Are We Giving Up on the Fight Against Climate Change?

­There seems to be a slow but definite change in our determination to tackle climate change since the COVID-19 pandemic. It always has been difficult to get politicians to enact Net Zero policies, but now they seem to be pushing back on even the small measures they have already passed, such as phasing out the sale of ICE vehicles.

Ironically, these changes may be needed more than ever. According to the Met Office, 2024 was the warmest year on record globally and the first year that the temperature reached over 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement seeks to keep the global temperature rise under 2^oC higher than pre-industrial levels but has also warned that even a 1.5^oC rise would cause “frequent and intense extreme weather events”. The 1.5^oC figure must be an average temperature over a longer period of time, but it is still pretty frightening to have breached that level for the first time, especially on an increasing trajectory.

In the US, President Trump has always been critical of EVs and renewable energy. Since he has taken office, he has rolled back many of the Biden era initiatives on fighting climate change, and while the US has never really embraced the adoption of EVs and installation of renewable energy generation as wholeheartedly as other regions, it had been making some steady progress.

Outside the US, in the UK and Europe, far right parties such as AfD in Germany and Reform in the UK have been gaining ground, and a large part of their policy manifesto is to abandon Net Zero initiatives completely. Even mainstream parties, such as the Conservative party in the UK, have retreated on Net Zero promises, announcing they are “making energy more expensive and hurting our economy”. The government under the Labour party has cut its pledge to spend £28bn on climate change policies down to £5bn, and even that smaller figure is not committed to concrete policies. In Germany, the CDU are looking to build a coalition to run the country and will compromise on green policies to please potential partners. Other European countries are in a similar situation.

In the shorter term, moving to Net Zero may have a slight negative impact on the economy, but if everyone agreed to go through the process together, it would affect everyone in the same way. There are also many advantages that are more difficult to financially quantify, such as having less pollution and lower cost energy in the longer term. Also, the cost of protecting from, and repairing after, the more frequent, larger and impactful extreme weather events should ensure that fighting against climate change is actually the cheaper option, especially if you live in an area that is susceptible to extreme weather events. 

The answer to the question in the title will have profound implications for our own industry. EVs and renewable energy are currently two of its largest driving factors. Any reduction in mandates and incentives would surely hurt innovation and reduce sales.