In October 2008, Parliament passed the Climate Change Act requiring the Government to ensure that by 2050 ‘the net UK carbon account’ was reduced to a level at least 80% lower than that of 1990; ‘carbon account’ refers to CO₂ and ‘other targeted greenhouse gas emissions’. Only five MPs voted against it. Then in 2019, by secondary legislation and without serious debate, Parliament increased the 80% to 100%ⁱ, creating the Net Zero policy (i.e. any remaining emissions must be offset by equivalent removals from the atmosphere).

Unfortunately, it’s a policy that’s unachievable, potentially disastrous and pointless. And that’s true whether or not Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to increased global temperatures.

1. It’s unachievable.

1.1 A modern economy depends on fossil fuels. And that’s unlikely to change until well after 2050, if ever.ⁱⁱ Examples fall into two categories: (i) products such as ammonia for fertilisers, cement and concrete, primary steel, plastics, insecticides, pharmaceuticals, anaesthetics, semiconductors, lubricants, solvents, paints, resins, adhesives, insulation, tyres and asphalt; and (ii) vehicles and machines such as those used in agriculture, mining and quarrying, mineral processing, building, the transportation of heavy goods, commercial shipping, commercial aviation and military and emergency services. All the above require either the combustion of fossil fuels or are made from oil derivatives; easily deployable, commercially viable alternatives have yet to be developed.ⁱⁱⁱ

1.2 Wind is Britain’s most effective source of renewable electricity – because of our latitude solar can make only a small contribution. But wind power also has significant problems: (i) the substantial costs of subsidising, building, operating, maintaining and replacing (when worn-out) the turbines needed for Net Zero – all exacerbated by high interest rates; (ii) the complex engineering and cost challenges of establishing, as required for renewables, an expanded, stable and reliable high voltage grid by 2030 as planned by the Government; (iii) the vast scale of what’s involved (a host of enormous wind turbines, immense amounts of space ^iv and substantial quantities of increasingly unavailable and expensive raw materials and components ^v); and (iv) the intermittency of renewable energy (see 2 below).^vi This means that Britain may be unable to generate sufficient electricity for current needs by 2030 let alone for the mandated EVs and heat pumps and the energy requirements of industry and the huge new data centres being developed to support for example the Government’s plans for the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI).^vii

1.3 In any case, Britain doesn’t have enough skilled technical managers, electrical, heating and other engineers, electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics and other skilled tradespeople required to do the multitude of tasks essential to achieve Net Zero; a problem that’s exacerbated by the Government’s plans for a massive programme of house building.^viii

2. It’s potentially disastrous.

2.1 The Government aims for 95% renewable electricity by 2030, but hasn’t published a fully costed engineering plan for the provision of grid-scale back-up and network stability when there’s little or no wind or sun; a problem that’s exacerbated by the likely retirement of elderly nuclear and gas power plants. The Government has indicated that the problem may be resolved by the provision of new gas-fired power plants ^ix or possibly by ‘green’ hydrogen or batteries. But gas plants have an eight year lead time and our offshore gas supplies are diminishing.^x Gas is obviously not a ‘clean’ solution and it seems the Government’s answer is to fit gas plants with carbon capture and underground storage (CCS) systems. But green hydrogen and CCS are extremely expensive, controversial, commercially unproven at scale and in any case unlikely to be available until well after 2030.^xi This issue is desperately important: without a solution, electricity blackouts are likely, potentially ruining many businesses and causing dreadful problems including serious health risks for everyone, particularly the most vulnerable. And note: the blackout in Spain on 28^th April this year (the result it seems of over reliance on solar power and lack of ‘grid inertia’^xii) caused at least 8 deaths.^xiii

2.2 Another major Net Zero problem is its overall cost and the impact of that on the economy. Because there’s no comprehensive plan for the project’s delivery, it’s impossible to produce an accurate estimate of overall cost; but, with several trillion pounds a likely estimate, it could well be unaffordable.^xiv The borrowing and taxes required for costs at this scale would put a huge burden on millions of households and businesses and, particularly in view of the economy’s many current problems^xv, could further jeopardise Britain’s increasingly vulnerable international credit standing and threaten its economic viability.

