Former Prime Minister Theresa May has described Kemi Badenoch’s promise to repeal the Climate Change Act as a “catastrophic mistake”, joining a chorus of senior Tories, business leaders, and the Church of England in condemning the plan. The Conservative leader’s proposal would remove the requirement for governments to set five-yearly carbon budgets up to 2050, dismantling a cornerstone of UK climate policy that has enjoyed cross-party support since 2008.
May called the move “retrograde”, warning it would break 17 years of political and scientific consensus. “To row back now would be a catastrophic mistake,” she said, adding that the UK owed it to future generations to protect the planet and provide business certainty. Alok Sharma, the Conservative former minister and COP26 president, said the act had attracted tens of billions in private investment and jobs, and warned that abandoning it risked future investment and international standing.
Lord Deben, a former environment secretary under Margaret Thatcher, said none of Badenoch’s predecessors would have countenanced such a step. “This is not what Margaret Thatcher would have done,” he told the Guardian. Business leaders also voiced alarm. Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of the CBI, said scrapping the act would be a “backwards step” for economic growth, energy security, and environmental protection. She noted that the energy transition added £83bn to the economy last year and supported nearly a million jobs.
Repealing the act could also harm British exports under the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, which imposes levies on countries without adequate carbon pricing. The move is seen as an attempt to position the Tories closer to the Reform party, whose senior leaders deny climate science. Green Tories have expressed increasing concern at Badenoch’s shift on energy and net zero policy.
