On Thursday, Mark linked to an opinion piece by the Guardian’s Zoe Williams about Kemi Badenoch’s “Net Zero by 2050 is impossible” speech. Mark didn’t like Williams’ piece, and when I read it, I didn’t like it, either. I’ve been thinking about it off and on since, so you could at least call it thought-provoking – although not in a good way. In what follows I will note and pass comment on some of Williams’s more outré remarks.

The title of the piece, filed under the category of “climate crisis,” is:

Badenoch’s attack on net zero is ridiculous. But so were the right’s Brexit claims, and look where they left us

Williams is going to draw a line between Brexit and opposition to Net Zero.

The subtitle:

The run-up to 2016 shows ‘common sense’ isn’t enough. Even ignorant, reactionary arguments must be properly countered

The diatribe that follows consists of 9 paragraphs.

Paragraph 1: Williams snarks about Badenoch’s lack of expertise in climate science. This invalidates Badenoch’s assessment about the viability of Net Zero. But it only takes a moment’s thought to realise that the same objection can be served up to every politician who advocates for or against Net Zero. You may retort that the same could be said about any topic, and I might agree. How many of today’s Cabinet are domain experts?

While I’m on this point, I will make the observation that climate scientists should be judge-like, disinterested. Too often they stray from reporting the facts as they believe them, to demanding preferred policies (like Net Zero). Science is an attempt to understand the Universe, and the Universe does not have morals, only Laws. There is nothing demanding Net Zero, even if there does happen to be a “Climate Crisis” (there doesn’t). It is for politicians to decide what to do with the dispassionate information that the disinterested scientists have provided to them.

Paragraph 2: Williams notes that the attack on Net Zero has been foretold. Well done, Nostradamus! No-one could have seen that coming! Strange that the sceptics’ line has long been: “As soon as the pips start squeaking, the opposition to Net Zero will begin to grow.” Maybe in Williams’s ivory tower, the pips aren’t squeaking yet. I suppose she does not worry about paying her next energy bill.

Paragraph 3: Williams cites some guy from Led by Donkeys, and his description of the evolution of climate denial, which originates elsewhere. (Maybe from Oreskes, please enlighten me if you know.) There are unpleasant overtones in the description, which goes: first they denied the science. Then they minimised the seriousness of the consequences. Then they said we couldn’t afford to do anything about it. Those are the first three ditches of climate denialism, and there is a fourth, and last, which we’ll come to in due course.

In Paragraph 4, Williams uses this extraordinary expression (as noted by potentilla here):

“Because even while outlets such as GB News have been preaching climate impossibilism for some time, it has until now been broadly disallowable in mainstream political discourse.“

Well of course the Guardian doesn’t like GB News. But can an argument that Net Zero is impossible really be disallowable? What if Net Zero really is impossible? We had better hope that it isn’t, for as a civilisation, we need to move onto other energy sources sooner or later, since hydrocarbons will eventually run out. (Note: these new energy sources will not be weather dependent, not if we want our descendants to live, not merely exist.) But can an opinion about any policy which involves the imposition of frankly draconian measures on the populace be disallowable?

Paragraph 5: Williams thinks that opposition to ULEZ, LTNs and 15-minute cities has something to do with Net Zero. Maybe people don’t want ULEZ because they can’t afford a ULEZ-compliant car? Maybe they don’t want to be locked in their neighbourhood by bus gates? Such policies are “pretty anodyne.” Yes, for you they are, but not for some of us.

Paragraph 6: Opposition to ULEZ etc “takes on the heft of an imagined constituency, people who are fed up with environmentalists.” Do not conflate advocates of Net Zero with environmentalists. True environmentalists oppose the destruction wrought in the name of Net Zero, the forests of wind turbines, the hungry maw of Mr. Drax. But Williams is unaware that there are any negatives at all about the pursuit of Net Zero. That is the only conclusion I can draw from her dismissal of opposition to it.

Paragraph 7: Sane people agree with Williams. The public are still in favour of Net Zero: a facile point, since Net Zero is more than a principle. This is where pollsters tilt the answer in the direction they want. You don’t get Net Zero for nothing. You have to exchange something for it. And it looks as if the payment will be so high that only a fool would agree to the deal. Or someone so insulated from the real world that acceding would cost them naught personally.