2.3 But Net Zero is already contributing to a serious economic concern: essentially because of the massive system costs of renewables (e.g. subsidies, carbon taxes, grid balancing, grid expansion, ‘constraint’ payments (compensation for having to switch off) and the cost of back-up to cope with intermittency), Britain has the highest industrial and amongst the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world.^xvi The additional costs referred to elsewhere – for example updating the grid, the costs of investment in ‘green’ hydrogen, of developing CCS for low emission power and industrial processes and for fitting to gas-fired power plants used as back-up – can only make this worse. And high energy costs are making household energy bills unaffordable and are undermining the Government’s principal mission of increased economic growth. 

2.4 The pursuit of Net Zero’s increases our dangerous reliance on other countries. For example the refusal to grant licences for further North Sea oil and gas means more uncertain imports of natural gas and of European generated electricity. Far more concerning however is our unwise dependence on China’s goodwill, exacerbated for example by its effective control of the supply of key materials (e.g. lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, copper and so-called rare earths) essential for the manufacture of renewables; this dependence could be seriously damaging to Britain’s national security. Threats include for example communication devices (so-called ‘kill switches’) found in Chinese-built power inverters.^xvii

2.5 Moreover Britain’s growing number of offshore wind turbines and undersea cables are also becoming increasingly vulnerable to sabotage – and offshore turbines can interfere with vital air defences.^xviii

2.6 Renewables are particularly mineral intensive and the vast mining and mineral processing operations they require are already causing horrific environmental damage and dreadful human suffering throughout the world, affecting in particular fragile, unspoilt ecosystems and many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.^xix The continued and growing pursuit of Net Zero will make all this far worse. However an important consequence of that growth is that renewables’ increasing demand for key minerals for which demand exceeds likely supply may threaten their future viability.^xx

3. It’s pointless.

3.1 It’s absurd to regard the closure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting activities here and their ‘export’ mainly to South East Asia (especially China), to plants commonly with poor environmental regulation and powered by coal-fired electricity – thereby increasing global emissions – as a positive step towards Net Zero. Yet, because of efforts to ‘decarbonise’ Britain, that’s what’s happening; it’s why our chemical and fertiliser industries face extinction^xxi and why the closure of our remaining blast furnaces would end our ability to produce commercially viable primary steel (see end note 3). These concerns apply also to most of the machines and other products listed in the first paragraph of item 1 above.^xxii It means that Britain, instead of manufacturing or extracting key products and materials itself, is increasingly importing them in CO₂ emitting ships from around the world. A related absurdity is our importing vast amounts of wood for the subsidised Drax power plant, Britain’s biggest emitter of CO₂ – burning a fuel that emits more CO₂ than coal.^xxiii

3.2 The USA^xxiv plus most non-Western countries – together the source of over 80% of global GHG emissions and home to about 85% of humanity – don’t regard emission reduction as a priority and, either exempt (by international agreement) from or ignoring any obligation to reduce their emissions, are focused instead on economic and social development, poverty eradication and energy security.^xxv As a result, global emissions are increasing (by 62% since 1990) and are set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. As Britain is the source of only 0.7% of global emissions any further emission reduction it makes (even to zero) would make no discernible difference to the global position.^xxvi

In other words, Net Zero means that Britain is legally obliged to pursue an unachievable, potentially disastrous and pointless policy – a policy that imperils our national security and could result in Britain’s economic destruction.

