UK scientists call on Party Leaders for ambitious action on climate change

408 members of the climate change research community have written an open letter to the Party Leaders in the run-up to the  general election to seek pledges for an ambitious programme of climate policies.

Signatories to the letter include Professor Dan Osborn, Chair of CPRE Sussex and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University College London.

The scientists call on Party Leaders to pledge to an ambitious programme of climate policies that accelerate action, in the UK and across the world, both to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to increase resilience to those impacts of climate change that cannot now be avoided. Without such a programme, the UK will be shirking its international responsibilities and will be losing the opportunity to promote prosperity and peace in the UK and around the globe.

Specifically, the scientists call on the Party Leaders to pledge to the following programme of action:

1. Publish and implement a credible and legal strategy for ending the UK’s contribution to climate change by meeting the UK’s statutory Carbon Budgets and its target of net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.
2. Accelerate action across all sectors and all parts of the UK to adapt and become more resilient to those impacts of climate change that cannot now be avoided, in line with UK Climate Change Risk Assessments.
3. Respect and act on all the advice of the expert independent Climate Change Committee, including its warning in its most recent Progress Report that “the UK will continue to need some oil and gas until it reaches Net Zero, but this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields”.
4. Lead by example internationally on climate change, including through the implementation of the decision at COP28 in Dubai in December 2023, and the commitment to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.
5. Increase public and private funding and support for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

Read the full open letter: Open_letter_to_Party_Leaders_June_2024