It’s over six years since Alex Cull posted Parliament of Fools here at Cliscep. Despite two general elections having taken place since then, the level of debate around the issues of climate change and net zero has not improved much, if at all.

Yesterday saw the House of Commons debating (if such a charade merits the use of the word) the “State of Climate and Nature”. It seems that Mr Miliband has decided to go on the offensive, since all is not well in the world of net zero. It’s time to bang the drum, rally the faithful, and castigate the heretics. Happily for him, he was able to quote the latest piece of alarmism from the Met Office, in the form of its annual update, the latest being “State of the UK Climate in 2024”. Perhaps less conveniently for him, NESO has also just published its 170 page Future Energy Scenarios 2025: Pathways to Net Zero. While the Met Office can always be relied on to help to drum up support for net zero with hefty doses of climate alarmism, NESO actually has a job to do, and has to temper net zero zeal with a dose of reality. Hence we find things like this in the report (at page 39):

The Ten Year Forecast (10YF) has a shortfall of almost 4 million heat pump installations relative to the pathways in 2035 if progress is not accelerated.

The 10YF also shows that, at the current pace, industry is unlikely to switch from natural gas to low carbon alternatives at a sufficient rate.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on the NESO report thus:

Britain is expected to fall short of the progress needed to meet its climate targets over the next decade because it is not growing its supply of clean electricity quickly enough, according to the government’s energy system operator.

The latest 10-year forecast of Britain’s carbon emissions by the government-owned body has revealed that by 2035 the UK will be producing almost a third more carbon emissions than in scenarios where it is on track to meet its legally binding climate targets by 2050.

It is the second official warning in the last month that the government’s climate targets are at risk of being derailed, after the Committee on Climate Change reported that two-fifths of the emissions reductions needed to meet the UK’s interim climate target by the end of the decade still have significant risks or insufficient plans to deliver them.

Curiously (or perhaps not) while Mr Miliband made great use of the Met Office report, the one from NESO wasn’t mentioned by him. It seems he intends to make his report to Parliament on the state of the climate an annual event, presumably timed to take maximum advantage of what we can be sure will be ongoing alarmism in the annual Met Office reports. He should, however, be careful. As things stand, one year into this Labour government’s life, things aren’t going well, either for the government generally, or for its net zero plans. Those plans are off course, and costs to consumers of electricity are rising rather than (as promised) falling. Unless a miracle occurs, it will be obvious in each coming year that the net zero plans are falling apart and that energy costs are continuing to rise. Is it really such a good idea to have an annual celebration of ongoing failure? As the next general election approaches, I suggest that this will look like an increasingly misguided strategy.

The Debate

And so to the debate. 27 Labour MPs lined up to demonstrate their enthusiastic support for the government’s net zero lunacy. But first, the opening statement from Mr Miliband. He started with the usual bout of climate alarmism, then said this:

We know that climate change and nature loss are fundamentally linked and contribute to each other. Globally, we are losing species at a much faster rate than at any other time in human history. Here in Britain, a quarter of our mammals and nearly half of our bird species are currently at risk of extinction, with birds such as starlings, turtle doves and grey partridges under threat. The abundance of species in England has fallen by an estimated third since 1970, and Britain has become one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

Of course, we most certainly don’t know that climate change and nature loss are fundamentally linked. In the UK, the vast majority of nature depletion has been caused by humankind, and not via climate change. Now, that nature depletion is to be accelerated by swathes of industrial-scale renewable energy developments, and associated infrastructure – pylons, sub-stations, BESS storage and all the rest of it. As for animal and bird species at risk of extinction, he would do well to read Jit’s latest piece. If he did so, he might learn something.

Next he banged on (yet again) about the supposed threat to the UK from climate change. As usual, however, he can’t explain how – even if the UK managed to reduce its 0.72% of global emissions to zero by 2050 – this will make the slightest difference to the climate, given increasing emissions in the rest of the world. He offers us a fools’s paradise. We are spending a fortune (which would be better spent – in part, the rest could be saved – on adapting to climate change) in attempting to “deal with” climate change, while failing to do so, and bankrupting the country in the process. He seems to have forgotten completely the words of the Climate Change Act Impact Assessment which he personally signed off:

It should be noted that the benefits of reduced carbon emissions have been valued using the social cost of carbon which estimates the avoided global damages from reduced UK emissions. The benefits of UK action will be distributed across the globe. In the case where the UK acts in concert with other countries then the UK will benefit from other nations reduced emissions and would be expected to experience a large net benefit. Where the UK acts alone, though there would be a net benefit for the world as a whole the UK would bear all the cost of the action and would not experience any benefit from reciprocal reductions elsewhere. The economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak.

