{"id":282679,"date":"2023-10-10T10:14:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T08:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=282679"},"modified":"2023-10-10T10:14:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T08:14:44","slug":"andrew-neil-everywhere-theres-a-growing-public-revolt-against-net-zero-forcing-politicians-across-europe-to-renege-on-green-virtue-signalling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=282679","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Neil: Everywhere, there\u2019s a growing public revolt against net zero, forcing politicians across Europe to renege on green virtue\u00a0signalling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paul Homewood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the real world, Andrew Neil. It\u2019s just a pity you were not writing this years ago:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The headlong rush to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, pursued for so long by democratic governments across the globe regardless of cost, has finally hit the buffers of voter resistance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Mainstream politicians of the left, right and centre still mouth their consensual net zero platitudes but they are rowing back from the policies required to achieve it at some speed, not least here in Britain.
It has at last dawned on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that a population already reeling from a vicious cost of living crisis does not need to be lumbered by the extra burden of the expensive and intrusive green agenda of a political elite which will not itself suffer any hardship from it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


So he has delayed the ban on new petrol and diesel cars and the fatwa on new residential gas heating systems until 2035 (from 2030 and 2025 respectively). Expect more delays to come.
Sunak and his team justified his U-turn because \u2018governments of all stripes have not been honest about the cost and trade-offs\u2019, because the drive to net zero would impose \u2018unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families\u2019, and because \u2018we\u2019re not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people\u2019.
Fair enough. Better late than never. But we must still file the PM under \u2018slow learner\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


When I interviewed then Chancellor Sunak in June 2021 during my mercifully brief broadcasting career at GB News (only eight shows over two weeks), I asked him to tell us the cost of net zero.
He couldn\u2019t. I suggested it would be in the trillions and it was surely the Treasury\u2019s duty to come up with a price tag. He obfuscated. He said after the interview that nobody had ever asked him the cost before. He\u2019s taken his time to find out, if he has.
The fact is net zero was backed by such an overwhelming political consensus and a cheerleading media (which failed to do its job challenging the consensus) that questions of cost were regarded as an unnecessary spanner in the works by unhelpful naysayers.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years ago, Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose analysis of all things economic are lapped up unquestioningly by journalists, opined (as a member of the official Climate Change Committee) that the overall cost should be \u2018more than manageable\u2019 and might even be \u2018remarkably low\u2019. That turned out to be nonsense, as he now recognises.
Johnson now admits 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.
Far from being \u2018rather low\u2019 he now warns it\u2019s going to be \u2018costly\u2019 requiring \u2018vast amounts of money . . . not in the billions, but in the trillions\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


From the start it is people and families on modest incomes who\u2019ve been expected to pay for the transition to net zero, which is why there has been a growing public revolt against it.
Far from being confined to Britain, the pushback is everywhere, forcing politicians to renege on their green virtue signalling and slow or even halt the process.
In France, President Macron has ruled out banning gas boilers and refused to give a date for phasing out of fossil fuels, bar coal, which France barely uses. His first term was almost derailed by the \u2018yellow vest\u2019 protests against \u2018green\u2019 increases in fuel duties. He has no desire to repeat that upheaval.
New Zealand\u2019s Labour government is almost certainly heading for defeat in next weekend\u2019s general election after its plans to tax livestock emitting methane (a Kiwi global first!) and turn sheep and cattle farms into pine plantations provoked a revolt, with 58 per cent of those living in rural areas telling pollsters they will vote for right-of- centre parties.
Anti-net zero Dutch farmers have shaken their political system in response to anti-farming measures by the Dutch government. The right-wing Farmer-Citizen Movement, only four years old, is now the dominant party in the Dutch Senate (upper house) and every provincial assembly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The net-zero revolt is Europe-wide. Even the centre-left Politico website is forced to report that \u2018as the 2024 European election approaches [for the European Parliament], a notable shift is occurring across major countries in the EU: voters are turning away from Green parties amid a rising tide of right-wing populism and anti-EU sentiment . . . a significant portion of this shift can be attributed to voter dissatisfaction with the EU\u2019s climate transition policies\u2019.
The revolt is most stark in Germany, which has long thought itself in the vanguard of Europe\u2019s transition to net zero and whose Green party is a prominent member of its ruling coalition government.
Plans to phase out oil and gas heating in homes nearly broke the government this summer and had to be watered down. Pressure is growing for further concessions on the EU\u2019s 2035 ban on combustion vehicles. Stricter energy efficiency rules for buildings have been shelved.
Germany\u2019s green credentials are somewhat in tatters. It plans to bring on stream this winter several moth-balled coal plants; otherwise, the government fears it can\u2019t keep the lights on.
It\u2019s a repeat of last winter but more serious since the coalition closed the country\u2019s remaining nuclear reactors last spring. Seven out of the ten most polluting coal plants in the EU are German.
For sheer stupidity, British energy policy is hard to beat. But in the energy stupidity stakes, among a long list of candidates, Germany is the clear winner. The industrial powerhouse of Europe is being de-industrialised by energy policies emanating from Berlin and Brussels.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


