75% of Brits Think the UK Will Not Hit Net Zero Target

Three quarters of UK adults say they think the government will not hit its goal of decarbonising all sectors of the economy by 2050, according to a survey conducted by YouGov. Out of more than 3,200 people, only 10 percent said they thought it was likely the UK would reach its targets.

The survey comes in the wake of the UK’s announcement of its new energy plan “Powering Up Britain”, by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. In addition to the expansion of wind farms and renewable energy, the paper also says that the UK will continue to rely mostly on fossil fuels and that it will meet its net zero commitments through the growth of carbon capture technologies. This solution has been heavily criticized by experts for not being an interchangeable option for renewable energy, especially since the technology is “yet to be proved at scale.”

When asked how well the government is handling the issue of climate change in comparison to other countries, YouGov found that more than half of UK respondents thought that the UK government was either doing the same or better than other nations, while one in five thought the UK was actively falling behind.