Then, disgracefully, we have this: “Getting into the weeds of Badenoch’s own character, a debate is playing out that is also deeply familiar – is she saying this because she’s enchanted by dark money, or is it because she’s an “irresponsible, ignorant, reactionary fool”, as one journalist put it.” So no-one sane can believe these things; anyone who claims they do, is either doing it for money, or because they are an “irresponsible, ignorant, reactionary fool.” Badenoch may be pleased to note that she has struck a nerve. There seems to be no answer other than character assassination.

Paragraph 8: Williams draws an entirely specious parallel between Brexit, i.e. “what happened last time,” and the current slow wave building against the absurdity of Net Zero. No conspiracies are needed to explain either occurrence: there are valid reasons to support both. What rational country would surrender itself to the laws of an undemocratic supranational state, outside of defeat in war? And what rational country would agree to immiserate its population for a policy that will have no measurable effect on climate change?

Then Williams has the gall, or maybe blissful unawareness, to start wondering about where the money was (in Brexit) coming from and by implication where it is coming from now to gin up opposition to Net Zero. Try looking at the funding for the very many groups advocating for this policy, funding that is, in effect, aimed at crushing what is left of a once Great country into a thin paste. (Mark’s recent Avarice in Funderland might be a good place to start.)

In Paragraph 9, mercifully the last, the Donkeys guy talks about the “last trench.” This is the stage at which we sceptics admit that the science was always right, the consequences were always apocalyptic, and that we really could afford the cost of Net Zero, but that, thanks to all the spanners we managed to toss into the works, “it’s too late.”

By that time, one presumes, rats the size of cats will be taking shifts to roam the streets with packs of rabid dogs, our roofs will have been blown off by a tremendous gale, and Williams and the Donkeys guy will be fighting tooth and nail for a lick of a wind-blown piece of paper that three months ago was wrapped around a Big Mac. Then, from stage left, er, right, out will pop a climate sceptic, and he will say, “I admit it. I was lying all the time, but it’s too late now.”

And the righteous will turn on him with knives in their eyes.

Then, thanks to the collapse of civilisation, the emissions of CO2 will drop to trivial levels, and it will turn out that it wasn’t too late after all, because in due course, everything will return to normal. Except for the rats the size of cats. Our sleek brown friends are staying in my fantasy dystopian future.

Oh, a final note. As far as I heard, Badenoch did not say anything controversial in what might be termed “the real world.” In fact, on my reading, she did not repudiate Net Zero, only its timing, and the lack of a Plan for it. That her speech brought out such agitation in certain quarters only shows how weak their position is. They can’t argue the facts, so have to rely on a code of consensus from which no-one respectable must deviate. But respectable people must try to grab the wheel, for the present course is destruction.

PS. If a pollster asked me if I was in favour of Net Zero, I would not know how to answer. I would have no reason to oppose it in principle. I have reasons to oppose it in practice. A fantasy Net Zero in which there are no negative environmental consequences, no negative consequences for the UK’s wealth, and no negative consequences for the UK’s security, I could not oppose. But only a fool would believe that version of Net Zero exists. In the real world, the people of the UK are better off killing Net Zero rather than themselves.

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24 Comments

  1. All that is needed to demonstrate the physical impossibility of Net Zero (probably “at all”, but certainly if we wish to keep a reliable electricity supply), is an understanding of science to the level of a GCSE pass and possession of a calculator. Almost all of its requirements fall at this hurdle – there is neither the manufacturing capacity nor the manpower to install a heat pump in every home; there is no possible way of storing enough energy to maintain our electricity supply through a couple of weeks of dunkelflaute (we’ve just had close to a couple of months this winter); EVs are totally impractical for at least a substantial minority of homes; etc. etc.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Jit,

    Thanks for doing that. I am not surprised you share my quiet anger at what I regard as the banality and arrogant ignorance on display in that dreadful Guardian article. I still believe that the Guardian has some decent journalists, and when it gets away from its hobby horses (Brexit, net zero et al) it’s capable of some seriously good journalism. But that article was a long way from good journalism, IMO.

