Whatever the cost, workers must foot the bill. Soaring energy bills have not stopped the net zero dogmatists. Image Just Jus/shutterstock.com.
The ruinously expensive rush to meet the net zero target of 2050 has never been agreed by the public, and the government and its Climate Change Committee are determined not to let the people Britain have a say…
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has confirmed the government’s determination not to allow a public vote on the policy of achieving net zero by 2050. Speaking on ITV on Wednesday 16 August, he claimed there was no need for a vote because “…most people are committed to getting to net zero”.
The question has become a hot topic since debate began focusing on the realities of net zero, forced electrification of vehicles, outlawing of new gas and oil boilers and so on.
What prompted many Conservative MPs to express misgivings about the rush to net zero, of course, was the surprise Tory victory over Labour in the recent Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, widely regarded as a de facto referendum on the London Mayor’s hated ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ).
That result will give the Labour Party pause for thought also, given their aspiration since the days of Tony Blair to be seen as even “greener” than the Conservatives.
Sunak blithely claims public support for the drive to net zero, but the public has never been asked. The issue has not even been properly debated in parliament.
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There have always been politicians who deploy “green” credentials to push their caring image, their concern for the planet. But they struck gold in 2008 with the Climate Change Act and its creation, the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
The establishment of the CCC gave green fundamentalists a platform, and an increasingly influential one at that. Originally charged with reporting to government on emissions targets, the sway of the CCC has expanded to the point where it trumps other ministries.
The utterances from the CCC are rarely challenged. What passes for debate in parliament is often little more than nodding through successive CCC reports.
Successive governments have been eager to be seen toeing the line on commitments to combat climate change. This is enshrined in the Paris Agreement of 2016, which committed participating countries, 196 of them, to limiting the increase in global average temperatures to less than two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.
The inclusion of the phrase “pre-industrial levels” in the wording of the Paris agreement signalled a decisive change of direction. Industrialisation officially became the culprit.
Britain contributes less than 1 per cent of global emissions. The reduction in our emissions by virtually 50 per cent since 1990 could have been acclaimed as a small but important contribution. But this was never enough for the CCC zealots and their flag-wavers in government and elsewhere.
Newly emboldened, the CCC now felt it could show its teeth, and in its 2019 report Net Zero: The UK’s Contribution to Stopping Global Warming, it spelt out the radical change of course it wished to oversee. It included the demand for “changes in the way we farm and use our land to put much more emphasis on carbon sequestration and biomass production, while shifting away from livestock”.
Price to be paid
What has followed lays bare the price to be paid; the net zero dream is revealed as a nightmare. And as the measures demanded are rolled out, public antipathy gives way to anger. People will respond positively to a poll asking if they are in favour of a cleaner, less polluted world. But when the promised land sees them poorer, colder, and hungrier, it becomes a less inviting prospect.
To disguise this bowl of gruel as a feast, the CCC had to distort the cost of net zero. First of all they reckoned a price of somewhere between 1 and 2 per cent of GDP annually, between £22 billion and £44 billion as the cost of implementation of their de-carbonising of the economy. But when the basis of their predictions was examined, it transpired it was all based on the assumption that net zero had arrived.
‘The issue has not even been properly debated in parliament…’
They were factoring the maintenance of net zero, not the enormous cost of getting there. Former Chancellor Phillip Hammond, known, if for nothing else, for his attention to figures, declared at the time that the costs were closer to £1 trillion. He has not been persuaded to alter his view.
He was reported in the Daily Telegraph on 29 July 2023 as accusing successive Conservative prime ministers of being “systematically dishonest” about the true costs of achieving net zero. He went on to complain of a “cross-party disease” of politicians hiding the true cost and consequences including an inevitable impact on living standards.
Among the distortions have been the deception that renewable sources such as wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuel. The carbon-heavy costs of manufacture, distribution and maintenance, and the rarely acknowledged subsidies, are airbrushed out of the publicity. But the disquiet of people facing the despoiling of cherished landscapes with hundreds of acres of solar panels and mile upon mile of turbines is very real. Not to mention the frequent loss of good farming land.
The CCC and its apologists think of themselves as above challenge – meting out pain and suffering as the price to pay for observing their act of faith like a latter-day Inquisition. Their rise has been entirely at the expense of democratic accountability, and must be challenged.
Sunak and his prospective successors will have to find a way out of this minefield. He speaks of “…bringing people along with us on the journey [to net zero], and not burdening them with extra hassle or extra cost as we do it”.
This may well prove to be the fig leaf for a gradual detachment from the crippling price the CCC seeks to extract. A relaxation of the timetable imposed would be a step forward, as would commitment to investing in future-facing industries such as domestic battery production.
Above all, dithering and obstruction over modernising our nuclear estate must end. As a first step, Rolls Royce should be given the green light to develop their modular nuclear reactor capabilities as a concrete contribution to the environment and Britain’s energy security.