Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to fully scrap the UK's carbon tax regime if her party returns to power, extending earlier plans to remove the levy on electricity generation. The move would abolish the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), introduced by the Tories in 2021, which sets carbon limits on heavy industry, power, and aviation, as well as the carbon price support paid by fossil fuel electricity producers.
The Tories also vow to scrap the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), a levy on imported goods due to take effect in January 2025. Badenoch argued that carbon taxes and green levies are burdening British industry, saying: 'It’s time to reverse decades of deindustrialisation, by doing what Keir Starmer lacks the backbone to do: axe the Carbon Tax in its entirety.'
Labour criticised the pledge, with industry minister Chris McDonald calling it 'wrong' and accusing Badenoch of hypocrisy, noting she introduced ETS legislation as a Tory minister. He warned the unfunded commitment echoes Liz Truss's economic policies and would 'hammer industry.'
Jess Ralston of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said a well-designed CBAM could boost industry but relies on a UK carbon price. Without it, revenues from UK exports to the EU would go to Brussels. UK ExxonMobil chair Paul Greenwood backed reforming the system, calling the current one 'unfair' on UK refiners.