    It appears that Ms Badenoch’s comments might well represent a serious crack in the “cross-party consensus” (aka lack of democracy) around net zero, and my word, do the Guardian climate doomsters not like that! Hence such absurd flailing around in response. If that’s the best they can do, then it appears that net zero doesn’t have much to commend it (but then we already knew that).

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Not only did I not like this piece, I thought it ignorant and disgraceful.

    I was however interested to read the comments. Most were as bad as the article but a few were reasonably sensible. A few bits and pieces:

    “She has no expertise in climate science, no background in renewables or apparent familiarity with the advances made in their technology, no qualification in economics” – oh, is that the test now? Please, tell us what scientific qualifications caused Theresa May to write it into legislation WITH NO PLAN HOW TO DO IT. Please elaborate on the science or economic qualifications of Keir Starmer, Ed Davey or, for goodness sake, Miliband Minor. No, they are just posturers reading from an approved orthodoxy – that moving our heavy industry and jobs to less regulated countries makes the emissions disappear.

    The problem with this piece is that change is always easier for the affluent – no hard choices or lost jobs ( not careers) for all the Marie Antoinette types who tend to dominate this discussion . But go to South Wales and you’ll hear a different view from steel workers. Or to be exact, ex steel workers.

    How much will net zero cost? Simply making unrealistic claims that it is free and saves money is not good enough. People deserve the benefit of an adult conversation about the massive investments needed and their cost. If pro-net zero advocates will not step up with realistic estimates of costs and justify them, then detractors will bring up costs and say they are unjustified. Saying it has to be affordable because it’s the right policy is also an evasion. Most people who support net zero have a childlike understanding of the costs involved and this needs to change if an effective and durable advocacy is to be created. Realistically admitting it won’t be cheap and easy us the first step to putting this transition on a solid footing of public opinion. Vilifying people who worry about the costs is not going work long term.

    She is right about that. How many would genuinely drop their luxuries and living standards in the pursuit of net zero? Carbon neutral is just nonsense and you all know it but as a commentator has pointed out anyone contradicting the narrative is labelled a far right earth hater. Tribal identity politics have resulted in the stifling of true democratic debate about climate challenges as opposed to our current lifestyle and the majority will never give in to the socialist/green ideology even if it means ultimately that parts of our world become uninhabitable due to human activity. Little Britain can only look on anyway as much greater society’s pursue economic prosperity while shouting Hell mend the earth.

    It’s more important to reach net zero for the sake of the future. It that means Britain bankrupts itself, so be it. We can live with being a third world failed state, while China, India, Brazil, etc. power forward with their economic growth and increasing wealth. As long as we’re on the right side of history, nothing else matters.

    At the risk of boring everyone it is of course true that the UK’s CO2 emissions matter not a jot in the global balance. Our relatively high energy costs – due to Green subsidies and a shunning of fossil fuels – do, though, matter a jot, at least to the UK population.

    Last September we very virtuously closed down Tata steel in South Wales, thereby throwing hundreds out of work. Ironically very same month Tata opened its largest ever coke furnace steel plant in India.
    Our drive towards net zero has resulted in the highest energy costs in the developed world, which is crippling British industry. There is no doubt that net zero will quietly wither on the vine to prevent total economic disaster.

    Ms Badenoch isn’t saying net zero can’t happen by 2050. She is saying it won’t happen “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”
    I have no idea whether she is wrong ( I hope she is wrong) but she does have a point that achieving net zero will take a lot of money whether that is in investment in nuclear or renewable energy production.
    The reality is that the low hanging fruit has already happened. Anything that needs to happen now will become more expensive to achieve.

    ‘there seems to be very many wind turbines off shore where I have looked’.
    In the past 24 hours, these have only produced 3% of our electricity demand; and electricity is only a minor part of our energy needs. Fortunately it’s been sunny and solar has produced a further 8.2%.
    We need to 30x our number of wind turbines to be net zero. We’ve got 25 years until 2050, so we need to build more than our current deployed fleet of wind turbines, every year for the next 25 years. And that will only cover electricity. Not our gas usage or transport. That would probably require a 100x of what we have, so we’d need to build out the same amount in the next 3 months, and every 3 months.
    Unfortunately we no longer have the steel capacity to be able to do this.

