{"id":280599,"date":"2023-09-26T19:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T17:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=280599"},"modified":"2023-09-26T19:59:03","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T17:59:03","slug":"fingers-pointed-over-failure-of-net-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=280599","title":{"rendered":"Fingers pointed over failure of Net Zero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Net Zero Watch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Andrew Montford<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
A prominent former member of the Climate Change Committee blames MPs for failure of Net Zero plans<\/em>.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2020, the economist Paul Johnson, a member of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said that the overall cost of getting to Net Zero should be \u2018more than manageable\u2019, and indeed, with a fair technological wind, might be \u2018remarkably low\u2019.[1]<\/a> Tens of billions of pounds a year would be all that was required, he claimed, in line with the CCC\u2019s 2019 Net Zero report, which suggested a figure of \u00a350 billion per year, and thus perhaps \u00a31.5 trillion in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This easy transformation was going to be enabled by technology, explained Mr Johnson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It looks likely that electric cars will turn out to be cheaper overall to buy and run than petrol cars. The cost of wind and solar power has been plummeting at an extraordinary rate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Wind forward just three years, and Mr Johnson\u2019s optimism about the bill to be paid looks slightly ridiculous. His belief in plummeting renewables costs \u2013 credulous even at the time \u2013 has been refuted every year, before and since, by the information in windfarm financial accounts,[2]<\/a> and now by the recent failure of the renewables auction too. EVs remains thousands of pounds more expensive than petrol and diesel equivalents,[3]<\/a> and they are dearer to insure to boot.[4]<\/a> Very few seem to want them, and even fewer seem interested in heat pumps either, perhaps unsurprisingly since they seem to deliver only higher energy bills.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps sensing a change in the wind, Mr Johnson seems recently to have changed his tune. In an article in the Times<\/em> on Monday,[6]<\/a> he declared that we have \u2018targets without strategies and without coherent policies\u2019 for reaching Net Zero. And indeed, there is a \u2018fog of uncertainty over how we are actually expecting to decarbonise household heating, further massively increase zero-carbon electricity production and distribution, revolutionise agriculture and all the rest\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Net Zero not so \u2018manageable\u2019 after all, then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now it seems that, rather than being \u2018rather low\u2019, Net Zero is actually going to be \u2018costly\u2019. Indeed, we are warned, the investment required is \u2018not in the billions, but in the trillions\u2019 \u2013 \u2018vast amounts of money\u2019, he warns. This dramatic upgrading of the costs does rather suggest that his earlier estimate, just three years old, was wrong by several trillion pounds. Still, as Niels Bohr once observed, \u2018prediction is hard, particularly of the future\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amusingly, Mr Johnson seems to want to blame MPs for the failure of the Net Zero plan. There was, he says, \u2018an easy consensus\u2019 and a \u2018lack of serious parliamentary scrutiny\u2019. You have to admit that the chutzpah is impressive. Mr Johnson was, after all, a member of the Climate Change Committee when it produced the Net Zero plan. He told us it was \u2018manageable\u2019, remember? So while few would argue that Parliamentary oversight of the Net Zero process has been non-existent \u2013 shamefully so \u2013 for members of the CCC to try to shift the blame in this way does seem a bit like pointing the finger at the teacher for your poor homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all these problems, Mr Johnson\u2019s enthusiasm for the Net Zero project seems undiminished. It is still vital that we go ahead, he says, because we face \u2018an existential threat\u2019, rather contradicting a prominent former CCC colleague, Professor Jim Skea, who is now the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and who seems much less apocalyptic about it all.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So although \u2018deliverable plans\u2019 are \u2018thin on the ground\u2019, he seems to think that if we just gird our loins, and come up with a new one, all will be well. All it will take is\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u2026the kind of careful, long-term, honest planning, decision-making and delivery that has not exactly been the hallmark of British governments<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s enough to make your blood run cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/edition\/business\/the-law-of-averages-cannot-apply-to-our-pursuit-of-a-net-zero-future-kr0rjmj7v<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.thegwpf.org\/publications\/cheap-offshore-wind-power-claims-are-false-data-reveals\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.thisismoney.co.uk\/money\/electriccars\/article-11995825\/The-electric-cars-expensive-insure.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.rac.co.uk\/drive\/electric-cars\/running\/are-electric-cars-cheaper-to-insure\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.thegwpf.org\/publications\/new-paper-reveals-governments-heat-pump-plan-as-uneconomic\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/bc060266-5b0c-11ee-a0fe-c89e2badddf3?shareToken=4532d9af6549a060ec02d03d161da917&s=08<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/climate-change-do-not-overstate-15-degrees-threat\/a-66386523<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amusingly, Mr Johnson seems to want to blame MPs for the failure of the Net Zero plan. There was, he says, \u2018an easy consensus\u2019 and a \u2018lack of serious parliamentary scrutiny\u2019. You have to admit that the chutzpah is impressive. Mr Johnson was, after all, a member of the Climate Change Committee when it produced the Net Zero plan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":280607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691819224,691818081,691822985,691818154,691819094],"class_list":{"0":"post-280599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change-committee","9":"tag-electric-cars","10":"tag-mr-johnson","11":"tag-net-zero","12":"tag-renewable-green-energy","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/00Schuurman_typo-1.png?fit=2000%2C1476&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1aZN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":316962,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=316962","url_meta":{"origin":280599,"position":0},"title":"Time for MPs to Come Clean About the Green Blob","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/04\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"For years, perhaps decades, the cross-party Westminster consensus on climate change has been a suffocating orthodoxy that limited debate about energy and other policy agendas, leaving Britain under-resourced and facing the consequences of energy prices that are out of control. 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