It sets out the UK and devolved governments’ legislation, policy, strategy, governance and monitoring arrangements, relevant to achieving net zero GHG emissions.

This work has several aims:

• To set out how the responsibilities and powers for achieving the net zero target are split between the UK government and each of the devolved governments.
• To provide insight and stimulate public discussion on each UK nation’s overall approach to achieving net zero.
• To support the scrutiny of governments’ arrangements to achieve net zero.
• To lay the foundations for potential further work on climate change by the UK’s public audit offices.

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our generation. The UK government and the devolved governments must act collectively to meet their objective of reducing GHG emissions across the UK to ‘net zero’ by 2050. The powers needed to do this sit with the UK government (reserved powers) and the governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (devolved powers). In looking across the UK, we have identified four key themes.