Foreword from the Net Zero Review Chair

The UK's leadership on tackling climate change has not only delivered real change at home - reducing our carbon dioxide emissions over the past twenty years by nearly 50% compared to 1990 levels - it has led to a global transformation in how countries and companies now view the importance of taking action on net zero. Thanks to the UK's Presidency of COP26, the Glasgow Climate Pact in November 2021 witnessed over 90% of the world's GDP commit to a net zero target.

Indeed, the rest of the world, along with international investment communities, has woken up to the fact that the energy transition is a new economic reality. 2022 marked a watershed moment for global investment in net zero - not least from the US' Inflation Reduction Act, with its commitment of placing clean technologies at the heart of future economic strategy.

The global reality of the energy security crisis and rising gas and fossil fuel prices in 2022 has also demonstrated the importance of delivering future energy security through the greater use of domestically generated renewable and clean sources of power, while seeking to better reduce energy demand.

Forty-two months on, then, much has changed. For this reason, this Independent Review of Net Zero was commissioned in September 2022, to ask how the UK could better meet its net zero commitments, taking account of these global changes. It was commissioned also to ask how the UK might deliver its own net zero targets in a manner that was both more affordable, more efficient, and in a pro-business and pro-enterprise way. Indeed, net zero, decarbonisation and clean energy growth will only happen if it delivers the economic benefits that can demonstrate to the whole of society the true value of the energy transition.

It is for the whole of society that net zero needs to work, and for this reason the Review has taken a whole of society approach to our evidence gathering. The Review has sought to engage, listen, and learn from businesses, organisations, industries, and communities from across the UK. We received over 1800 written submissions as part of our official Call for Evidence - testament to the strong interest in delivering on net zero - as well as holding over 50 evidence roundtables, visiting every devolved nation in the UK and each region in England, and speaking personally to a thousand participants in our engagement sessions. It is their voices and views that this Review has sought to represent, as one of the largest national engagement exercises on the future of net zero and its role in the UK economy.

The recommendations that have been made in this Review have come from this extensive engagement. We have sought to understand not only the barriers that are preventing businesses, regions, communities, and households from taking further action to decarbonise, but also to explore the opportunities that can catalyse further economic growth.

Above all, this Review has sought to ask how the UK can deliver on its net zero commitments by demonstrating how to deliver and implement most effectively and efficiently a plan for our future energy transition. Climate commitments and net zero targets remain just words on a page without a clear, consistent, and stable transition plan. I hope that this Independent Review can provide additional clarity and certainty on how the UK can not only meet its net zero commitments but can once again demonstrate international leadership in setting out a comprehensive roadmap towards a net zero future. While forty-two months may have passed since the UK signed net zero into law, there remain just three hundred and twenty-four months until 2050. Planning effectively for that net zero future must be our priority.

The Review's recommendations require not merely action, but careful decisions to be taken. Central to delivering net zero will be making the right decisions at the right time to ensure that we achieve net zero in the most efficient manner possible. Crucial to taking decisions, however, is recognising that to delay making them creates new consequences, the costs of which can be greater than previously anticipated. Equally, rushed and poorly executed decision making can produce adverse consequences with similar costs.

This Review has sought to establish how best to create a delivery ecosystem to achieve the best possible decisions for the future. This requires not merely government to play its role, but importantly to empower the agency of regions, local communities, and individuals to play a greater role in their own net zero journey. How we create a 'big bang' moment for net zero, enabling and unleashing the potential of the whole of the UK to seize the opportunities that net zero presents has been a key focus of this Review.

Across the Review, we have sought to make recommendations both for government, for each sector and industry, for local regions and authorities, indeed for individual households. Net zero decision making requires action not merely from government, but from all stakeholders involved. Not all these recommendations will be able to be implemented immediately: indeed, the overriding message of the Review is that we must deliver greater certainty, consistency, and clarity across net zero policy making, with a stability of approach that requires long term planning. There will be recommendations that have been made which can be taken forward now; there will be others that the government will be unable to take forward without further engagement and consultation with industry and communities. It is also understood that government will not be able to accept every recommendation, however where it can act now, we argue that the costs of doing so will be less if action is taken sooner. We have suggested therefore an approach that recognises what recommendations should be taken forward now, with a '25 by 2025' framework - twenty-five policies that could be realistically delivered by 2025 - alongside other wider recommendations.

As the former Energy Minister who was responsible for signing the UK's net zero commitment into law forty-two months ago, it has been an honour to chair this Independent Review on Net Zero. Not only have I witnessed first-hand what a catalysing effect the net zero commitment is having on business and industry across the UK, I have also been able to better understand the challenges and opportunities that net zero presents to UK businesses, communities, and households. Delivering on those challenges and meeting those opportunities is what I hope this Review has been able to achieve.

Rt Hon Chris Skidmore OBE