Net zero reckoning

So, is this a case of rubber meeting road, or rock meeting hard place?

Fantasies can only be sustained for so long in the face of harsh truths. Net zero is one such. The political class – possibly starting with David Cameron’s efforts to “hug a husky” (and prior to him “cutting the green crap”) – allowed cuddly thoughts of sustainable living and renewable energy to get conflated with a harder line of extremist deindustrialisation. Vested interests jumped on the bandwagon, and over the course of a few years the eco warrior’s cry of “save the whales” got perverted into “whales are CO2 emitters”, the implication being that it is just a necessary – and acceptable – sacrifice if offshore wind farms mean these great sea mammals perish. 

Black is white, war is peace. Saint Greta’s creed is certainly not as pure as the driven snow.

This cognitive dissonance was never going to last, despite some extraordinary spectacles that we have witnessed over the last few years.  A prime example is Germany switching off perfectly operational (and low carbon!) nuclear power stations, only to switch to burning filthy lignite instead. What’s more, the nation is still suffering shortages, such that old aged pensioners were required to eschew heating their homes last winter.

With winter again approaching, much of Europe has already yielded to the inevitable and gently touched the breaks on the climate alarmists’ juggernaut. Our Prime Minister was hardly going to avoid doing the same, but it will have pained him to be bounced into this on the very day that the UN is hosting a ‘Climate Ambition Summit’ in New York.  These supra-national bureaucrats claim there is an “urgency to act” following the “latest scientific assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)”. Apparently, the “damage from the climate crisis is already extensive, and global greenhouse gas emissions remain at record levels”. 

This is just a load of hot air, perhaps emitted by panicked vested interests that are worried about missing out on copious quantities of subsidies that they have gotten used to. The nature of such climate overspending is a discussion that needs to be had, is long overdue, and it looks like we are finally going to get the chance to have it.

In yesterday’s speech, Sunak promised to replace imposition, obfuscation and ideology (not-so-tacitly acknowledging that this is what we’ve been subjected to for the last few years) with consent, honesty and pragmatism.  While he promises that his new direction will now be “accountable to the British public”, his announcement is a curate’s egg that will please very few, as he still claims he wants Britain to hit net zero by 2050.

The members of the climate alarmist cult will be devastated that heretics have ruined their nirvana.  But realists like me – who believe in scientific discourse and have now finally been promised consent, honesty and pragmatism – do not consent to allowing our children’s future to be sacrificed on the net zero altar and will insist on an open discussion as to whether this is even sensible. Net zero is built on a house of cards and relies on an assumption that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming, or climate change, or global boiling. This assumption is flawed.  More evidence supporting climate realists and pragmatists emerges by the day, including a fascinating journal paper published last week on causal links between temperature and CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. Spoiler alert: it’s not the way round the UN would have you believe.

We have a long way to go yet. The foot has been lifted off the accelerator of the climate alarmist juggernaut, but the vehicle is still travelling dangerously fast and has substantial momentum. We need to find the courage to apply the brakes.

But at least Sunak has had the courage to say the previously unsayable, and we can hardly complain when a Prime Minister offers consent, honesty and pragmatism. It is now up to the nation to hold him to this promise and allow this discussion to take place – devoid of imposition, obfuscation and ideology. 

Dr Alex Starling is an advisor to and non-executive director of various early-stage technology companies. Follow him on Twitter: @alexstarling77

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