Boris must have the courage to spell out the true cost of ‘net zero’

After being sacked as the chairman of the COP26, the UN climate conference which is to take place in Glasgow later this year, Claire Perry O’Neill did not lose any time in settling scores. Boris Johnson, she said, does not ‘get’ climate change. In a sense she is right — but not in the way she thinks. The once-sceptical Prime Minister has been acting with the zeal of the converted on climate change and is all set to achieve ‘net zero’ UK climate emissions by 2050. Whether he ‘gets’ what this promise will require is another matter.

This week, for example, he posed with Sir David Attenborough in the Science Museum to announce plans for the coming COP26 summit, pledging that Britain will take global ‘leadership’ in cutting carbon. As part of this, he announced a ban on the sale of hybrid cars which will start in 2035. It led to immediate uproar: banning petrol cars was one thing, but why add hybrids to the ban? Is the humble Toyota Prius now verboten? And why would motorists now buy a hybrid as a stepping stone to a fully electric car?

Britain has made astonishing progress in cutting energy consumption and carbon emissions in recent years. We have learned to tread more lightly on the planet. Our use of energy peaked in 2001 and has fallen by almost a fifth since then. We are travelling less and the average new car now drives 50 per cent further using the same amount of petrol. Air is the cleanest it has been since records began, with carbon emissions at their lowest level since Victorian times. This astonishing feat has been achieved through a combination of new technology and the free market.