Are climate scientists qualified to judge net zero?

Kemi Badenoch’s announcement that the Conservatives are no longer committed to the net zero target in 2050 represents a massive breach in fifteen years of bipartisan consensus. It was greeted with predictable hostility by other parties, but also by pro-net zero forces within the Conservative party too. The Conservative Environment Network commented: ‘Abandon the science and voters will start to doubt the Conservative Party’s seriousness on the clean energy transition’.

Is the power of the demand to ‘follow the science’ losing its effect after Covid, lockdowns and the growing realisation that net zero is likely to be hugely expensive?

Of all Donald Trump’s presidential appointments, one of the most striking was Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institute for Health (NIH) as a successor to the same Francis Collins who described him as a ‘fringe epidemiologist’ who needed a ‘quick and devastating published takedown’.