Our two wins against previous UK governments have produced a new, improved climate plan

Is the new plan up to scratch?

In October 2025, the UK government published its new revised climate plan as a result of our Court victories.

After a quick first look, this is what we like:

-The government delivered the plan by the Court-ordered deadline

-The government says it has now fully taken risk into account regarding its emissions projections - a key requirement of the High Court’s judgment

-There appears to be a real focus on job creation and lowering bills

-...As seen in the commitment to funding the Warm Homes Plan and community energy, as well as doubling clean energy jobs to 800,000

-There is a focus on nature-based solutions including tree planting, peatland restoration and support for more sustainable agriculture

But we still have concerns around certain areas:

- It appears that substantial amounts of public money and government support will still be channeled into high-risk climate solutions like CCS, hydrogen, ‘sustainable aviation fuel’ and bioenergy 

- This diverts support away from proven solutions that will work at scale and deliver high-impact benefits for people and planet, like public transport and home insulation 

-There’s an assumption that AI will play a part in meeting emissions targets, but this doesn’t seem to account for the energy and water demand of megascale data centres

At first look, we were encouraged by some positive signs that point to the overall credibility of the plan, and pleased that our Court judgment appears to have driven this.

What had the Court ordered?

Following our hearing in 2022, the Government was ordered by the High Court to publish a revised Net Zero strategy. In March 2023 they did just that. But we still didn't think it met the minimum legal standards. The new plan relied on high-risk and unproven technologies to tackle climate change, as well as vague and uncertain proposals. This approach doesn't stand up to the basic requirements of the Climate Change Act, which is why we brought a judicial review of the plans in June 2023. 

So, alongside our partners Friends of the Earth and Good Law Project, in February 2024 we went back to Court against the government, and the Court once again ruled in our favour, ordering the government to produce another revised plan.

“The courts have now told the UK government not once, but twice, that its climate strategy is not fit for purpose. This time the court made it emphatically clear: the government cannot just cross its fingers and hope for high-risk technologies and uncertain policies to plug the huge gaps in its plans.  

“No more pie in the sky – this judgment means the government must now take real, credible action to address the climate crisis with a plan that can actually be trusted to deliver and with numbers that can be relied on.  

“As its own expert advisors have repeatedly said, the government has a golden opportunity to reduce emissions with actions that will also create jobs, improve services and bring down household bills. 

“Actions such as public transport investment and a home insulation roll-out will create new jobs, lower costs and provide energy security now and for generations to come – as well as putting us on track to meet our legal targets.” 

Sam Hunter Jones, ClientEarth lawyer 

What was our argument in the second legal action? 

After the successful hearing in 2022, the High Court ruled that the government’s Net Zero Stategy was in breach of the Climate Change Act, and ordered the government to revise it. A new strategy – the ‘Carbon Budget Delivery Plan’ –  was delivered in March 2023. 

However, we still thought the revised strategy was inadequate, and failed to meet core requirements of the Climate Change Act. We argued:  

• The strategy didn’t adequately address the very real risks that many of its key policies won’t deliver the cuts needed to meet the government’s legally-binding climate targets. 
• The Minister lacked sufficient information on the level of risk to delivery of the plans when they were approved. 
• The plan stated that many of the future technologies it relies on to deliver emissions reductions are high risk, while many of the proposals are vague and uncertain, which raises serious questions about whether or not the emissions reductions will be achieved in full, as the plan assumed. 

We are pleased that ClientEarth, through taking action in this case and in our 2022 case, can help ensure that the UK Climate Change Act – one of the world’s first pieces of long-term domestic climate legislation – is being implemented by the government in a way that makes the actual achievement of its Net Zero target a realistic proposition.

Kyle Lischak, ClientEarth Head of UK 

What was our argument in the first legal action? 

In January 2022 we submitted a landmark climate case to the High Court. After it was granted permission to proceed in March 2022, we teamed up with Friends of the Earth and Good Law Project for a full hearing in the High Court where our claims were heard together.  

During the hearing, we argued that the government had failed to show that its policies will reduce emissions sufficiently to meet its legally binding carbon budgets - targets which limit the total amount of greenhouse gases that the UK can emit over five year periods on the road to net zero.

We also argued that the net zero strategy failed to include enough information about the policies and their expected effects to allow Parliament and the public to properly scrutinise its plans. 

We said that these failings meant the UK government had breached its legal duties under the 2008 Climate Change Act.

Why did we decide to take action in the first place? 

On releasing the net zero strategy in October 2021, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government had centred its plans on the principle of “leaving the environment in a better state for the next generation” and releasing them of the financial burden of adapting to a warming planet. 

However, the government's latest published forecasts at the time showed the UK’s projected emissions in 2033-2037 being more than double the levels the government is legally required to adhere to. 

The government was also relying heavily on unproven technologies, whilst overlooking viable current solutions that would have immediate impact, including solutions recommended by the CCC. 

In addition to this, the government’s failure to deliver real climate action was resulting in higher bills for people. Soaring energy bills for many UK households is, in part, because of the over-reliance on fossil fuels for heating and poor levels of insulation across the country. Yet the plans to roll-out low carbon heating and home insulation were well below the levels advised by the CCC. 

Because we succeeded in this case, the government was obliged to strengthen its Net Zero Strategy, and actually show how its plans will deliver the emissions cuts it is legally bound to achieve, cuts that are critical to keeping a just and liveable world within reach. 

What are carbon budgets?

The Climate Change Act of 2008 legally binds the government to carbon budgets that set limits on the UK's greenhouse gas emissions during five-year periods. They include a target to be over three quarters of the way to net zero in the next 13 years. ‘Net zero’ means that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK is equal to or lower than the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere in the UK. The UK has also committed internationally to reduce its emissions by at least 68% by 2030 from 1990 levels, as part of its ‘Nationally Determined Contribution’ (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. 

Missing these targets would have severe consequences for the public’s future health and prosperity. To avoid this risk, the government has to show that its policies are sufficient to meet them. Our legal actions intend to make that happen.