-government approach to climate policy, with oversight at the most senior levels. Chaired by the BEIS Director General for Net Zero Strategy and International, this group brings together officials from across Government to support the delivery of significant climate announcements, including those contained in the Net Zero Strategy (NZS). Good policymaking requires strong management of trade-offs and interdependencies across different priorities. In the past few years, the Government has gone further than ever before to ensure the climate is at the heart of our decision-making Alongside the establishment of the CASC and associated governance structures, additional steps are being taken to further improve coordination across Government, these include: • The introduction of new approaches to embed Net Zero in spending decisions, including requiring departments to include the greenhouse gas emissions of their spending review bids, and their impact on legally binding emissions targets. • The announcement, through the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, that tackling climate change and biodiversity loss will be the Government‘s number one international priority • The adoption, via the Environment Bill, of a requirement that the Government reflects environmental issues in national policymaking. The Government already comprehensively reports the UK’s historic emissions since 1990 and publishes projections of future emissions. The UK’s ‘Energy and Emissions Projections’ (EEP) is a world-leading approach to projecting the UK’s annual emissions, by sector, according to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change guidelines. Alongside this, the Government responds annually to the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) Progress Report on Mitigation, including a comprehensive set of answers to the ‘Joint Recommendations’ that we are given each year. As well as the EEP and the annual response to the CCC, the Government has committed in the NZS to provide a public update every year, from 2022, on progress against the delivery pathway to Net Zero set out in the Strategy. This will include: • Progress against a set of at least 24 clear ambitions and targets across different sectors of the economy – a list that will build over time to incorporate additional Government targets and wider non-Government indicators of progress. • Commentary on contextual changes that might affect the exact pathway to meeting our decarbonisation commitments. • A summary of key areas of progress made against the overall package of policies and proposals in the Strategy. This public update will be combined with our response to the CCC’s Annual Progress Report on Mitigation.