Burnham criticised for EV and North Sea approach amid climate crisis
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- Andy Burnham faced backlash for launching a consultation to cut UK EV sales targets to as low as 50% by 2030, down from the existing 80%, while defending a "pragmatic" approach to North Sea drilling — the same day he publicly linked UK wildfires to climate change for the first time as prime minister.
- The UK government deployed the military, banned disposable barbecue sales, and activated the national alert system for England and Wales after wildfires destroyed 19 homes and burned 200 hectares in the West Midlands, where temperatures hit 38C — the fifth hottest day ever recorded.
- Environmental groups including Greenpeace called new drilling at the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields "a Rubicon that he must not cross," with the Rosebank consultation closing Monday, just days after the UK's fifth heatwave of the summer.
- The Climate Change Committee identifies the EV switch as the single biggest contributor to cutting UK carbon pollution in the next decade; ECIU analysis says the most extreme 50% target option could reduce EV sales by up to 5.8 million and make the 2035 petrol/diesel ban harder to achieve.
- Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander defended the ZEV mandate review as keeping targets "pro-business and grounded in the real world," while Labour's own automotive lobby said the rules were "conceived under vastly different conditions."
- Labour has already watered down the EV mandate once, adding "flexibilities" loopholes last year for plug-in hybrids; this second rollback would extend those flexibilities to 2034, with the consultation running until 23 October.
Why it matters: The timing captures the contradiction: the same 24 hours saw Burnham publicly name climate change as the cause of UK wildfires and his government open a consultation to weaken the country's largest emissions-cutting policy. The Climate Change Committee calls the ZEV mandate the single biggest UK emissions reducer this decade, so any rollback directly threatens the viability of the 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars.
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