Robin Guenier December 2025

End notes

i http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/part/1/crossheading/the-target-for-2050

ii See Vaclav Smil’s important book, How the World Really Works: http://tiny.cc/xli9001 Also see this: https://co2coalition.substack.com/p/climate-faithful-admit-need-for-fossil

iii Regarding steel for example see the penultimate paragraph of this article: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-blast-furnace-800-years-of-technology.

iv See Andrews & Jelley, “Energy Science”, 3rd ed., Oxford, page 16: http://tiny.cc/4jhezz

v See paragraph 2.4 of the main article. Also: https://energydigital.com/sustainability/mckinsey-2030-battery-raw-material-outlook

vi For a comprehensive view of wind power’s many problems, see this: https://watt-logic.com/2023/06/14/wind-farm-costs/. And re the AI conundrum:

vii Re the AI dilemma: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/14/keir-starmer-ai-labour-green-energy-promise and https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-ai-energy-council-climate-change-gas-data-centers/

viii A detailed Government report: http://tiny.cc/bgg5001 See also pages 10 and 11 of the Royal Academy of Engineering report (Note 6 below). Also see: http://tiny.cc/0mm9001

ix See this report by the Royal Academy of Engineering: http://tiny.cc/qlm9001 (Go to section 2.4.3 on page 22.) This interesting report contains a lot of valuable information.

x https://watt-logic.com/2025/12/30/offshore-pipeline-closure-risk/

xi Re CCS: http://tiny.cc/emi9001, and https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/. Re hydrogen: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-2-14-when-you-crunch-the-numbers-green-hydrogen-is-a-non-starter.

xii An energy specialist reviews the facts and risks here: https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/09/the-iberian-blackout-shows-the-dangers-of-operating-power-grids-with-low-inertia/

xiii See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout.

xiv The National Grid (now the National Energy System Operator (NESO)) has said net zero will cost £3 trillion: https://www.current-news.co.uk/reaching-net-zero-to-cost-3bn-says-national-grid-eso/. And in this presentation Michael Kelly, Emeritus Professor of Technology at Cambridge, shows how the cost would amount to several trillion pounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkImqOxMqvU

xv A worrying view of the current state of Britain’s economy: http://tiny.cc/nli9001

xvi For international price comparisons see Table 5.3.1 here: http://tiny.cc/9kbt001. Note that the UK’s industrial electricity price is well above that of our international competition. And note, from Table 5.7.1, that the UK gas price is about average and from table 5.5.1, that domestic electricity prices are exceptionally high. Also see this comprehensive report: https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/19/new-report-the-true-affordability-of-net-zero/

xvii See http://tiny.cc/0gvj001. An article by Richard Dearlove (ex-head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)) on national security risk and net zero: http://tiny.cc/wbev001/. Re ‘kill switches’: http://tiny.cc/vgvj001.

xviii Re vulnerability concerns: http://tiny.cc/9ruf001 and http://tiny.cc/xau9001. This essay by Dieter Helm (Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford) covers vulnerability and much else: http://tiny.cc/dtyf001

xix See http://tiny.cc/gtazzz, http://tiny.cc/unx8001 and https://eia.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/EIA_US_Wind_Turbine_Timber_Report_1024_FINAL.pdf. And harrowing evidence is found in Siddharth Kara’s book Cobalt Red : http://tiny.cc/nmm9001. For more detailed views of minerals’ environmental and economic costs: http://tiny.cc/klz9001, and http://tiny.cc/qj0u001

xx A problem that’s reviewed here: http://tiny.cc/6dzq001

xxi As explained here: http://tiny.cc/chg5001

xxii A current example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70zxjldqnxo

xxiii See this: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/drax-is-still-the-uks-largest-emitter/. And this Public Accounts Committee report: http://tiny.cc/qpwh001

xxiv Note: Trump’s abandoning of plans for renewables is not really such a huge change for the US as, despite his climate policies, the oil and gas industries flourished under Biden: http://tiny.cc/2ww1001

xxv This essay explains how over the past 30 years non Western countries have taken control of international climate negotiations: https://cliscep.com/2025/12/08/the-west-vs-the-rest/

xxvi This comprehensive EU analysis provides detailed information by country re global greenhouse gas (GHG) and CO₂ emissions: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024?vis=ghgtot#emissions_table.