We’re in court tomorrow to stop Ministers hiding vital data on net zero

We’re in the High Court tomorrow to force the Government to come clean on the risks that beset their plans to reach net zero by 2050.

Following the landmark victory we won in 2022, the court ordered the Government to go back to the drawing board and produce a net zero strategy that is fit for purpose. 

But the revised plan does not set out the Government’s assessments of the risks that some of its key policies face.

Without these risk tables, there’s no way of telling whether the Tories’ net zero plans will work. And keeping them under wraps is a clear breach of the Climate Change Act. So we teamed up with Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth again to hold the Government to account. 

Since July, Good Law Project has demanded that Ministers publish these assessments so they can be scrutinised by Parliament, experts and the public. But they have repeatedly refused. 

According to Good Law Project’s Legal Director Emma Dearnaley, Ministers have “stubbornly” kept legal information under lock and key “to save embarrassment.”

“With so much at stake for our planet and our economy,” Dearnaley said, “this needs to change. So as soon as the risk tables are mentioned in court, we plan to publish them for all to see.”

What exactly is in these risk tables that Ministers have been so determined to hide?

We’re about to find out in court. 

The hearing will take place over three days from 20th February.

• Good Law Project’s challenge is part of a wider, multi-pronged legal challenge against the Government’s latest net zero plan, with Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth. Anything you can give to support our side of this legal challenge will help us make positive change.