Expecting the anti-net zero brigade to do their homework might be asking too much.
Over the Easter weekend, Ed Miliband launched a blistering attack on Nigel Farage’s ‘nonsense and lies’ involving net zero.
It followed Farage’s comments to the Sun on Sunday, when he claimed “This [net zero] could be the next Brexit, where Parliament is so hopelessly out of touch with the country.”
The energy secretary accused the Reform leader of peddling dangerous falsehoods about renewable power after he suggested the UK’s net zero target is responsible for destroying Britain’s businesses, including its steel industry.
Miliband’s rebuttal triggered the starting gun for the anti-net zero media, which never needs much provocation to unleash vitriol against the Labour veteran.
At the Telegraph, columnist Michael Deacon attempted to dismiss polling that shows strong public support for climate action. Referencing the Observer, which reported that experts believe attacks on net zero could backfire on Reform UK due to the policy’s broad popularity, Deacon responded:
“Hmm. I wouldn’t be so sure. Many people may indeed have told pollsters that they support net zero. But are we quite certain that they meant it?”
Deacon then drew a parallel with Brexit, arguing that polling prior to the referendum underestimated the depth of public discontent with the EU, something, he suggests, that might see climate policies suffer a similar fate in public opinion.
The Sun followed suit, plastering a headline labelling Miliband ‘delusional’ for pressing on with Labour’s net zero agenda, which the paper claimed would ‘raise bills.’ This was based on comments by Reform’s Richard Tice, who said Miliband is “more delusional than ever,” before taking credit (alongside Farage) for having “saved British Steel and some 3,000 jobs by forcing the government to take back control of a strategic British asset.”
“Instead of criticising us, he should be thanking us for our common sense,” Tice continued.
Meanwhile, the acting shadow energy secretary Andrew Bowie was quoted fuming:
“Labour’s obsession with net zero at any cost is pushing up bills, risking blackouts, decimating the oil and gas industry and making Britain more and more reliant on China. The steel crisis is entirely of Labour’s own making.”
The Express jumped in with an even more absurd attack, claiming Miliband was “left red-faced as little UK village revolts against energy plan.”
The piece rehashed familiar complaints about the visual impact of renewable infrastructure, this time involving a proposed 60-mile stretch of pylons in rural Wales. According to the article, over 100 landowners and residents are refusing access to Green Gen Cymru, urging the government to consider underground cabling instead.
Naturally, the Daily Mail joined the pile on. Columnist Richard Littlejohn, who just weeks earlier dubbed Miliband a “net zero nutjob,” ramped up the fearmongering, asking if “the last factory worker in Britain will turn off the lights” should Labour get its way.
He provocatively framed the Miliband/Farage row as key in the battle for red wall votes in the upcoming local elections on May 1.
What’s conspicuously absent from all this noise is any mention of why net zero exists in the first place. There’s barely a whisper about the global scientific consensus that emissions need to reach net zero to halt climate change, not just reduce, but eliminate them.
Nor is there a reminder that the UK’s net zero target was enshrined under a Conservative government, in line with the Paris Agreement adopted by 196 countries at COP21 in 2015.
As for the claim that net zero will be impossible without bankrupting the country, there’s little evidence to support this either. In fact, there’s the opposite.
Analysis by the London School of Economics has found that, though reaching net zero by 2050 initially costs between 1% and 2% of GDP a year, it will save money by about 2040. For context, Britain spends about 11% of GDP on healthcare, and 10% on social security, including pensions. Not only that but according to a recent carbon budget, the money spent on reaching net zero is also an investment, upgrading the electricity grid or updating homes, for example.
But expecting the anti-net zero brigade to do their homework might be asking too much.
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