We’re now halfway through the UK government’s critical decade for tackling climate change – and 2025 is fast becoming a year of climate U-turns.

Airport expansions have been approved, the phaseout of gas-fired boilers shelved and, under the government’s latest industrial strategy, green levies on industrial energy bills that support renewables have been slashed. All while key indicators of global climate stability are deteriorating.

As carbon budget and energy policy researchers, we believe the UK’s official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), are failing to hold the government accountable for backsliding on climate action.

Worse still, the CCC’s recommendation that the UK reach net zero emissions by 2050 does not align with international commitments to limit global warming to 1.5°C and “well below 2°C”. It also fails to reflect the UN principle of fairness and equity whereby wealthier nations like the UK cut emissions earlier and faster than poorer countries.

In fact, it systematically undermines these promises, with the CCC’s 2025 seventh carbon budget (a landmark report that advises the UK government how to tackle its emissions for the period 2025-2050) a case in........

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