Description
Between 1990 and 2021 the UK had the fastest rate of emissions reductions in the G7. Scholars have identified the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act, and the relative weakness of British fossil fuel interests, as fundamental to this relative success. Drawing on critical political economy and political theory, in this paper I ask instead how the links between the British political economy, climate change politics and the development of its climate governance institutions have shaped the nature and adequacy of its response to climate change. By reinterpreting the political effort to establish the Climate Change Act between 2005-2008, and the first phase of its operation between 2008-2019, I argue that the Climate Change Act should be understood as part of the neoliberal project to insulate capitalism from democracy. The Act worked to depoliticise an emissions pathway that prioritised protecting the returns of various fossil fuel interests over addressing climate breakdown. However, since 2019 the interaction between the pressures of the UK’s 2050 net zero target, the rightward drift of the Conservative party, and the rise of the UK climate movement have plunged this system of climate governance into crisis.
