Rishi Sunak has been floating a policy idea in recent months, to extend maths education for all school students up to the age of 18. But Sunak’s own calculations are highly suspect when it comes to his recent changes to climate change policy. His maths homework deserves harsh marking, as his calculations certainly don’t reflect the realities of climate change.
A poor political and mathematical calculation
After the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, which the Conservatives narrowly won, they concluded that stimulating the rage of voters opposed to the introduction of ULEZ (ultra-low emission zones) in London seats, as well as raising the spectre of costs to voters of implementing environmental policies more generally, could be vote winners.
Before the recent opening of parliament, policy announcements by Sunak included slowing the UK’s progress towards net zero by reducing greenhouse gas emissions less quickly; postponing the previous requirement for all new cars to be fuelled by non-fossil means until 2035 (from 2030); and delaying until 2035 the date from which gas boilers needing replacement would have to be replaced by more sustainable sources such as heat pumps. He had previously announced the issue of new licenses for exploiting oil and gas fields in British waters.
In the King’s speech at the recent opening of parliament, the relaxation of greenhouse gas reduction policies was prominent. Sunak’s maths education policy was not. This watering down of environmental policies can only be viewed as a reversal of the UK’s progress towards net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, without any clear analysis of the compensatory policies to be adopted.
Sunak made it sound as if the UK progress towards reaching net zero by 2050 is on track. It isn’t, and the new measures do not amount to a progressive, world-leading policy to move as fast as possible to net zero. The track the UK is currently on will miss the next two five-year cycle targets towards net zero 2050. The rate of progress in moving to net zero is ever more important. In light of the recent news that the past two years have seen no reduction in the annual global greenhouse gas emissions, acting quickly is more important than ever.
Maths can be deceptive
One example is the 50% reduction in UK carbon emissions since 1990. The UK’s past record sounds impressive. However, it is based almost entirely on replacing coal-fired energy with natural gas. This level of reduction cannot continue using the initial strategy alone. Meanwhile, the contributions of transport and domestic heating to UK carbon emissions, both sizeable, have hardly shifted in the UK for ten years.
Another more calculated fudge is the ‘sales’ ploy of disguising the significant cost of buying something by reducing it to seemingly insignificant amounts. For example, pricing something as ‘less than the price of a cup of coffee a day’. A daily spend of £3 for a coffee on just 250 days a year, would amount to a total of £750. Sunak deployed a variation of this argument as a partial justification for delaying the progress to net zero when he said that the UK’s contribution is small compared with the major emitters – the USA and China.
In doing so, he abandoned global leadership, in effect, giving countries whose individual contributions appear relatively small, license to follow the UK’s reversal of commitments. His maths fail is in ignoring the aggregate of all these ‘inconsequential’ contributions, which add up to a significant 35% of global emissions. The top ten national emitters collectively generate approximately 65% of global emissions, but the tenth biggest (Mexico) emits only 1.62% of the total.
China, as the world’s major manufacturer, emits carbon mainly on behalf of western developed countries with their relentless hunger for cheap goods. Citing China as the biggest carbon emitter without admitting our part in that standing is a convenient denial of our true global contribution.
A recent study on carbon emissions reports that total worldwide emissions increased in the past two years. From 2023 it was estimated that greenhouse gas reductions would need to be 45% by 2030 globally to stay on track for a maximum 1.5ºC of warming by 2050. Every day that pathway is narrowed, the chance of meeting the 1.5ºC target is reduced. Some argue it has already closed.
The UK’s global leadership has been sunk by Sunak
The UK’s claim to global leadership lies in its carbon reduction record. Sunak has undermined that position both morally and practically. His idea that we’ve earned the right to postpone commitments because we’ve done better than most countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires a warped understanding of how climate change works.
It’s impossible to delay the reduction of carbon emissions without adding unnecessarily to global heating. Countries that can achieve reductions and then don’t, are willingly adding to the greenhouse gas burden. Once in the atmosphere greenhouse gases are locked in for decades.
Analogies are rarely perfect but there’s a reasonably close one Sunak should relate to. He seeks praise for fighting inflation in the economy because of its damaging effect on the cost of living. But even here, Sunak and his ministers rely on an illusion, by presenting falling inflation as if it were a reduction in living costs. It’s not. It’s just that living costs aren’t escalating as fast as previously – but they’re still escalating.
Both inflation and carbon emission are rate-of-change effects. Once in their respective systems, inflation or emissions are ‘locked in’ as increasingly detrimental effects (on living costs and global warming respectively) until the rate at which they change reaches zero or below.
There’s some irony in Sunak’s extended maths education policy. If more people understood how rates of change and therefore how inflation and other compounding relationships work, Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, could no longer talk about slowing the rate at which carbon is emitted, or inflation is lowered, as if they were positive achievements.
The scope for an honest debate
Sunak argues that an honest debate is needed on the means to reach zero carbon by 2050. Such debate is welcome. It requires honesty about climate change effects and about the necessity of moving towards zero carbon as quickly as possible, not delaying action for perceived political gain. We need honesty about the threat to our environment and the cost of not tackling it now. Let’s not pretend the government has no option but to burden all households and landlords with Sunak’s dodgy costings for the measures available now to combat climate change. The world we inhabit now will be uninhabitable for many if we don’t renew and accelerate our progress to achieving net zero by 2050. Better maths would help. Prime minister, let’s see some.
