Net Zero’s days are numbered

If a week is a long time in politics, then 2023 belongs to a different age in the politics of Net Zero. Less than eleven months ago, the government was saying that ‘Net Zero is the growth opportunity of the 21st century. Earlier this week, former IMF chief economist Oliver Blanchard effectively poured water on that claim when he told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee that there would be a ‘substantial fiscal cost to achieve anything close to Net Zero’.

‘The public does not believe, or has not been made to understand, that [it] is going to be costly for them,’ Blanchard cautioned. He then went on to suggest that Net Zero should be funded by higher public borrowing.

In similar vein, Sir Dieter Helm told the committee that it was ‘delusory to think’ that the Net Zero transition would pay for itself.