26 June, 2026

This week, former Good Business team member and now Head of Sustainable Consumption at climate action charity Possible, Sarah Howden, has contributed a guest post, focused on the seventh annual carbon budget debate, which took place in Parliament this week.

Have you been feeling the heat this week? Us too.

Here in London, we’ve seen schools closing, trains breaking down and – tragically – a surge in heat-related deaths due to the extreme weather this week.

At the same time, on Wednesday, MPs gathered in Parliament to vote on the UK’s seventh carbon budget. The budget commits to cut the UK’s emissions by 87% by 2040 – a significant step towards our legally binding commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The good news is that it passed, but despite the temperature record for June being broken just hours before the vote, 94 MPs voted against it: the highest level of opposition to any carbon budget in history.

The timing couldn’t be more fitting. A heatwave red alert in June is a clear warning that we need to take climate change seriously, to protect vulnerable people in the here and now, and to reach net zero emissions to bring our climate back into balance.

Net zero means taking control of our country’s energy. The British public are already voting with their feet – with interest surging in net zero technologies like solar panels, batteries and EVs. Households are, rightly, seeking to shield themselves from the second oil and gas price crisis in of the decade pushing up bills yet again.

Simultaneously, the UK’s net zero economy is booming. It now supports the livelihoods of more than a million people, from the Scottish Central Belt, to Yorkshire, to North Wales. There are more than 22,000 small businesses in the net zero economy – including solar panel installers and electric car production line engineers. And they earn 11% higher than the national average wage. Meanwhile, jobs in the North Sea have been in decline for decades – with 90% of oil and gas already gone.

The vote on the carbon budget is extremely timely. Opposing net zero is out of touch with the needs of ordinary people – and the extreme heat on our doorstep. Now is the time to embrace the net zero economy, and the benefits it can bring for everyone.

By Sarah Howden