As Keir Starmer promised when he moved into Downing Street last summer, the Labour PM wants to take the opposite tack from his Conservative predecessor, Rishi Sunak, by once again making the UK a country at the forefront of the battle against global warming. From Baku, which is hosting COP29, the British leader announced on Tuesday, November 12, an ambitious target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. The country's previous interim target was a 68% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – with the objective still being to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

"This COP, the UK has sent a clear message [...]: We are a key partner for countries, for investors and for businesses, and we are renewing UK climate leadership," said Starmer, from the capital of Azerbaijan, the Briton being one of the few Western leaders to have made the trip to the shores of the Caspian Sea (unlike French President Emmanuel Macron or German Chancellor Olaf Scholz). This is in stark contrast to Sunak, who, on his arrival at Downing Street in the autumn of 2022, initially ruled out attending COP27 (in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt) before changing his mind to nip controversy in the bud.

The elected Conservative had subsequently delayed – from 2030 to 2035 – the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, and refused to facilitate the establishment of onshore wind farms, in the hope of capturing votes on the far-right (without much success, in view of the Conservatives' failure in last July's general election). For Starmer, who has made growth his "top priority," taking the lead on the climate transition will provide "better jobs" and "cheaper bills" for Britons and equip the country "with the technologies of the future." He also placed the country's climate ambitions under the banner of security: "There is no national security, there is no economic security, there is no global security without climate security," said the leader, in Baku.

The UK's new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is in line with the recommendation of the Commission on Climate Change (CCC), an independent body advising the government on its climate policy. The CCC ruled in October that an 81% emissions cut by 2035 was realistic. The Starmer government has already announced that it intends to achieve 100% decarbonized domestic energy production by 2030, thanks in particular to a massive increase in the production capacity of North Sea wind farms. The country's last coal-fired power station closed on September 30, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire.

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