Net zero

What have environmentalists got against commuters? Not for the first time a group of bedraggled climate nuts have taken their argument for ‘radical’ action on global warming not to Downing Street or to Parliament Square, but to ordinary people just trying to go about their business. Junctions have been blocked along the M25 near Kings Langley, Heathrow, Swanley, Godstone and Lakeside. This is the work of Insulate Britain, a single-issue Extinction Rebellion offshoot demanding action on home insulation. So far 42 have been arrested. The protesters tweeted that they were ‘disrupting the M25’ to ‘demand the government insulate Britain’. And yet so far their primary achievement has been to infuriate

Few cities in China represent the country’s addiction to coal more than Tianjin, where Alok Sharma travelled this week to talk about cooperation on climate issues. It sits on the coast of one of China’s most polluted regions, and its port is a key hub for trading 100 million tons a year of the stuff – that’s roughly 12 times Britain’s annual coal burn. Chinese coal consumption is on track to increase this year by around ten per cent. To meet that demand, vast new open cast pits are being rushed into service in Inner Mongolia, China’s biggest coal production region, from where supplies are brought down the coast to

Climate change is once again dominating the news agenda. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that even if emissions are cut rapidly, the effects of global warming will be felt across the world. The report – which Boris Johnson has declared sobering reading – leads the news today, with the BBC dedicating seven stories on its homepage today to climate change. So just as well then that BBC staffers were recently treated to an internal audience research briefing telling them how best to convey messages about climate change to different audiences. The briefing – which one insider described as being more reminiscent of ‘a campaigning organisation’ – identifies seven different groups

What’s more important to supporters of Scottish secession, achieving the break-up of Britain or seeing Scotland successfully transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions? It is a difficult question for environmentally conscious independence supporters to face, but face it they must, for it is becoming increasingly clear that Scotland cutting itself out of the UK will see England, Wales and Northern Ireland power ahead to net zero while Scotland gets left behind. This month saw the publication of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) latest fiscal risks report. The bi-annual document identifies and models potential shocks to the public finances. The new analysis has lengthy, detailed sections dedicated to examining

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, isn’t normally given to waffle, which makes his maiden appearance on GB News all the more remarkable. Asked by Andrew Neil who – government or homeowner – would have to pay the estimated £10,000 per household cost of replacing domestic gas boilers with heat pumps to help reach the target of net zero emissions by 2050 Sunak replied:  ‘So when you say the alternative is the household or the government, the government’s money is the people’s money. And that’s my point when I say ultimately we all pay. The government does have any separate money of its own’ As a general point of political philosophy, it

While Westminster fixates on Dominic Cummings, what could well be a bigger political challenge for Boris Johnson is being somewhat overlooked. That challenge is called Steve Baker. Baker has now launched his long-whispered campaign over net zero and the policies it entails. He’s in the Sun today talking about issues including gas boilers and the need to replace them with something that doesn’t burn gas. Reaching net zero carbon emissions means a boiler switchover has to happen, and soon. Homes account for about 14 per cent of the UK’s carbon output, and weaning the country off gas boilers is possibly the trickiest bit of making net zero (a legal requirement,

COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference due to be held in Glasgow, isn’t until November, but work is already underway in Downing Street to put the government’s green agenda front and centre. After confirming earlier this week that the government will seek to cut carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, Boris Johnson has this afternoon spoken at Joe Biden’s Leader’s Summit on Climate.  The Prime Minister praised the US president’s commitment to cut greenhouse gases by 50 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 as a ‘game changing announcement’. He also said it is ‘vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive politically correct,

‘The climate transition presents a historic investment opportunity,’ says BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. ‘What the financiers, the big banks, the asset managers, private investors, venture capital are all discovering is: There’s a lot of money to be made in the creation of these new [green] jobs,’ chimes in presidential climate envoy John Kerry.  Fink concedes that the economy remains ‘highly dependent’ on fossil fuels. He also asserts that BlackRock is ‘carbon neutral today in our own operations’. It’s a claim open to challenge. ‘If a company or individual says to me they are net-zero, I know it is complete crap,’ tweeted Glen Peters, research director of the Oslo-based Centre for International Climate

‘We cannot allow debt to keep rising’, the Chancellor said to Parliament last week, repeatedly emphasising the need to ‘level’ with the public about the size of the national debt. Strange then that just days later it was revealed that ministers have been doing the opposite when it comes to the costs of the fashionable cause of ‘Net Zero’. Instead government officials deliberately hid ‘more realistic’ estimates which showed Net Zero would cost billions more than publicised, while agreeing amongst themselves that the predicted costs were ‘highly uncertain’.  These revelations came about after the Treasury was finally defeated in a two-year battle to prevent me seeing documents I’d requested under the Freedom

There is nothing wrong with the general direction of policy contained within the government’s ten point plan to cut carbon emissions, announced today. Who doesn’t want clean energy and more energy-efficient homes and vehicles? The problem is the perverse target which lies at its heart: the legally-binding demand, laid down in the Climate Change Act, to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. This is so badly defined that the government’s ten point plan becomes really little more than a manifesto to export much of British industry, food production and power generation. The UK’s definition of carbon emissions, as used in the Climate Change Act, covers only ‘territorial’ emissions

When the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) launched its report on the feasibility of entirely decarbonising the UK economy, we were told the expense involved was manageable. The CCC’s chief executive Chris Stark explained that the project ‘carried a cost – of one to two per cent of GDP – which was affordable’. His claims were noted approvingly by MPs during debates in Parliament on whether to enshrine a ‘net zero’ emissions target in law. While others complained about the lack of a clear cost-benefit case, CCC chairman Lord Deben put aside these concerns. He told the Lords: ‘the report has been recognised universally as the most seriously presented, costed