The 2020 Budget fell far short of the urgency required by our climate crisis

Early this year, the Treasury told us that this Budget would prioritise the environment. But that’s definitely not what we got. £1bn was pledged to encourage use of low carbon transport, but so was an additional £27bn to build new roads. Relief on red diesel was abolished, but not for every sector. Home insulation was conspicuously absent, and there was little mention of our railways.

The government is set to host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November. But it’s hard to see how the package outlined by Rishi Sunak yesterday demonstrates that the UK is adequately responding to the climate emergency declared by parliament last year, or even how the government will meet its own emissions targets.

While detailing that road transport is responsible for 91% of domestic transport emissions, the 125-page document simultaneously announced a major roadbuilding scheme. Proudly unveiling it as the “biggest ever investment in strategic roads and motorways”, Sunak described how the government will be spending a total of £27bn on building new roads and expanding others by 2025. Hardly a modal shift away from cars.

The government has also decided to keep the freeze on fuel duty. The freeze introduced in 2011, in the midst of a government busily making ‘difficult choices’ as it instituted a decade of austerity, effectively deprives the exchequer of about £9bn a year. Money that could be spent on reducing emissions and improving air quality. And beyond that, it’s estimated that – all other things considered equal – CO2 emissions would be 5% lower without the freeze.

On the flip side, “this Budget invests £1bn in green transport solutions,” Sunak declared. The Chancellor announced £500m to build a network of charging points for electric vehicles, and £400m to partially reverse the cuts to subsidies for plug-in electric cars. The discrepancy in the numbers here betrays the government’s sense of priorities. Transitioning people away from using petrol and diesel cars came nowhere near the top of the Chancellor’s list.

We didn’t hear much about the our railways either. A sum of £20m to develop the West Midlands Rail Hub was included. Some of the funds from a ‘transforming cities’ pot will go towards station improvements. The Chancellor seemed most happy with the measures that would encourage road use and the 4,000 miles of tarmac the government would be laying down. It’s clear that the emphasis for the government is not about making any real move away from cars in general.

The Chancellor abolished the relief for red diesel for most sectors, which is a welcome move. He billed it as getting rid of a £2.4bn tax break for pollution. Red diesel accounts for about 15% of all diesel consumed in the country, and costs just 11.14p per litre compared to 57.95p for regular diesel. But the announcement is not all it seems – agriculture and railway, as well fishing and domestic heating, are exempt. The fuel is heavily used in agriculture, and powers about 90% of all rail freight in the UK.

Sunak also pledged £800m to create two carbon capture projects, and a plastic packaging tax as well. But none of measures outlined yesterday bring the quick and transformative change to mirror the urgency of the language of a ‘climate emergency’, as declared by parliament last year. Just a brief glance at the content of the Budget, in terms of where the government is placing its money, demonstrates where its priorities lie.

The Conservatives have committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 – a target that is heavily criticised by many green groups for being too late. And regardless of how you feel about the that, the government is way-off track in reaching it – Jeremy Corbyn suggested by as much as 49 years making it a too little, too late change. Recent analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research stated that additional funding of £33bn per year is required for the UK to reach its own 2050 target. This Budget was far short of that.

And we’re at a critical point in time. We are two years on from the moment at which the UN said we had 12 years to keep global warming below 1.5C and avert climate catastrophe. Many experts – and probably a lot of people whose houses were flooded in the UK, or whose homes were destroyed by fire in Australia – would say that we’re past that.