The climate math is straightforward even if the politics are not. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham warning that four pending policy decisions — approving the Rosebank oilfield, expanding Heathrow, relaxing electric vehicle mandates, and cutting heat pump grants — would collectively produce 402 million tonnes of CO2 over 25 years. That is more than 106 coal-fired power plants running for a year, and enough to blow the UK's carbon budgets. The core problem is institutional fragmentation. Each decision sits in a different department, owned by a different minister, subject to a different lobbying ecosystem. The Rosebank decision belongs to energy. Heathrow expansion lives with transport and the Treasury. EV mandates are an industry question. Heat pump grants fall under housing and environment. No single minister or process aggregates the cumulative carbon cost. Campaigners are asking Burnham to impose that aggregation from the top. The pattern is already in motion. Last week, the government approved drilling at the Jackdaw gasfield despite analysis showing it would create only 27 new jobs, fail to reduce living costs, and contribute little to tax revenues. The fossil fuel industry is now pressing for Rosebank, a larger and more controversial field west of Shetland. Car manufacturers have lobbied to halve the 2030 EV sales target from 80% to as low as 50%, which the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit calculates would generate future emissions equal to roughly 60% of Rosebank's output. Airlines want Heathrow expansion, which Chancellor John Healey strongly favours on growth grounds. The budget, due Wednesday, is expected to cut the boiler upgrade scheme that funds household heat pump installation. This is particularly counterproductive given the existing sluggishness of the transition from gas boilers and the context of volatile oil and gas prices that make electrification increasingly attractive economically. The government's defence rests on investment numbers: £110 billion announced in clean power over two years, plus record renewable energy auctions. A spokesperson insisted reindustrialisation would not mean reneging on climate obligations. But the campaigners' point is not that the government lacks green investment — it is that simultaneous high-carbon approvals in other departments silently cancel it out. Imogen Dow of Friends of the Earth framed the stakes in economic terms: the net zero economy has grown faster than the rest of the economy according to the CBI, renewable energy can reduce household bills, and rejecting high-carbon plans would build a "cleaner, more equal and more prosperous society." Doug Parr of Greenpeace warned that "the carbon bill may take a while to turn up, but there's hell to pay when it does." The structural question is whether the UK government has a mechanism for cumulative carbon accounting across departments, or whether climate commitments will continue to be honoured in headline targets while being quietly undermined by disaggregated approvals. The next few months — Rosebank, Heathrow, EV mandates, the budget — will answer that question concretely.
