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Andy Burnham’s new Energy Secretary called for Britain to hit net zero within 10 years rather than the current target of reaching net zero by 2050.
Writing in an essay in the Foreign Affairs magazine in 2019, Miatta Fahnbulleh said the UK should try to hit net zero by the mid-2030s at the latest and called for a “global Green New Deal”.
She wrote: “The goal should be net zero carbon emissions within 10 to 15 years, which will require governments to make significant investments in green infrastructure.”
To pay for it, Ms Fahnbulleh has called for wealth taxes and higher borrowing.
Britain is trying to decarbonise its power system by 2030 and achieve net zero across the economy by 2050, meaning no net greenhouse gas emissions.
Achieving this target is already hugely ambitious as it will require the replacement of millions of gas boilers, the shift away from petrol and diesel cars to electric vehicles and the reengineering of large swathes of industry.
In the same 2019 essay, Ms Fahnbulleh called for “quotas for the use of fossil fuel energy” to help tackle climate change. She has also advocated an even tougher windfall tax on oil and gas company profits.
Mr Burnham has signalled that he will look more favourably on fossil fuel exploration in the North Sea, prompting optimism in the oil and gas industry.
However, Ms Fahnbulleh’s past comments suggest she may not soften Labour’s position significantly after replacing Ed Miliband as energy secretary. Opponents argue that the Government is already going too fast on net zero, driving up energy prices and crippling industry in the process.
Before entering Parliament in 2024, Ms Fahnbulleh headed the New Economics Foundation, a Left-leaning think tank, which under her leadership advocated a tax on frequent flyers and lower interest rates for green energy investments.
After her election as MP for Peckham, Ms Fahnbulleh told the 2024 Labour Party conference that energy was too expensive because of “our over-reliance on international fossil fuel markets”.
She has also been a keen supporter of the windfall tax, which imposes a total tax take of 78pc on any profits made from producing fossil fuels in UK waters.
In 2022, when the Conservatives first imposed the Labour-inspired levy, Ms Fahnbulleh called for them to go further and strip tax breaks given to oil and gas companies which support investment.
The new Energy Secretary has also backed the idea of charging higher prices to households that use more energy, a policy that would penalise those with large families and bigger homes.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: “Miatta Fahnbulleh, remarkably, seems to have drunk even more of the green lobby Kool-Aid than Ed Miliband.
“The first thing she should do is get out of her ivory tower and on to a plane to speak to the workers in Aberdeen who are losing their livelihoods thanks to her policies.”
Richard Tice, Reform UK’s spokesman for energy, said: “The new Energy Secretary is another eco zealot who will be as bad as the old. Obsessed by net zero, clueless about real economics, our energy costs will rise and the grid will become less stable. The nation will pay a heavy price for this mistake.”
Ms Fahnbulleh served as a junior minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero between June 2024 and July 2025.
In that role, she led the Warm Homes Plan – a £15bn scheme to install insulation, heat pumps and solar panels in the homes of low-income families to boost the energy efficiency of the properties.
A government spokesman said: “Net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century. We’ve secured £100bn in private investment into clean energy this parliament. As the Energy Secretary said, her focus is bringing bills down for good.”
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