Net Zero Crumbling Slowly at First, Then Suddenly

A decade ago, the leaders of the three main parties, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband signed their pledge that effectively took climate and energy policy out of the democratic process.

Although it was not yet enshrined in law, this agreement effectively paved the way for Theresa May to set the Net Zero target in 2019. By 2021, our envoy to COP26, Alok Sharma was gleefully blowing up coal-fired power stations and Rishi Sunak was boasting of aligning £130 trillion of the world’s financial assets with the Paris Agreement climate goals, or what we might now see as western economic suicide.

The only opposition to the Net Zero juggernaut was the tiny think tank GWPF/NZW alongside a few dissident bloggers and journalists like Ben Pile, Andrew Orlowski and Ross Clark. Later they were joined by the likes of yours truly and Kathryn Porter. The Net Zero citadel was virtually impregnable.

Fast forward a few years and last year Reform ran on a platform of ditching Net Stupid Zero and earlier this year, Kemi Badenoch signalled that the Tories no longer believed Net Zero was achievable by 2050. The number of journalists writing about the follies of Net Zero and UK energy policy had also grown. Net Zero no longer looked impregnable, cracks were beginning to appear but progress was slow.

However, on Thursday, Kemi announced that the Conservative Party plans to repeal the Climate Change Act, which underpins all the Net Zero nonsense. They have also committed to abolish the Climate Change Committee. Their full announcement can be found at this link: 2025 10 01 Climate Change Act [special brief]

This new policy signals the sudden collapse stage of the Net Zero folly. The change is already heralding a change in the world of policymaking wonks and thinktanks. In the run up to the Tories’ announcement, the priesthood of Net Zero has been queuing up to endorse the Net Zero Reformation.

First, we had “chairman” Michael Liebreich calling for a “Pragmatic Climate Reset” suggesting that historical over-reaches should be wound back and for the legitimate concerns of voters to be addressed. Sam Richards, CEO of Britain Remade has posted an astonishing mea culpa. He advised Boris Johnson to expand offshore wind but is now saying that development of renewables should be paused and the Clean Power 2030 plan be scrapped. Even Octopus Energy is thinking out loud that the focus should be on electrification, not renewables. This about turn from the commentariat and wider Blob comes against the background of a string of profit warnings from renewables operators and investment funds and the mammoth rights issue from Orsted. The Net Zero agenda is collapsing.

It is interesting that this change of heart has come from people who have largely never had to wonder about the engineering marvels that had to occur behind the scenes to ensure the lights stayed on when they turned on their cookers. Perhaps the blackout in Spain and Portugal earlier this year has focused minds on the dangers of too many intermittent renewables on the grid.

We can now see that the empty rhetoric of the “Saudi Arabia of Wind” and “Green Energy Superpower” was the triumph of narrative over numbers and optics over substance. These people in wonk-land never had to worry about choosing between heating or eating; were not concerned about increasing energy debt and were totally at ease as heavy industry collapsed. They are ignorant of maths; the closest they have ever come to imaginary numbers is the increasingly implausible cost estimates from the CCC. They are also ignorant of economics as they clapped like seals at the “nine times cheaper than gas” mantra. We should welcome their Damascene conversion but be cautious that their new message might be just as fickle as the old.

Kemi’s announcement came the day after Ed Miliband’s speech at Labour Conference where he claimed Nigel Farage and Reform are “investment crushing, job destroying, bill raising, poverty driving, science denying, Putin appeasing, young people betraying bunch of ideological extremists”.

I think this is what psychologists call projection. Miliband is accusing his opponents of wanting to do the very same things he is already doing himself. Jim Ratcliff’s INEOS has ended all UK investment because of Net Zero policies pushing up taxes on North Sea oil and gas and expensive energy prices. This, of course, destroys jobs too. Miliband is pushing up bills by pressing ahead with Allocation Round 7, extending contracts to 20 years and offering prices that are much more expensive than gas-fired generation, and of course high bills drive poverty. Miliband denies the physics of intermittent renewables and seems totally unaware of the laws of thermodynamics. If Miliband (and the EU) really wanted to damage Putin, they would all have got behind “drill, baby drill”, because increased supply of hydrocarbons would reduce prices, cutting revenues to the Russian regime. Pursuing expensive and intermittent energy sources as an ideological goal, coupled with the associated economic destruction, does far more to betray the younger generation than almost any other policy.

Net Zero has been crumbling for over a year and is now beginning the sudden collapse stage. Now the only people backing Net Zero are the reality-denying zealots of DESNZ and the CCC. We can imagine Miliband, his head of Mission Control Chris Stark, and the new chair of the CCC, Nigel Topping, barricaded in their ivory tower with their fingers in their ears, saying la-la-la, as Emma Pinchbeck crouches in a corner, rocking on her haunches, humming kumbaya. If Starmer wants to survive and get the country growing again, he has got to fire Miliband and follow Farage and Badenoch by abandoning Net Zero. Then the collapse will be complete.

David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack page, where this article first appeared.

Stop Press: Hospitality bosses have been left fuming at the prospect of paying for discounts enjoyed by large, energy-intensive manufacturers such as steelmakers, according to the Sunday Times.