    Strange times. I find myself agreeing with Kemi Badenoch.

    So you think net zero can happen by 2050 without it being expensive or by a reduction in our standard of living?
    Unless everyone has access to the funds to install solar or heatpumps or insulation or the costs of doing so come down substantially it will require greater subsidy from governments and that means the funding has to come from somewhere. That means increased taxes or cuts in services.

    If my spend is typical then multiplied by every home in the UK that is a considerable sum of money. In which case Ms Badenoch has a point about it potentially bankrupting the country.

    I think Badenoch’s point (with which I agree) is that it’s going to take EVERYONE taking massive steps that cost them a lot of money.

    Closing down industries and moving both the activity and jobs to developing countries with less regulation does nothing to lower emissions – on the contrary, it increases them. Labour continually talks about ‘green jobs’, but never says what, how many, how well paid or where – all details available for the jobs lost. Why? Because they have no idea.

    As a non-scientist, I’m not in a position to say definitely whether Badenoch’s attack on net zero is ridiculous or not. On the one hand, Mr Miliband has argued that moving to net zero will ultimately lower energy bills. However, it’s not only Badenoch arguing otherwise, industrialists like Sir Jim Ratcliffe have blamed a move away from reliance on oil and gas for surging prices. Clearly, both sides of the argument can’t be right. I suspect that even if Mr. Miliband’s figures do eventually add up and that net zero becomes a saving, that there will be significant transitional costs, which will be borne by the public.

    Promising hundreds of thousands of green jobs which people don’t get visibility of / don’t exist
    Promising cheaper electricity whilst people only see their bills going up and up and up
    And then not being up front when impact such as the closure of Scotlands last oil refinery takes place or the closure of British Steel plants due to high energy costs
    Essentially the road to net zero will be hard and costly. Politicians need to be honest about this truth.

    ‘The recognition that climate change is a real threat to the world is a long, long way from universal.’ But not as far as the idea that the UK (share of emissions, less than 1%) has a unilateral solution.
    When China, India, the US, Russia are all increasing theirs, you’re not so much peeing into the wind as just wetting your pants. It doesn’t affect anyone else.

    Net zero by 2050 is only feasible if you ignore everything currently known about human nature. We’re not going to spend several trillion pounds to redevelop our entire society just for a threat that might take place long after we’re all dead. It simply won’t happen. Just look at the phasing out of petrol vehicles-supposed to happen by 2030 and now an abandoned target because nobody is buying EV’s as they are ridiculously expensive. It won’t happen net zero will just get pushed back to 2070 and probably 2100. The 1.5 degrees of warming ship has long sailed anyway. You’re looking at more like 3-5 degrees realistically.

    Liked by 3 people

  4. “PS. If a pollster asked me if I was in favour of Net Zero” …. 3 days ago for the first time in my almost 69 years on the planet I was actually stopped by a pollster (Well I dropped my aggressive stare against strangers bearing clipboards for the first time ever). They started a questionaire about Net Zero. When I pointed out I thought the whole idea was a load of “round objects” they simply walked away completely uninterested in asking me any more questions. Odd isn’t it how these “surveys” always get the answers they want to hear!

    Liked by 4 people

  5. It’s nice to know that many Guardian readers are more thoughtful than some of their journalists.

    Like

  6. Jit: ‘…as a civilisation, we need to move onto other energy sources sooner or later, since hydrocarbons will eventually run out. (Note: these new energy sources will not be weather dependent, not if we want our descendants to live, not merely exist.)’

    Rosy May had the answer back in 1991: burn old women’s pants.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Yes, they’re definitely rattled. The campaign is cranking up:

    “Badenoch and family spent week as guests of climate sceptic Tory donor

    Neil Record, chair of Net Zero Watch, hosted the Conservative leader and others shortly before her policy U-turn”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/25/badenoch-and-family-spend-week-as-guests-of-climate-sceptic-tory-donor

    Kemi Badenoch enjoyed a £14,000 week-long “residential” with her family along with a small group of the shadow cabinet courtesy of the Tory donor Neil Record, who chairs a climate sceptic lobby group.

