Will Keir Starmer be able to meet his new pledges?

In November 2023, a Labour press release, external talked about “leading the world with 100% clean power by 2030”.

The party’s election manifesto pledged “zero-carbon electricity by 2030”.

Starmer now says the government will achieve at least 95% clean power by 2030.

The prime minister was questioned repeatedly about whether this represented a change in the target but denied this.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO), the government’s independent system planner and operator for the energy transition, last month defined clean power as including, external less than 5% of generation from gas in a typical year.

It recently concluded that, external “it is possible to build, connect and operate a clean power system for Great Britain by 2030, while maintaining security of supply”.

However, it added that achieving this would be “at the limit of what is feasible”.

Additional reporting by Daniel Wainwright, William Dahlgreen, Mark Poynting and Gerry Georgieva.