In terms of reaching net zero by 2050, we're sort of on target at the moment, but we're

quite clearly going to go off target quite soon, unless you do a lot more.

Hello and welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. We're the charity in think tank that is all

about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.

I'm Sam Alvis, head of the Green Renewal Programme at Green Alliance.

A simple question for this week's podcast. Are we on track for net zero?

The UK has reduced emissions at the fastest rate in the world over the past decade.

They're now 45% lower than they were in 1990, which is ahead of 21% reductions in the US and 24% in the EU. Much of this fall has been driven by the energy sector, and especially the phase out of coal power.

But the success of the switch to renewables, which has been much faster than many expected, is covering for a lack of progress in more difficult sectors

like transport, buildings, land use or agriculture. Half of our emissions now come from just these

four sectors. The government's new nationally determined contribution, that's our emissions

reduction promise for the Glasgow Climate Summit, is for a 68% fall by 2030 from 1990 levels.

Based on current policies, Green Alliance's new net zero policy tracker shows that our

missions will be 40% higher than needed to hit this 2030 target.

You can dig into a bit more of the detail in the policy tracker, which you can find in the show notes.

Meeting our target and getting to

net zero then requires serious heavy lifting, and soon. Importantly, it means doubling our

annual spend on net zero from 21 to 43 billion. Not only that, policy change in these sectors

is much more visible to voters and their everyday lives than swapping the source of their power.

Well-designed, well-communicated policy, ensuring that it's in the public's interests is therefore going to be vital.

Without sufficient action, the UK is going to suffer on two fronts.

We'll fail to tie decarbonisation policies to the COVID recovery,

...