    The Conservative leader was joined by other members of the party team at a location in Gloucestershire during the February half-term; most of the shadow cabinet were not invited.

    The trip took place about a month before Badenoch U-turned on the party’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, saying it was “impossible” for the UK to meet – one of her first major policy pivots since taking over in the autumn.

    Costs for the week were met by Record, chair of Net Zero Watch, who owns an estate in Gloucestershire with a swimming pool, donkeys and 180 acres of sheep-grazed grass.…

    Liked by 3 people

  8. This story was recommended to me today by Firefox Pocket (it has a noticeable leftwards slant, that despite corresponding with them, I have not been able to get to the bottom of):

    Like

  9. There is an article on The Conversation that is desperate to convince you of the irrationality of opposing net zero:

    Anti-environmentalism is on the rise but it’s full of contradictions

    https://theconversation.com/anti-environmentalism-is-on-the-rise-but-its-full-of-contradictions-256911

    There are two major problems with the article. The first is that an article that complains about the other guy’s contradictions contains its own howler:

    A populist tide is washing this conservative tradition [of environmentalism] away, despite the fact that support for environmental protection remains very popular.

    I’m thinking it’s a strange popularity that can be washed away by a populist tide.

    The second major problem is everything else the article says. It is such a waste of neuronal activity from start to finish.

    Liked by 3 people

  11. John, there is a delicious irony in this article. As is so often the case, the author fails to realise that he could be talking about himself:

    “…I argue that a distinction can be made between what I call “cold” and “hot” forms of environmentalism. The former values and mourns the loss of nature, but as a spectacle to be observed – a set of appealing images of flora and fauna – while the latter feels implicated and anxious.

    The former position allows people to claim they love nature yet be indifferent or even hostile to initiatives to save it. However, the line between cold and hot, or between anti- and pro-environmentalist, is neither fixed nor hard.Another quality of anti-environmentalism is that its beliefs are changeable, even quixotic.

    Climate change is an example...

    I am tired of people conflating the “climate crisis” [sic] with the nature crisis, and insisting that they are linked, such that the nature crisis can be solved only by imposing hundreds of thousands of acres of nature-destroying renewables both on- and off-shore. Climate zealots are far more casual about harming nature than are those of us who spend much of our leisure time communing with nature and objecting to its destruction by people who confuse CO2 with real pollution.

    Liked by 4 people

  12. Mark: I’ve just added four more comments to that TC article. And the author, Professor Bonnett, has already responded to one of them – interestingly the one that was inspired by something you said above.

    Like

  13. Robin,

    It’s interesting that he chose to pick up on people’s concerns about the visual aspects of renewables, but ignored the point about the damage they cause to nature. I think he’s on the back foot, as he should be, given how poor the article is.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Robin,

    I’m surprised the author responded to you at all, given the extent to which his article fair drips with contempt for those opposing net zero. You’re supposed to be the type who indulges in self-contradiction, so I would expect him to see little point in engaging with you. Backing up your points with relevant facts won’t be impressing him much either. Even so, keep up the good work. His silence is doing him no favours.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Thank you John. I have also offered a comment, pointing out that Net Zero and “real” environmentalism are often in opposition.

    Liked by 3 people

  16. When I first visited the Conversation essay, this message popped up:

    Why would a billionaire want to buy you? You’re already working for them for free.

    Liked by 3 people

  17. Comments at TC are still open. But, having poked his nose briefly over the parapet, Bonnett hasn’t done so again. Pathetic.

    However I have had an amusing exchange with the lady whose avatar is the Palestinian flag.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. “Cleverly has offered the Tories a new strategy to beat Reform”

    Cleverly – the man who might have been Tory leader but for some excitable mathematics in his supporters’ camp – is giving a speech, in effect, suggesting that the problem of Net Zero will go away if the Tories just align their policies with the other parties; the uniparty re-established and the doom of the UK assured, they can concentrate on other issues of importance, whatever they might be.

    He seems to think this approach will outflank Reform, because of all those pro-Net Zero voters who are currently putting a cross in Reform’s box at elections.

    Delusional, of course, but it will appeal to a lot of the rump of the parliamentary party.

    Telegraph link.