His delusion, and failure to remember the good sense set out in the impact statement, leads him to say this:

I want to acknowledge in particular the anxieties that many young people feel about these issues. My candid message to them is this: yes, there are real reasons to worry about the world they will inherit, but we can do something about it. Every fraction of a degree of warming that we prevent, and every step we take to preserve nature, helps to limit the severity of impacts and protect our country from irreparable harm.

Where to start? Young people shouldn’t be subjected to these anxieties. It’s not good for them, and it’s not good for the country. Did he not listen when Cabinet was discussing the need to reform PIP payments, because so many people are now claiming them on the grounds of mental illness and anxiety? Who does he mean by “we”? If he means the UK, then he’s wrong. We can’t even achieve a fraction of a degree of abatement in global warming, we can’t do anything to “limit the severity of impacts”, and his drive for renewable energy is damaging, not preserving, nature.

He does seem to be vaguely aware of the criticism that we in the UK can’t influence the climate or the rest of the world, but – despite massive evidence to the contrary – he’s not having it. He claims that “some 80% of global GDP is covered by net zero commitments”, but this is misleading. He doesn’t say how many countries have legally binding targets in the form of legislation like the Climate Change Act, he doesn’t say how other countries are performing with regard to their vague (and non-binding) “commitments” and he doesn’t explain why global emissions continue to rise. In my opinion, he is utterly deluded:

The lesson is clear. The choices we make as a country influence the course of global action and, in doing so, reduce the impact of the climate and nature crisis on future generations in Britain. To those who say that Britain cannot make a difference, I say, “You are wrong. Stop talking our country down. British leadership matters.”

The lesson is clear, and it’s the opposite of the one he thinks we should learn. The lesson is that we need to stop wasting hundreds of billions of pounds, we need to stop harming our countryside and ecology, and we need to stop making our energy more expensive and less reliable.

We can all probably agree with his concluding flourish:

The safety of our citizens, our natural world and the country that we pass on is not a Labour cause, a Conservative cause, or the cause of any other party; it is a British cause, a cause of us all, and a cause that requires all of us to consider our responsibilities to the generations of today and the generations to come.

The problem is, he’s damaging the very things he claims to care about.

Sadly (and as an erstwhile Labour Party activist, I find this to be particularly galling), most of the common sense on offer came from the Conservatives. A few highlights. First, in direct response, Andrew Bowie:

The Secretary of State calls this “radical truth telling”, but I am afraid that he is not being honest with the British people about the impact of the Government’s plans on the climate, bills and jobs, or about the sacrifices it demands. The Leader of the Opposition has been very clear: chasing “Net Zero by 2050” is unachievable without making the country worse off. That is the truth. Global warming is a global issue, which we cannot face alone. The global climate challenge will not be solved by the UK alone, and it cannot be solved on the backs of British workers or British bill payers...it is not a race if no one else is running. If we are leading the way, we need to make sure that it is a path that others will follow. We must decarbonise in a way that creates energy security and prosperity, rather than forcing industry abroad and impoverishing British people. Why is that so hard for the Labour party to understand?

…Offshoring manufacturing, like ceramics, does not solve global warming, but it does make Britain poorer and Brits unemployed. To build this Government’s 1.5 million new homes, we will use more bricks that at any time since the second world war, but thanks to this Government, fewer than ever before will be made here in Britain. While the Secretary of State admired the fast-paced build out of new renewable generation, new nuclear and low-carbon energy on an unseen scale on his recent visit to the People’s Republic of China, perhaps he was able to reflect on the factors enabling that: the opening of two new coal-fired power stations every week, and the cost of industrial energy in China being less than a third of our domestic cost. We cannot innovate, manufacture, and create growth and prosperity while our energy costs are killing manufacturing. I am afraid that this Government’s plans will drive up the underlying cost of energy for industry, and Britain will pay the price…

…It is indeed time for a policy of radical honesty. Global warming is a global challenge, and I am afraid the Secretary of State’s plans will have a negligible, or even negative, impact on global emissions. Sadly, he is driven by ideology, not by the practicalities of facing this challenge while growing the economy. We are telling the difficult truths; the Government are running from reality.

