Why was Boris Johnson hit by a backlash over his net zero strategy?

Ministers hailed their long-awaited plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as groundbreaking and world-leading. Boris Johnson said: “Our strategy sets the example for other countries to build back greener too as we lead the charge towards global net zero.”

But the government suffered a backlash – even though it omitted some unpalatable measures such as road pricing and a total ban on new gas boilers being fitted from 2035, which is now an “ambition”. Ministers may return to both ideas.

Mr Johnson was braced for green campaigners to argue the plan lacked detail and relied too heavily on private sector investment of up to £90bn by 2030, and they duly did. While some groups welcomed the strategy as an important step forward, Friends of the Earth described it as “riddled with holes and omissions”.

However, Mr Johnson would have hoped to avoid the unfriendly fire he got from Rishi Sunak. The chancellor was not among the 14 figures who issued supportive quotes in the government’s press release. Worse still, he grabbed negative headlines by issuing a Treasury document warning that taxes might need to rise or public spending be cut to pay for the transition to net zero. That jarred with Mr Johnson’s typically upbeat declaration that “we are going to build back greener without a hair shirt in sight”.

The government did win some better headlines about its plan to give householders £5,000 grants towards the cost of replacing their gas boilers with heat pumps. But the “day two” reaction was less favourable because the £450m subsidy would fund 90,000 payments over three years – a long way from the government’s target for 600,000 heat pumps a year to be installed from 2028.

The soft-pedalling on some unpopular proposals failed to prevent a hostile reaction from the Net Zero Watch group of Tory MPs, who predict the cost of the transition to individuals will provoke a voter backlash. Craig Mackinlay, its leader, told LBC: “I don’t feel this is a very Conservative policy when you are asking my constituents to be colder and poorer.”

Although battles with his own MPs lie ahead, Mr Johnson’s immediate priority is to persuade other countries to sign up to similar commitments at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow starting on 31 October. Without his own blueprint, he would have entered the conference with little credibility.