We must stick with net zero pledge, Grant Shapps tells Tory sceptics

Energy secretary Grant Shapps has warned senior Conservatives pushing for Rishi Sunak to ditch green polices that the government’s net zero pledge remained vital. The cabinet minister said global climate change threatened Britain’s security and energy supply, as he fired back at Tory MPs calling for No 10 to scrap measures deemed too costly. ‘We can’t have global security without net zero,’ Mr Shapps told Politico. ‘There’s no global security if millions of people are having to uproot because of weather patterns.’ Mr Sunak appeared to shift his tone away from green policies after his party unexpectedly clung onto their Uxbridge seat by pouncing upon the backlash against the London mayor’s Ulez anti-air pollution charge on drivers. The PM – who said he was on the side of motorists and ‘banning things’ is not the right approach – also gave the green light to over 100 new oil and gas licenses, despite opposition from environmentalists and green Tories. Some Tory backbenchers have urged Mr Sunak to go further and get rid of planned bans on new oil boilers by 2026 and new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030. But Mr Shapps has sent a strong signal that he believes in the push away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, arguing it was vital part of the promise to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The energy secretary that ‘part of the answer’ to energy supply problems was found in ‘the need to diversify from fossil fuels’. He added: ‘Greater diversity could actually give us much greater security.’ He said: ‘Imagine if the UK hadn’t moved from less than 7 per cent renewables to – as we see in the first quarter of 2023 – 47 per cent renewables. Imagine that hadn’t happened and we went into the energy shock. What would the impact have been?’ Rishi Sunak with Grant Shapps Mr Shapps announced plans for Britain to host an international summit on energy security next year, pencilling it in for spring 2024 to coincide with the second anniversary of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Referring to the need to move away from fossil fuel dependence, he said: ‘[The energy security summit] will be about getting to net zero, ultimately. From an energy security point of view, it’s important that we do both.’ Defending the new licenses, he added: ‘We’re not going to do it while screwing our population. We’re going to do it while taking our population with us. That means accessing our own oil and gas rather than importing [it from] others.’ Mr Sunak is under pressure from two warring Tory camps: the Conservative Environment Network, pushing for stronger action on climate change, and the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, lobbying for policies to be watered down. Net zero sceptics want the PM to build on the success of the anti-Ulez byelection in Uxbridge by scrapping Boris Johnson ‘s policy of banning the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030. Sunak accused of being ‘uninterested’ in fulfiling Boris Johnson’s climate policies He also faces a rebellion on the de factor ban on oil boilers from 2026, which mostly affects those living in off-grid homes in the countryside. Ex-environment secretary George Eustice described the policy as ‘Ulez for rural communities’. Former home secretary Priti Patel said the government should pause all its climate targets, while Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said the country ‘cannot afford net zero as currently planned’. Mr Sunak has angered green Tories in recent weeks, after signalled his sympathy with those worried about the cost of climate policies by saying he doesn’t want to ‘hassle’ families with net zero. Former energy minister Chris Skidmore, who led the government’s net zero review, said the decision to 100 new fossil fuel licenses was ‘the wrong decision at the wrong time’ and warned the PM that he risked being on the ‘wrong side of history.’ And Tory peer Lord Zac Goldsmith told the BBC this week that he is ‘very tempted’ to back  Labour  at the next general election because of the government’s failed to push on with net zero commitments. The staunch Johnson ally recently quit Mr Sunak’s government in a blaze of acrimony and accused the PM of being ‘uninterested’ in the climate emergency. Rob Ford, professor of politics at Manchester University, told Politico that U-turning on net-zero policies would ‘cost more votes than it will gain’, because the ‘only people who will pay attention to it are the people who don’t like it’.