During a court case about its policy to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, lawyers for the UK government admitted that its strategy would only achieve 95 per cent of a legally mandated target

Environment 10 June 2022

UK prime minister Boris Johnson speaking at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK on 10 November 2021

Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Lawyers for the UK government have been in the High Court of Justice in London defending its flagship plan for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Three non-profit organisations, ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth and the Good Law Project, argued that the Net Zero Strategy was in breach of the 2008 Climate Change Act over its failure to set out how much individual policies will cut emissions.

Judgment on the case was reserved yesterday, …