Cost benefits vital to building support for emissions reduction

Delivering cost benefits for businesses and consumers is the single biggest step Government can take to build support for the energy transition, according to MPs.

The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee also urged the implementation of recommendations from its report on energy cost to reduce electricity prices and improve the competitiveness of UK businesses.

In its report on the energy transition it calls for further action to tackle the rise of misinformation about climate and the energy transition and recommends that the Government develops a dedicated strategy to engage SMEs in the energy transition.

It also argues that term net zero has become a distraction from the broader aims and the benefits of the energy transition.

“The public debate fails to reflect the wider benefits of engaging with the transition or the costs of not tackling climate change,” it said.

“Continued delivery of the UK’s targets for the energy transition will need more substantive communications of the need for change and the benefits will need to be more directly experienced by those being asked to change.”