Policymaking for the long term

Tara Singh is the Managing Director of Public Policy at Burson London. Prior to this she was the Global Lead of Integrated Power Policy and Advocacy at Shell and Head of Policy and Public Affairs for First Utility (now Shell Energy). She was the government’s special adviser on energy and environment from 2013 to 2015.

I was the Conservatives’ energy and environment adviser in Opposition, when we were hugging huskies, “Voting Blue to Go Green” and, most importantly, actively helping first David and then Ed Miliband pass the world’s first Climate Change Act. I was also David Cameron’s special adviser in Government, where we spent over a year arguing with the Treasury about carbon budgets, and then another year dismantling energy efficiency programmes to take £50 off bills during the last Russia/Ukraine crisis. In short, I have seen firsthand the story of Britain's climate action as one of pioneering ambition tempered by the realities of electoral cycles and shifting political winds, and below are a few thoughts on what this means.

First off, it's essential to grasp the unique political pressures that shape decision– making in the UK. While Westminster may appear highly centralised, with a majority government theoretically able to pass legislation swiftly, the reality is far more complex. The UK's First Past the Post electoral system, where small swings in key constituencies can determine national election outcomes, makes ministers and departments acutely sensitive to media pressure and public opinion. This results in an endless array of initiatives, frameworks and policy reversals as politicians attempt to control the media cycle.

It was indeed precisely to mitigate these inherent political pressures that the world’s first 2008 Climate Change Act was conceived. The Act sought to create a framework that transcended short–term electoral cycles, aiming to establish long–term, legally binding carbon budgets. By requiring governments to set these budgets 15 years ahead, the Act intended to foster cross–party consensus and provide the necessary certainty for business investment. In theory, this would insulate climate policy from the typical boom–and–bust short–termism that plagues other areas. On paper, it's been remarkably successful – UK emissions have fallen by approximately 48 percent since 1990, and the targets have been progressively strengthened from an initial 60 percent reduction to today's net zero commitment by 2050.

But dig deeper, and the picture becomes more complex. Much of this progress came from industrial decline alongside the scheduled decline of the UK’s ageing coal–fired power stations, brought offline a little early primarily through air quality rather than pure carbon legislation, plus the EU Emissions Trading System. Where we've genuinely excelled – like offshore wind – it's been through sustained policy commitment rather than the structures of the Act itself. For example, the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, which provided long–term revenue certainty for offshore wind developers, has driven costs down significantly, making it competitive with fossil fuels.

More tellingly, look at what hasn't been delivered: energy efficiency improvements in homes have consistently fallen short despite being one of the most cost–effective climate solutions. The UK's housing stock remains among the least energy–efficient in Europe. This Cinderella area for government funding is a direct result of what I call “Siemens Law”. Politicians are drawn to high–visibility, tangible projects like new factories, where they can don high–vis vests and hard hats for photo opportunities. Energy efficiency, on the other hand, lacks this political appeal and is almost always the first programme to be cut.

In sum, the fundamental challenge is that our political system rewards quick wins over patient investment. When I advised in Number 10, I saw how the relentless pressure of the electoral cycle pushed politicians toward eye–catching announcements rather than the unglamorous work of delivery. The media's focus on immediate costs rather than long–term benefits reinforces this dynamic. But is it any better elsewhere?

I used to point enviously to countries like Germany and the Netherlands, where coalition governments and more consensual political cultures seemed to enable more consistent policy–making. Germany's Energiewende (energy transition) aimed for a long– term shift to renewable energy, but even there, we're seeing climate consensus fracture in the face of sustained high energy prices. The reality is that if climate policies create too much short–term pain for voters, they become politically unsustainable regardless of institutional frameworks.

This also isn't unique to climate policy. The underlying dynamic – where electoral pressures lead to underinvestment in long–term outcomes – plays out across many policy areas, from HS2 to adult social care. In fact British–born Oliver Hart won the Nobel Prize for Economics a decade ago showing that private prison tenders are almost always a disaster because the government contracting the prison prioritise immediate cost reduction over quality of service. This tends to lead to poor staffing, crumbling facilities, prisoner discontent and ultimately bail–outs at a much higher cost, but one to a future rather than current government.

So what's the answer? In my view, we need to be realistic about human nature and political incentives.

Yes, we can look at strengthening our institutional frameworks. Giving parliament a greater role in scrutinising not just targets but detailed delivery plans could create stronger accountability. Independent bodies like the Climate Change Committee could be given more teeth, perhaps with courts given greater power to force compliance with carbon budgets – not through ceding enforcement to unelected quangos but by requiring Ministers to meet their own legislation or else overturn it. This “put up or shut up” approach would help guard against the “virtue signalling” of setting long–term targets with no plan to meet them, as has rightly been criticised by Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch.

And, yes, we should explore innovative financing mechanisms that spread costs more fairly between current and future generations, such as green bonds or carbon taxes with revenue recycling to support low–income households.

But ultimately, successful climate action requires building genuine public consent. Rather than trying to bypass political pressures, we need to work with them by developing solutions that deliver tangible near–term benefits alongside long–term climate gains.

Indeed, a key insight from another Nobel prize winner, Friedrich Hayek, is that written constitutions – and by extension, any laws – only work so long as they continue to secure the ongoing consent of the governed. Hayek argued that a constitution isn’t a fixed, magical set of rules that guarantees order; its force depends on the public's acceptance. If the people no longer see the rules as legitimate or beneficial, those rules lose their effectiveness.

Applied to climate policy, this means that even the most ambitious legislation, such as long–term carbon budgets or renewable energy targets, will only succeed if they resonate with and are supported by society. Without building a genuine social compact – where the public understands and consents to the trade–offs and benefits – climate measures risk becoming just another set of bureaucratic initiatives subject to reversal or neglect under shifting political pressures. Indeed, I would argue that our best chance of maintaining sustained climate action is by levering in the public and private investment required to ensure clean solutions become clearly superior to fossil fuels in terms of cost, convenience and capability. If UK energy policy continues to bet against the consumer – we simply won’t get where we need to go.

The good news is that the path forward isn't about revolutionary new frameworks, but about pragmatic evolution of what we already have: strengthening political commitment to carbon budgets, creating financing mechanisms that fairly distribute costs between generations and, most importantly, focusing relentlessly on the delivery of clean energy solutions that outcompete fossil fuels on their own merits. By making climate policy work for people today, we create the political space for the deeper transformations needed tomorrow. This isn't settling for less – it's the only realistic path to achieving more.

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Views expressed in this chapter are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Conservative Environment Network.