Greens criticise ‘Reform UK administration’ at East Sussex County Council over plans to scrap carbon neutral commitment

The Green Party said the all-Reform Cabinet set out plans in September to end ESCC’s 2019 commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050.

The Greens said this report to Cabinet said that meeting the target could require investment of more than £200 million.

But Green councillors argue that Reform has not shown the savings that could be made by green infrastructure investments. The Greens said the figures used to justify dropping climate commitments only show gross costs and not how investment in green technologies and cutting emissions can save money.

Wendy Maples, Green Party county councillor for Lewes, said: “Clean, green, localised energy will attract funding, create local jobs, secure our energy supply, protect our environment, and give us a sustainable, liveable future.”

Christina Coleman, the former Green county councillor for Maresfield and Buxted, who recently switched to the Liberal Democrats, said: “Stopping investment in energy saving will only cost the council more in the long run. Reform’s plan points to replacing failing fossil fuel components, such as old oil boilers, with more oil boilers, locking us into fossil fuel dependency for decades to come. This is economic illiteracy in the face of increasingly volatile oil and gas prices.”

In response to the Greens’ points, ESCC Reform councillor Stephen Chapman said net zero targets are ‘crippling’ the UK economy and said they will not have an effect on climate change.

The Greens went on to say that the council’s climate plan, which was approved by Cabinet in January 2023, shows that £200 million is the gross bill and does not take account of lower energy bills. The Greens said that once these savings are counted, the same modelling ‘puts the net cost to 2050 at £50 million’. The Greens said it also does not show ‘increasing savings from cheaper green technology’ or ‘comparator risks from the volatile oil and gas market’.

Paul Keene, Green Party district councillor for Lewes Priory, said: “Reform’s papers showed councillors the bill and left out the savings.”

The Greens said the council has been cutting its energy use since 2007 and has invested in 235 energy-saving projects, about three quarters of them in schools, estimating that they save around £880,000 a year on energy bills. The Greens said programmes like this should not be curtailed and said there should be more.

A spokesperson for the Green Party said: “The Greens want the council to keep the 2050 target and do the cheapest, most rewarding work first: efficient lighting and controls, solar panels on schools and council buildings, and heat pumps fitted when old oil and gas boilers are due for replacement. They are asking the council’s Place Scrutiny Committee, which next meets on 30 November, not to endorse the plan until officers publish the full costs and savings, year by year, side by side.”

In a statement to this newspaper, councillor Stephen Chapman (Reform UK), Resource and Climate Resilience, ESCC, said the Greens have an ‘obsession’ with net zero, calling it ‘a naive belief that this will save the planet from Climate Change and bring economic prosperity to the UK’.

Councillor Chapman said: “The facts are that net zero targets are crippling the UK economy and will have no effect on Climate Change. Our energy prices are an order of magnitude higher than the USA and four times higher than the EU. You only need to look at your household energy bills or the cost of filling your car with petrol or diesel. The fundamental flaw with solar and wind farms, is that they are intermittent. Imagine depending on your car to get to work but if the sun was not shining or the wind was not blowing, you could not get to work.”

Councillor Chapman also said the UK produces ‘less than one percent of CO 2 global emissions’.

He continued: “ESCC have made it clear for those who care to listen, that they do not have a budget to spend on solar or heat pump conversions. The future savings quoted are taken out of context. The savings achieved to date have been by a combination of government funding and implementing the most cost-effective options, which have all been exhausted. During this time ESCC have indeed reduced their carbon emissions, however this includes credit from energy suppliers. Moreover, the net zero government funding schemes are now closed. We should not confuse good housekeeping (reducing energy consumption), with net zero.

“The policies that will be developed by ESCC will focus on Climate Resilience where practical, cost-effective solutions are deployed. Indeed, the government is moving in this direction and so we expect a change in funding in the future.

"In short, to expend ESCC funds on ‘Green initiatives’ would require funds being taken from other budgets, like adult social care. Given that this would make no difference to climate change; makes that choice quite simple. Moreover, the Green policies on net zero are no more than virtue signalling. Neither I, nor the residents of East Sussex voted to freeze to death on the moral high ground.”