Evolving Disparity of Climate Policy Between English Regions: the Impact of Populist Politicians

Underpinned by cross party consensus, the UK was one of the first countries to enshrine net zero targets into legislation (updated Climate Change Act, 2008). However, rising climate scepticism, now given a platform within mainstream political dialogue through populist politicians (Reform Party), is affecting not just highly centralised UK climate governance but policy and action at local and regional levels. This comes at a time when the Climate Change Committee, the Act’s oversight body, has identified an ambition and implementation gap and emphasised that local place-based policy and action will be critical in reaching national net zero targets. Framed by major new English regional devolution (the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill), our research identifies evolving climate policy disparity and implementation gaps between English regions. There is evidence that this variation is exacerbated by populist political pressure on climate action. This contrasts with continuing government support for net zero and broad public approval for climate action. The research undertakes a mixed method approach, utilising textual analysis of public documents, reports and media commentary. These are drawn from materials between 2017-2025 and documents have been selected to include early adopting urban mayoral combined authorities to the current group of council devolution applicants. Findings from the text analysis have been triangulated with additional data and semi-structured interviews.