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 per cent lower than that of 1990; ‘carbon account’ refers to CO2 and ‘other targeted greenhouse gas emissions’. Only five MPs voted against it. In 2019, by secondary legislation and without serious debate, Parliament increased the 80 per cent target to 100 per centi, 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 in any case pointless. And that’s truewhether or not Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to increased global temperatures.
1. It’s unachievable
1.1 A modern, advanced economy depends on fossil fuels; something that’s unlikely to change globally until well after 2050.ii Examples fall into two categories: (i) vehicles and machines such as those used in agriculture, mining and quarrying, mineral processing, building, the transportation of heavy goods, commercial shipping, commercial aviation, the military and emergency services; (ii) products such as nitrogen fertilisers, cement and concrete, primary steel, plastics, insecticides, pharmaceuticals, anaesthetics, lubricants, solvents, paints, adhesives, insulation, tyres and asphalt. 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 our most effective source of renewable electricity; because of our latitude solar makes only a small contribution. Nonetheless wind has significant problems: (i) the substantial costs of subsidising, building, operating, maintaining and replacing the turbines; (ii) the complex engineering and cost challenges of establishing, as required for renewables, an expanded, stable and reliable high voltage grid by 2030; (iii) the vast scale of what’s involved (a multitude of enormous wind turbines, immense amounts of spaceiv and vast quantities of increasingly unavailable and expensive raw materials and componentsv); (iv) the intermittency of renewable energy (see 2 below).vi This means that the UK may be unable to generate sufficient electricity for current needs by 2030, let alone for the mandated EVs and heat pumps and for 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, we don’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 exacerbated by the Government’s plans for massively increased house building.viii
2. It’s potentially disastrous
2.1 The Government aims for 95 per cent renewable electricity by 2030, but has not 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 complicated by the likely retirement of elderly nuclear and fossil fuel power plants. The Government has indicated that the problem may be resolved by the provision of new gas-fired power plantsix or possibly by ‘green’ hydrogen. But it has yet to publish any detail about its plans for either. The former is obviously not a ‘clean’ solution and it seems the Government’s answer is to fit the power plants with carbon capture and underground storage (CCS) systems. But both green hydrogen and CCS are very expensive, controversial and commercially unproven at scale.x 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 April 28 (the result, it seems, of over-reliance on solar power and lack of ‘grid inertia’xi) caused seven deaths.xii
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.xiii 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 problemsxiv, could further jeopardise Britain’s vulnerable international credit standing and threaten its economic viability.
2.3 Net Zero is already contributing to a serious economic concern: essentially because of the costs of renewables (e.g. subsidies and back-up to cope with intermittency), the UK has the highest industrial and amongst the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world.xv The additional costs referred to elsewhere in this essay – for example the costs of establishing a non-fossil grid and of fitting CCS systems to gas-fired power plants used as back-up – can only make this worse. And high energy costs are incompatible with the Government’s principal mission of increased economic growth.
2.4 Net Zero’s pursuit increases our dangerous reliance on other countries. For example, the closure of North Sea oil and gas means an increase in uncertain imports of natural gas; likewise, our dependence on China is exacerbated 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. There’s also major concern about communication devices (so-called ‘kill switches’) found in Chinese-built power inverters.xvi
2.5 Moreover, the UK is becoming increasingly vulnerable to sabotage of or attack on its increasing numbers of offshore wind turbines and numerous undersea cables. Another concern is how offshore wind turbines can interfere with vital air defences.xvii
2.6 The vast mining and mineral processing operations required for renewables 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.xviii The continued pursuit of Net Zero will make all this far worse.
3. In any case 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’ the UK, that is what’s happening; it’s why our chemical and fertiliser industries face extinctionxix and why the closure of our remaining blast furnaces would end our ability to produce commercially viable primary steel (see note 3). These concerns apply also to most of the machines and other products listed in the first paragraph of item 1 above.xx 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 Drax power plant, a fuel that emits more CO2 than coal.xxi
3.2 The USxxii plus most major non-Western countries – together the source of over 80 per cent of global GHG emissions and home to about 85 per cent 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.xxiii As a result, global emissions are increasing (by 62 per cent since 1990) and are set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. As the UK is the source of only 0.7 per cent of global emissions, any further emission reduction it makes (even to zero) would make no discernible difference to the global position.xxiv
In other words, Net Zero means the UK is legally obliged to pursue an unachievable, potentially disastrous and pointless policy – a policy that could result in Britain’s economic destruction.
Notes
i http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/part/1/crossheading/the-target-for-2050
See Vaclav Smil’s important book, How the World Really Works: http://tiny.cc/xli9001
iii Regarding steel for example see the penultimate paragraph of this article and: 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 http://tiny.cc/b9qtzz Also see paragraph 2.4 above.
vi For a comprehensive view of wind power’s many problems, see this: https://watt-logic.com/2023/06/14/wind-farm-costs/
vii https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/14/keir-starmer-ai-labour-green-energy-promise
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.
These reports on CCS are relevant: http://tiny.cc/emi9001, and https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/. Re hydrogen see this: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-2-14-when-you-crunch-the-numbers-green-hydrogen-is-a-non-starter.
xi 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/
xii See http://tiny.cc/lh7j001 (in Spanish).
xiii 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
xiv An interesting summary here: http://tiny.cc/nli9001
xv For international price comparisons see Table 5.3.1 here: http://tiny.cc/axah001. Note that the UK’s industrial electricity price is well above that of our international competition. Also note, from Table 5.7.1, that the UK gas price is about average. And see this comprehensive report: https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/19/new-report-the-true-affordability-of-net-zero/
xvi See http://tiny.cc/6nm9001 and http://tiny.cc/0gvj001. And re unauthorised communication devices found in power inverters in Chinese-built solar panels and batteries see: http://tiny.cc/vgvj001
xvii For examples of vulnerability concerns see these: http://tiny.cc/9ruf001, http://tiny.cc/xau9001 and http://tiny.cc/r73j001. Also this essay by Dieter Helm (Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford) is covers vulnerability and much else considered above: http://tiny.cc/dtyf001
xviii See http://tiny.cc/gtazzz and http://tiny.cc/unx8001. And harrowing evidence is found in Siddharth Kara’s book Cobalt Red – about the horrors of cobalt mining in the Congo: http://tiny.cc/nmm9001. And for a more detailed view of minerals’ environmental and economic costs: http://tiny.cc/klz9001.
xix As explained here: http://tiny.cc/chg5001
xx A current example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70zxjldqnxo
xxi See this Public Accounts Committee report: http://tiny.cc/qpwh001
xxii Note: Trump’s abandoning 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
xxiii This essay shows how developing countries have taken control of climate negotiations: https://ipccreport.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/the-west-vs-the-rest-2.1.1.pdf. (Nothing that’s happened since 2020 changes the conclusion: for example see the ‘Dubai Stocktake’ agreed at COP28 in 2023 of which item 38 unambiguously confirms developing countries’ exemption from any emission reduction obligation.)
xxiv 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
