We must scrap net zero, before it’s too late
The current path threatens our economy, society and democracy. We urgently need a change of direction
Political obituaries will not be kind to Theresa May. But there is one unwritten law of modern British politics the former prime minister understood: you can be wrong on climate change, provided you are wrong in the right way. Whisper that net zero by 2050 will have deleterious social and economic costs, and accusations of “denialism” will swiftly follow. Yet warn that the “house is on fire” and the end time is at hand, and you’ll probably be given a book deal.
Not only did May commit the UK to the 2050 target, but in the years since she has doggedly called for the Government to move faster. Last year, just months before we became the first economy to halve emissions since 1990, she claimed we were “falling behind”.
Such attitudes are commonplace and it will only get worse. Pity the PM in charge in 2033, when the sixth “Carbon Budget” kicks in, or in 2035, when electricity will apparently be fully decarbonised. A gulf now lies between the wishful thinking of the political class and economic reality, yet still the discourse is dominated by doomsday language and a worrying desire to silence dissent.
Consider the words of Climate Change Committee (CCC) boss Chris Stark, when asked for clarity over claims of a “mistake” (which it has denied) made by the body. “How’s this,” he told his team, “kill it with some technical language.” Like the clergy greedily collecting tithes from peasants unable to understand Latin, the green Blob seem to assume an unsuspecting public can be confused or shamed – usually both – into compliance.
The CCC, set up to advise government on climate policies, is useful to elected leaders eager to grandstand without taking responsibility for the choices they make for us. It allowed politicians to bypass the opportunity to scrutinise the 2050 target because they relied on the CCC’S apparently unchallengeable assessment that net zero was “necessary, feasible, cost-effective” and “achievable with known technologies”.
Yet in December, the OECD warned that the shift will leave our economy £60billion – or 1.65 per cent – smaller. The idea that the green economy will lead to a jobs boom ignores the redundancies in those sectors that can never ride the net-zero wave, while the suggestion that the UK will be more prosperous and secure is difficult to square with our growing reliance on other countries for gas, oil, steel and the manufactures they rely on. It is time politicians ended the delusion that the current, top-down, centrally-planned approach to decarbonisation is the right one, and can be delivered at low cost.
There was a glimmer of hope that Rishi Sunak might release Britain from the net-zero shackles last autumn, when he delayed the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars to 2035 and scrapped the requirement for landlords to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. This flickered a little brighter when Keir Starmer announced he would be watering down his £28billion “Green Prosperity Plan”. Neither elicited much outcry, which indicates the public is not quite as sold on the net zero target as eco-fanatics would wish.
Last week, however, that optimism was all but extinguished. Not only did Jeremy Hunt expand the “one-off ” windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies for another year, despite the risks to supply and investment, but the Government is reportedly pressing ahead with its “boiler tax” after much speculation the harebrained scheme would be scrapped. Companies that don’t install enough heat pumps will face a hefty fine, even though they have no control over demand for the controversial technology. It’s the same logic as the zero emission vehicle mandate, where car makers that don’t meet the government-mandated quota of EV new car sales could face a fine of £15,000 per extra non-compliant car sold. We are replacing things that work with things that don’t, or will cost more, and forcing businesses to foot the bill.
At a time when the Government has little wriggle room on tax and spend, it would be cost-free to hand power back to Parliament, and end the reliance on arbitrary dates and an unaccountable CCC. We could take a more flexible path, driven by international best practice and guided by new estimates of costs, which were not available in 2019. Sunak could be remembered as the PM who bucked the trend and set Britain back on a sustainable and sensible path towards decarbonisation after the mistakes of his predecessors, a last expiatory act for the Tories’ sins of commission and omission before the waters close over the party forever – or at least the foreseeable.