Sir Julian Lewis pointed out that five countries are responsible for more than 50% (actually, more than 56%) of global emissions (USA, Brazil, India, Russia, China), and asked how many of them have adopted similar legislation to the UK. The risible response was to skilfully avoid acknowledging that they have no such legislation, that Russia isn’t interested, and nor is the US under Trump. Instead he pointed to the vague aspirations of China to achieve net zero by 2060 and of India to do so by 2070. It’s a pity that the BBC article titled “India can’t wish away coal” published this morning was just a bit too late to set the record straight. Instead, we were treated to some ridiculously inappropriate optimism, that is completely unjustified by the facts:

He is right to ask this question. Not every country is going at the same pace, and there are countries that are more sceptical, but there has been a decisive shift across the world on this matter; when I was Climate Change Secretary from 2008 to 2010, net zero was not even talked about. There has been a transformation in the extent to which countries are taking it seriously.

He must read and hear different news reports to the ones that I am aware of. So far as I can see, net zero is in retreat almost everywhere, even including in the EU.

Harriet Cross:

Those of us who advocate for the North sea oil and gas sector are not climate change deniers. We are realists who understand that we will need oil and gas for years to come; that we would be replacing our domestic supply with imports that have four times the carbon intensity; that China emits in 10 days what we emit in a year; and that we will not transition to cleaner energy if we make ourselves poorer.

When Esther McVey asked him to level with the public and to let them know what net zero will cost and by how much it will reduce global temperatures, Mr Miliband blithely referred her to the Climate Change Committee Report, and rather patronisingly (and inaccurately) said:

I make the point gently that the costs of inaction are much greater than the costs of action.

I am sick and tired of hearing that claim made. The costs of action will avoid the costs of inaction only if (and then it’s all a matter of conjecture) the rest of the world similarly incurs those costs – the impact statement attached to the Climate Change Act says as much. If (as is the case) the rest of the world isn’t following the UK’s example, then we have the worst of all worlds – the costs of ineffective action, and the costs of the rest of the world’s inaction.

In my own mind, I compare the fight over net zero to the fight over the Parliament Act in 1911. I see the Labour Party as being comparable to the “backwoodsmen” among the Tory Lords who were determined to vote against the Act to the last ditch, even though the tide of history was against them. The tide of history is against net zero, though the Labour Party hasn’t realised it yet. Meanwhile, in 1911 there were also hedgers and trimmers, who sympathised with the last-ditchers, but thought it was necessary to retreat in order to fight another day. I count the Tory, Sir Bernard Jenkin (and many of his colleagues) as belonging to this cohort. They support net zero in principle, but they can sense the way the wind is blowing. Hence, in my view, why he said this:

I am as passionate as the Secretary of State about achieving net zero across the world and about the decline in species in our natural environment, but that cannot be the only thing we worry about. I do not know whether he has had time to read the “Fiscal risks and sustainability” report produced last week, but it shows that the cost to the public Exchequer of achieving net zero will be 21% of GDP. We know that an argument is going on inside the Government and inside the Labour party about this very issue. This is a question of balancing the risks, because if the Government run out of money because they are overspending, there will not be any money to spend on reversing climate change.

Another such Tory MP (one who perhaps is havering around the last ditch) is Simon Hoare:

As a sponsor of the Climate and Nature Bill, I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement this afternoon. He is right to highlight that this is a national crisis, and many of us across the House are right to point out that it cannot be ignored and that inaction has too great a cost, but he will be aware that the costs are politicising this issue for many people in this country. Legislation is before the House regarding where and how pension funds are invested. Can he assure the House that he is talking to Treasury and local government Ministers to ensure that the maximum amount from those pension funds—particularly, but not exclusively, the local government pension fund—can be invested in green energy projects? That will widen the investment base and therefore hopefully reduce costs, depoliticising the issue and resulting in the greening of our energy generation that we all want to see.

In response, a fellow last-ditcher (Mr Miliband) gave him a very dubious accolade:

He is the voice of good sense—I hope that is not the kiss of death—on the Conservative Benches.

