Inequality in energy and climate policies: Assessing distributional impact consideration in UK policy appraisal

The decarbonisation of the UK economy requires a myriad of policies that inherently produce winners and loser across society. This study investigates how such distributional impacts are considered in the appraisal process for UK energy and climate policies. Using a scorecard developed to capture the guidance on policy appraisal and distributional analysis, 79 impact assessments were evaluated. The majority of these impact assessments either did not or only partially considered the impacts of policies on vulnerable groups in society, with only eight assessments containing more detailed distributional analysis. Moreover, a bias seems to exist as to which areas of energy and climate policy provide well-founded analysis and which do not. With further insights gained from interviews with relevant actors, this research concludes that political motivation, analytical difficulties and a lack of awareness of the prevalence and importance of distributional impacts are at the root of this insufficient consideration. Possible alterations to the current IA framework are presented, which aim to more firmly embed the distributional impact assessment in the appraisal process.