Agrifood campaigners have been allowed to take the government to court over its alleged failure to tackle carbon emissions from the meat and dairy sector.
The UK’s Court of Appeal has upheld a group of activists’ claims that Defra ministers broke the law by failing to set out measures to reduce consumption of meat and dairy in England as part of the National Food Strategy published last year.
Feedback campaigners took legal action against Defra with a “letter before claim” last year over the legality of its strategy, and whether it was in line with the Climate Change Act 2008 – which compels ministers to put in place policies to ensure carbon targets are met.
They were refused permission for a judicial review hearing twice in recent months, but a final attempt to overturn the refusal at London’s High Court has now yielded results for the campaign group.
“We have decided to grant permission to apply for judicial review, having in mind that the case does raise questions of considerable general importance,” said Lord Justice Lindblom, who led the panel of judges.
“The issue of climate change itself and the steps to be taken to achieve net zero are in themselves matters of public interest.”
He said the full judicial review hearing would allow both sides to argue their cases.
At the Court of Appeal hearing in autumn, Feedback will argue that the nearly 30-page National Food Strategy review – the government’s scaled-down response to a series of much more extreme proposals by former health tsar Henry Dimbleby – is unlawful because it lacks specific policies for low-carbon diet targets.
It claims this is not in line with government’s net zero strategy, which is underpinned by the Climate Change Act 2008 and sets out a series of targets for a transition to zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The Climate Change Committee, formed under the Act, has also pointed to a significant cutback in dairy and meat consumptions as crucial to mitigating global warming.
Read more: Exiting food tsar Dimbleby launches new campaign to get Brits to eat less meat
However, the government has previously said Defra was not bound by the obligations set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 when devising its food strategy.
If the campaigners’ legal challenge proves successful, it could force the government to redraft the food strategy to include some of Dimbleby’s more controversial policy proposals, including a 30% reduction in meat consumption over the next decade.
Feedback’s executive director said she was “confident the ruling in October will compel the government to rewrite the food strategy and start listening to its own expert climate advisors”.
“We have long known the government’s food strategy was completely useless, today’s ruling suggests it may also be unlawful,” Carina Millstone said.
“The Climate Change Committee has repeatedly sounded the alarm over the climate impacts of livestock and recommended an accelerated shift away from unsustainable diets.”
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