    Like

  19. Jit,

    Thanks for the link – very interesting. It seems that net zero Tories are as out of touch with the electorate as Remain Tories are/were – by and large they tend to be the same people, of course. They are entitled to their views, and who am I to say they are wrong? I would venture to suggest, however, that they are in the wrong party, and that their continued presence in the Tory Party is a huge gift to Reform.

    Like

  20. I could have put this in a few places, but it’s a natural corollary to the last two comments on this thread, so I’m putting it here:

    “Net zero is a gift to Nigel Farage in Scotland”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/net-zero-is-a-gift-to-nigel-farage-in-scotland/

    It wasn’t long ago that Nigel Farage seemed a hopeless sell in Scotland. In 2013, on his way to campaign in a by-election in Aberdeen, he didn’t get further than Edinburgh’s Royal Mile before he had to be escorted from a pub by police for his own safety. Ukip, which he then led, had a derisory presence north of the border – even when it was making in-roads into working class areas in the North of England.

    What has changed to make Reform UK, Farage’s current party, serious contenders for the Hamilton by-election this week? There is a big clue to be found in a report by Robert Gordon University this morning which points out that the much-vaunted ‘green jobs’ in the wind industry are being created at only half the rate that jobs are being lost in oil and gas. By 2030, it predicts, 29,000 jobs could be created in offshore wind while 58,000 may be lost in North Sea oil and gas – many of them as a direct result of the government’s refusal to issue new licences for oil and gas. Also because of the ‘windfall’ tax on the sector (bringing total tax on oil and gas companies, including corporation tax, to 78 per cent) even when oil and gas prices have fallen back and there are no longer any windfalls to be had.

    The destruction of North Sea oil and gas is very big deal for Scotland, especially in Aberdeen where Farage was campaigning yesterday….

    Liked by 2 people

  21. Naturally the Guardian is celebrating this:

    “James Cleverly takes on Kemi Badenoch over decision to ditch net zero targets

    Senior Tory to give speech in which he will criticise ‘neo-luddites’ on right for failing to embrace green technology”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/04/james-cleverly-kemi-badenoch-net-zero-targets

    I am so tired of the intellectual confusion displayed by these people:

    …The senior Conservative MP, who lost to Badenoch in last year’s Tory leadership race, said it was a false choice to believe the UK had to choose between economic growth and protecting the environment.….

    By protecting the environment, he obviously means embracing net zero, to reduce emissions, to avert climate change. But reducing the UK’s emissions will make no difference to the climate. Meanwhile it’s damaging the environment within the UK. We must keep banging away at some basic truths:

    CO2 is not pollution.

    Wind and solar farms, backed up by BESS and necessitating hundreds/thousands of miles of pylons, are neither clean nor green.

    Net zero is not environmentalism – it is its antithesis.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. There seems to be a concerted push on to “prove” to Badenoch that she abandons Net Zero to the Tories’ peril. This piece appeared in UnHerd today as a case in point. Delusional? I should say so. It’s basically 7-8 paragraphs of “Tories need to get back on board with Net Zero ASAP.”

    The author seems to have bashed it out without thinking anything other than that he needed to beat this particular drum today: he says there has always been a strain of conservationism in the Tories (then names Cameron as among them), without noting that “real” conservation and Net Zero are often acting in opposition. He then talks about “air pumps”, whatever they are, and that the Tories stand to lose votes if it doesn’t toe the Net Zero line, seemingly unaware that no-one ever voted Tory because of the party’s green hue.

    What we do know is that there are lots of Tory MPs who are not Tories. They will be enjoying what Cleverly is giving them. But despite UnHerd’s opinion, the beneficiary of another U-turn back to the uniparty will benefit Reform. I would suggest to Badenoch that some of them need to be deselected if they do not have a rational position on this issue.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Tory politicians might be well-advised to read the comments below that article. They certainly aren’t supportive.

    Like

  24. Jit/Mark – from the comments we get some quoting “combating climate change”. With some stating the obvious.

    Made me think, when did “Global Warming” morph into “climate change” & extreme weather?

    Whoever 1st coined it was 1 smart media savvy person, as it confuses the audience/reader as to what the real life difference NZ will make, even if all countries hold hands.

    Like

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