Tories overestimate net zero cost by nearly £500 billion in policy document blunder
The government's climate change adviser, the Climate Change Committee, has said: "We don't recognise this number"
A Conservative party conference policy document has doubled the cost of the transition to net zero in a spreadsheet blunder.
As reported by the Carbon Brief, the Tories have overestimated the cost of net zero by almost £500 billion.
The “common sense” policy document argues that “what people ultimately want is a government competent enough to solve the problems for which it takes responsibility”.
The Conservative Party document claims, incorrectly, that the government’s official adviser, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), had put the cost of net-zero at close to £1 trillion.
The document stated: “In 2020, the CCC estimated that its route to net-zero would cost £957bn.”
The CCC’s 2020 estimate was exactly half this amount – £478 billion – and last year it published a revised figure of £108 billion, largely as a result of the falling cost of electric vehicles (EVs).
The Carbon Brief’s analysis found that the Conservative party’s erroneous claim seems to have stemmed from another report that had accidentally added up numbers twice, using a spreadsheet published by the CCC in 2020.
The spreadsheet contains a list of the additional investments needed to build a net-zero economy, from low-carbon electricity to heat pumps and EVs.
These extra capital expenditures, listed as “CAPEX”, add up to a total of £1.38 trillion over the 30 years of 2020-50. They are set against operational savings, listed as “OPEX”, of £0.90 trillion.
Added up over 2020-50, the combined CAPEX and OPEX figures come to a total of £478 billion.
The Tories estimate that achieving net zero will cost £957 billion appears to have been as a result of someone adding all of these numbers together, resulting in the savings and costs being counted twice.
A CCC spokesperson said: “We don’t recognise this number. The committee has previously offered to meet with Ms Badenoch and talk her through our advice. That offer is, of course, still open.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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