The thinking behind Rishi Sunak’s common sense Net Zero approach

Rishi Sunak has a new approach to Net Zero, defining himself against ‘zealots’ and acknowledging the side effects of proposed green taxes. He’s replacing the old, often hyperbolic precautionary-principle logic and bringing in the language of tradeoffs: stressing the importance of democratic consent and the futility of green taxes that voters will not accept and are likely to rebel against. The Prime Minister has just taken his case to the UN ‘Cop’ Climate Summit in Dubai and his short speech deserves more attention than it has received.

The standard form, in such events, is for leaders to try to outdo each other in ‘dark green’ jeremiads and say ‘we’ must act or the world fries. Such language skips the definition of ‘we’ which, of course, is the problem. Each national leader can only speak for their country – and no G20 nation is decarbonising faster than Britain. At Cop, Sunak made this point directly.

‘We’ve already decarbonised faster than any other major economy,’ he said. ‘Our emissions are down 48 per cent since 1990, compared to limited cuts from others. And a 300 per cent increase from China.’ The PM has a point: the below graph shows Britain’s historic carbon emissions and, underneath that, its progress amongst the G20 in the last 20 years. We’re the fastest in the G20; factor in imports (looking at carbon ‘consumption’ rather than territorial emissions) and we’re the second fastest.

So Britain speaks as a world leader in decarbonisation. And why? Technological advances (we consume far less energy for transport, heat, industry etc) with consumers going green wherever they can. If the pace of technological advance continues, it’s possible to see Britain hitting Net Zero without the tax transfer currently planned from consumers to green industry. Sunak points at this with his arguments but has barely touched the policies he inherited: his shift, so far, is more rhetorical than policy-based. 

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In other comments at Cop, Sunak also managed to put the UK role into perspective:

'The UK accounts for less than one per cent of global emissions, that is just the reality of it. So all of us who believe in climate change, who want to make sure we leave our planet in a better shape for our kids and grandkids, have to acknowledge that in reality what we do isn’t going to be the difference in terms of our emissions. Now, of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. Of course, we have got a responsibility to act – we have to demonstrate, we have to lead by example.'

Again, Sunak puts this into perspective: the UK could hit Net Zero tomorrow and not move the dial on the trajectory of the global climate change threat we are trying to avert. Sunak is right to say the UK, as a G7 nation, has a responsibility 'to lead by example.' But it’s important to remember that this is what UK Net Zero is about: setting that example.

The UK is too small for its emission reduction to make a measurable difference to the global warming trajectory. That doesn’t mean we should do nothing, but it should temper the language used. To say ‘we act or we fry’ is misleading, not believed and undermines confidence in the environmental agenda in general. Sunak and Claire Coutinho, his Energy Secretary, are trying to move this into a more credible place.

Sunak’s point is that the 2030 deadlines are now not so far away and when voters revolt (as we saw in the Netherlands) then an agenda hits reality; so what then? Unless you can establish that the public will accept the tradeoffs, you don’t have a Net Zero policy: you have a fantasy. Sunak has started the difficulty work of moving the UK climate agenda from fantasy to policy. As he said in the UAE: 

'Climate politics is close to breaking point. The British people care about the environment: they know that the costs of inaction are intolerable. But they also know that we have choices about how we act. So yes we’ll meet our targets…but we’ll do it in a more pragmatic way, which doesn’t burden working people. We’ve scrapped plans on heat pumps and energy efficiency, which would have cost families thousands of pounds. We’ll help people to improve energy efficiency and cut bills – but we won’t force them too.'

Now, he is being a bit disingenuous here because the Tories have indeed chosen 'to burden working people’ with green levies on electricity bills intended to force them to cut bills. Central government funds should be used, not a hidden tax on electricity bills. But Sunak has kept almost all of the Net Zero policies he inherited: so far, his changes have been rhetorical. But this is urgently needed, because the whole edifice of climate politics is built on fantasy thinking: which is why, as Sunak says, that politics is 'close to breaking point'. Ideas need to come first, policies second. Sunak is right to start with the argument and the ideas.

Keir Starmer likes this not one bit, saying Sunak is pandering to his party’s right and that a Labour government would somehow use Net Zero 'in the national interest, to turbo-charge growth'. It’s simply too late for that: the idea of UK 'green jobs' has proved to be a mirage. China has established what seems to be an unassailable lead in green technology, as Cindy Yu points out in her seminal cover article this week. 

Net Zero is indeed 'turbo-charging' growth but doing so in China, which now makes so much of the world’s green kit. It made half of all solar panels bought in Britain last year and has cornered the market for affordable electric vehicles (EVs). Sunak woke up to this before his counterparts, which is why he delayed the ban on new petrol cars until 2035: the original 2030 deadline would mean handing the UK new car market to China. Cindy’s cover story lays out the full dynamics of this.

In his book Net Zero, Dieter Helm made a call for candour: 'Politicians will have to stop promising a painless transition to a sustainable future and economists will have to stop telling us that decarbonisation is going to be just a huge economic opportunity, all gain and no pain.' Sunak is the first world leader to respond to this. 

Sunak gets a lot of flak here, and deservedly so. There’s no sign of the economic growth he promised, the courts have sunk his Rwanda plan and even New Zealand has abandoned what he billed as a New Zealand-style smoking ban.

But there is an important and under-acknowledged intellectual undercurrent to the Sunak premiership: to tackle the 'fairytales' of our age, hold fashionable notions up to proper scrutiny and pose the questions that his predecessors dodged for too long. He’s getting such flak because this is what the green lobby fears: someone asking what all this subsidy actually achieves. It’s not his policy changes that cause the anxiety, it’s the idea of Net Zero being given a common-sense audit. Let’s hope he keeps at it.