Report: Job Destruction from Dismantling the UK’s Climate Action Policy Framework

A new report, ‘Job Destruction from Dismantling the UK’s Climate Action Policy Framework’, by Transition Economics, reveals that Reform UK’s plan for a reversal of UK climate policies would result in enormous job losses, undermine future economic opportunities, and disproportionately impact already vulnerable regions.

The research, commissioned by Oil Change UK and Friends of the Earth Scotland, found that by scrapping support for renewable energy and net zero industries, nearly 500,000 UK jobs would be destroyed within three years – comparable to almost every teacher in the UK losing their jobs.

Since 2022, support for climate action and net zero policy in the UK have shifted from a shared national goal to a polarised battlefield of the political elite. Focusing on Reform UK, the clearest and most developed force pushing to dismantle climate policy in British politics, the report warns that the party’s rollback would lead to the following:

• The destruction of nearly 500,000 existing UK jobs within three years
• Jobs lost across industries including renewable energy generation, insulating homes, public transport, electric vehicle manufacturing, and their supply chains
• By 2040, the UK could forgo up to 1.4 million jobs that the current policies would create or sustain
• Scotland would bear a disproportionate share of the impact with 13% of the short-term job destruction, despite comprising only 8% of the population
• Industrial heritage regions with few alternatives, such as North East England, East Anglia, the West Midlands, and Inverness and the North East Highlands, would be hit the hardest by job losses