Who is brave enough to tell the truth about the 2050 'net zero' target?

Back in 2009, proposals were published to switch off FM and AM radio completely by 2015. The assumption was that most people in Britain could be persuaded to upgrade to DAB radio within six years. However, in 2018 the BBC announced that it was shelving plans to move away from FM. The upgrade cost proved to be too high. And as the BBC’s then-director of radio Bob Shennan pointed out, ‘audiences want choice’.

Perhaps this should provide a cautionary tale for the Government as it seeks to meet its commitment to becoming ‘carbon-neutral’ by 2050 (a date which is conveniently beyond even the wildest estimates of the current Government’s term), let alone the demands of groups like Extinction Rebellion to bring that date forward. A new report by Energy Systems Catapult reaches much the same conclusion.

‘Achieving net zero significantly earlier than 2050 in our modelling exceeds even our most speculative measures, with rates of change for power, heat and road transport that push against the bounds of plausibility.’