A debilitating cocktail of high energy costs, labour shortages and reams of red tape is forcing some of Germany\u2019s biggest companies \u2014 including Volkswagen, BASF and Siemens \u2014 to seek friendlier business climes in North America and Asia.
For what? There\u2019s a growing sense among ordinary voters that huge sacrifices are being demanded of them for nothing in return. The UK now accounts for 1 per cent of global CO2 emissions, China almost 30 per cent. What difference will ripping out a cheap gas boiler for an expensive heat pump make to the climate?
China claims its carbon emissions will peak in 2030 and hit net zero by 2060. But look at what it\u2019s doing, not what it says: it is giving planning permission for two new coal-fired power plants every week (yes, every week).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Last year, it approved a record-breaking 106 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity. Permits are being handed out at an even higher rate this year.
The pace of construction is also increasing. China now has 243 GW of coal-fired capacity permitted or under construction.
One gigawatt is the equivalent of a coal power plant.
America has the third-biggest coal-fired electricity generation capacity in the world. India is second (after China) and is building more coal plants too, as are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam. The Asia-Pacific now accounts for 80 per cent of global coal demand.
Even if America closed all its coal capacity tomorrow, it would quickly be more than matched by all the new coal plants coming on stream in China.
The grim truth is that China and other parts of Asia are now building so many new coal plants so fast that the \u2018energy transition to net zero\u2019 which British and other western politicians so obsess about is effectively meaningless.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


To go crazy over a few more oil and gas licences in the North Sea or one new coal mine in the north of England is absurd, given what is happening on the other side of the world.<\/em>
Full post<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT By Paul Homewood Welcome to the real world, Andrew Neil. It\u2019s just a pity you were not writing this years ago: The headlong rush to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, pursued for so long by democratic governments across the globe regardless of cost, has finally hit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":282683,"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":"The grim truth is that China and other parts of Asia are now building so many new coal plants so fast that the \u2018energy transition to net zero\u2019 which British and other western politicians so obsess about is effectively meaningless.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"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":[691823482,691823483,691818583,691818154,691823481,691823415],"class_list":{"0":"post-282679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-anti-farming","9":"tag-eus-climate-transition-policies","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-net-zero","12":"tag-public-revolt","13":"tag-u-k-prime-minister-rishi-sunak","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/00protest_farmers_holland.jpg?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1bxl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":247680,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=247680","url_meta":{"origin":282679,"position":0},"title":"Andrew Neil Exposes Labour\u2019s Net Zero Madness","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"15\/03\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"It is scary to think that this moron will be in government in a couple of years time!","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-444.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-444.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-444.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-444.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-444.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":297887,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=297887","url_meta":{"origin":282679,"position":1},"title":"Net Zero Jobs? 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