NO WONDER RISHI’S ON RED ALERT FOR BORIS’S GREEN NIRVANA

AmId mounting apprehension about the terrifying cost of hitting the Government’s Net Zero carbon target and replacing our gas boilers with eco-friendly heat pumps, Boris Johnson is doing his utmost to reassure us.

In typically florid language, the Prime minister insists that ‘the Boiler Police are not going to kick your door in with their sandal-clad feet and seize, at carrot point, your trusty old combi’.

Yet he is on a mission ahead of next month’s Cop26 summit – and Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s attempt to inject an air of economic reality into the hugely ambitious climate change programme is hitting an immovable force. Sound financial sense is being swept aside.

In his rush to decarbonise, Johnson appears to be unmoved by the essential needs of manufacturing and households for secure energy supplies. Wilfully ignored is the fact that much of the technology and infrastructure required for a carbon-free Britain isn’t up to the job, is untested or has yet to be developed.

What is more, at a time when global markets for energy sources such as gas and oil are in turmoil, a Treasury study has revealed, incredibly, that the investment required to decarbonise Britain has never fully been costed.

Little wonder Rishi Sunak is so fearful. The Treasury warns that Britain’s race to net zero ahead of rival countries could make us increasingly uncompetitive. ‘Climate action in the UK can lead to economic activity moving abroad if it leads to costs increasing...’

And however Bunterish Boris Johnson might be, costs will increase because of the Government’s eco-policies – a fact missing from the script yesterday as he sought to whip up excitement among potential investors at a global summit in London.

THE Prime minister admitted this week that ‘the UK is deciding to make a big bet on green technology’. But the gamble is in danger of going horribly wrong.

Red warning lights are flashing. By banning new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, the UK will need more than ten times the 25,000 existing charging points according to the Competition and markets Authority.

It is an extraordinary difficult target to meet, and in the meantime, battery range is a genuine problem for vast numbers of drivers while the Treasury faces a £40billion black hole from the loss of vehicle tax once we are finally all electric.

Of course the world needs to change to counter global warming, and Rishi Sunak is fully aware of the fact.

The Chancellor recognises only too well reaching the green Nirvana imagined by Johnson at such breakneck speed could have terrible consequences, for the journey risks being interrupted by power blackouts, the elderly freezing in their homes and budgetary mayhem.

This rush towards decarbonising Britain could not come at a worse moment.

Since may, the price of traditional energy resources has soared by 95 per cent. Britain has come so close to running out of power that the National Grid invited the biggest electricity supplier EdF to switch back on its coal generator at West Burton, in Nottinghamshire, where it is almost certainly burning German or Russian imported coal.

The US, which has abundant oil and gas resources and reserves, has seen petrol prices surge to $3 an American gallon, the highest level for years.

Blackouts have hit the two biggest emerging market nations, India and China, while much of Europe has been reminded how dependent it is on remaining friends with Vladimir Putin in order to keep Russian exports of natural gas flowing.

Normally, as the Northern Hemisphere heads into winter, oil, gas and coal stocks are at bumper levels. But this year, oil inventories, at 94 per cent of peak demand, have fallen way below where they should be, European gas storage is down to 86 per cent and coal in India and China, huge consumers, is down to 50 per cent.

Compared to other countries, Britain is doubly disadvantaged by its headlong rush to decarbonise. The UK floats on a sea of undeveloped fossil fuel resources, from clean coal in Cumbria to the Jackdaw oil and gas field 171 miles east of Aberdeen. But as we pursue the target of a carbon free Britain by 2050, these resources are locked up even though the country has virtually no natural gas storage capacity.

IN SEEKING to claim the ethical high ground, the UK is placing its economy at risk while our competitors adopt a more realistic approach. To take one example, in this country less than 2 per cent of our energy was sourced from coal last year. Compare that with Germany where the figure was nearer 25 percent.

As inspiring as it may be that, when the wind blows, more than 50 of Britain’s energy is now provided by offshore wind farms, we shouldn’t kid ourselves.

many of the pylons are fabricated in China and some of the more sophisticated technologies provided by denmark. We are still waiting for the UK’s manufacturing revolution for clean energy to emerge. And we are already well behind on carbattery factories – Germany has six or so being built against one giga plant in the UK.

There was great excitement when British industrial giant Ineos, based at Grangemouth, founded and run by tax exile Sir Jim Ratcliffe, announced he was getting full-square behind the hydrogen-fuel revolution, believing it to be the power source of the future for heavy trucks and perhaps locomotives.

The only problem is that he has chosen to build the first multibillion hydrogen plants in Germany, Norway and Belgium.

And while garage forecourts are seeking to address the switch to electrified vehicles by replacing fuel pumps with charging stations, this is leading to its own short-term problem.

With each petrol pump removed, petrol and diesel storage capacity is also diminished and we saw recently what happens when we don’t have enough fuel available at petrol stations.

The mission to decarbonise Britain and place climate change at the heart of the nation’s agenda is a noble cause.

But Boris Johnson has to balance his thinking with realpolitik. Other advanced nations want to decarbonise too, but recognise that it is critical to ensure that there is no interruption to supplies.

Sunak and the Treasury are right to draw attention to the potential costs of pursuing the Prime minister’s green agenda. The transition to mass market eco-technologies is complicated and many of the proposed solutions are far from ready.

In rushing the fences Britain is in danger of recklessly compromising this country’s growth and financial stability.