Undoubtedly, Kemi Badenoch has a fight on her hands, though perhaps as the general election approaches, the prospect of losing seats will focus some minds.

Sammy Wilson of the DUP might not thank me for lumping him in with the Tory speeches, but since he is more in tune with them than with Labour, I hope he will forgive me:

The real driver of this statement is the fact that the Secretary of State is losing the argument with his colleagues, who are now challenging the impact of his policies on economic growth. He is trying to cover up the cost, which the OBR revealed last week will be £30 billion per year and £800 billion over the period. Businesses are struggling with power bills that are bankrupting them, and consumers are resisting the net zero demands to fly less, eat less meat and buy cars that they do not want. Does he not see a connection between what he says about young people’s anxiety and his disgraceful scare tactics today, all of which are to enable him to say that Britain is taking the lead? All I say to him is this: since the Paris agreement, emissions have gone up by 30%, so he might be leading, but he does not have too many followers.

I think that was possibly the most perceptive short speech of the day.

I realise that the Tories no longer have many MPs, and Labour has rather a lot, but there did seem to be a disproportionate number of Labour MPs queueing up to flatter Mr Miliband. Here are some of the lowlights:

Bill Esterson (another who must have access to different sources of news and information):

Those opposing climate action in this place can also see the evidence that cheaper driving and home heating are already available to many people, and we should be making them available to as many people as possible. They also know that switching to low-carbon electricity as much and as fast as we can will make this country safer by getting control of our energy generation and supply. Does the Secretary of State agree that the patriotic approach is to work together to cut emissions for financial, security, nature and climate reasons?

Toby Perkins:

I share the Secretary of State’s despair at the fact that the consensus on these matters appears to be dissipating. Does he agree that this is incredibly damaging for investment in the sector? Investors really need to see that whoever is in government, and whatever happens in elections, they have a Government who are committed to this agenda. Does he agree that it is completely wrong to say that Britain is the only country taking this issue seriously? In fact, China is absolutely leading the way in investing in the necessary technologies. We need to catch up and ensure that everyone knows that Britain is open for business in this sector.

Luke Murphy:

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, not least because I called for such a measure before I was elected to this House, under the previous Conservative Government. This is a really important thing to do, not least because it underscores the Government’s approach to clean energy, and to wider climate action to tackle and mitigate the many climate impacts that we already see; we have just had three heatwaves. This action will also lower bills, strengthen our economy and, in a patriotic way, ensure our national security. Does he, like me, lament the loss of the cross-party consensus that he mentioned?

There was much more in similar vein, but it was interesting to note the worries of one MP nervously watching the mounting toll on jobs in her constituency and the prospect of losing her seat (very possibly to Reform UK, given that she represents Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) at the next general election. Melanie Onn:

The Secretary of State will know that my constituents know more than most what it means to host clean energy infrastructure. However, the failure of the cross-party consensus is giving rise to quite a lot of concern in my area, where we face job losses at Prax Lindsey oil refinery. Can the Secretary of State reassure the hundreds of workers who face a very uncertain time that this is the result not of a move towards clean energy, but of mismanagement by the company’s owners?

Meanwhile, the Guardian remains the newspaper of fools, and the newspaper and website of choice of the last-ditchers Here is its take on the innovation represented by Mr Miliband’s annual State of the Climate debate.

Conclusion

Increasingly it looks as though net zero is going to be one of the defining issues of the next general election. The Labour government, under those two true believers, Starmer and Miliband (and egged on by the zealots on the back benches) will stick with net zero. The Tories (presumably due to the pressure from Reform UK) increasingly seem to be realising that opposing net zero (despite their egregious part in pushing it forward until very recently) is a sound electoral strategy. Kemi Badenoch appears to have worked that out. Not all of her MPs are with her yet, as many of them are also true believers – see the way they voted in droves to increase the emissions reduction target in the Climate Change Act from 80% to 100% by 2050. However, electoral reality is likely to drive a change of heart. They won’t want to spend ten years as a minor opposition party, and they have Reform UK’s opposition to net zero to worry about too. At last it seems we might actually be given a choice about net zero in 2029, after years of a cosy undemocratic consensus. Mr Miliband and Sir Keir may yet regret nailing their colours so firmly to this mast.