Boris Johnson’s push for net zero plunged into chaos, as Treasury baulk at the cost
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
In years to come, people will look back and wonder how politicians of all parties were so naive to believe that Net Zero could be attained at little cost.
Finally some are beginning to wake up to the truth:
Boris Johnson’s green agenda has been plunged into chaos amid fears that the costs of reaching “net zero” could cripple working class families in newly-won Tory seats.
A Treasury review of the costs of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 has been delayed since the spring. There are concerns the analysis highlights that the poorest households will be hit the hardest by the ambition, which will involve policies such as stripping out gas boilers and switching to electric or hydrogen cars.
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is said to be increasingly concerned about a looming crisis over the cost of living for British households, as the country faces the triple threat of rocketing energy bills, the potential for rising prices as a result of inflation, and an as-yet unspecified suite of policies to enable the country to meet the net zero target.
The Treasury review has been held back amid fears that the analysis will lead MPs and the public to the conclusion that Mr Johnson’s net zero strategy would be politically toxic in the Red Wall seats won by the Conservatives in December 2019.
Amid growing disquiet among Tory MPs, a new net zero scrutiny group of backbenchers is being formed to hold ministers to account over the plans. Craig Mackinlay, its chairman, warned that spending vast sums on subsidising green schemes would be seen by the public as “aping” some of Jeremy Corbyn’s pledges at the 2019 election.
He said: “The Conservatives’ strongest hand has always been credibility: credibility to deliver good economics and good governance. To ape the failed policies of an extreme Labour politician does not seem to be the way of electoral success.”
He added: “I’m very pleased the Treasury are actually thinking of this with a financial head on rather than just a warm feeling.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/07/boris-johnsons-push-net-zero-plunged-chaos/
It really should not have taken a genius to work out that forcing people to buy hugely expensive electric cars and heat pumps was would cripple most family budgets.
As we know, of course, successive governments have been badly misled by Gummer’s Committee on Climate Change, helped its useful idiots in the media who have failed to challenge Gummer’s crazy policies. It is worth noting that this article is written by Edward Malnick, the Political Editor, rather than little Emma Gatten, who merely gets an assist. Her contributions are usually typical of the environmental departments across the media, which act as mouthpieces for the renewable lobby and rarely challenge any of the green dogma.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Those Smart Meters will impose the highest electricity prices on consumers who use their heat pumps most at the times heat pumps most need to supply most heat.
HP advocates choose to ‘forget’ reality.
Heat pump plan is already on the skids…
https://www.thegwpf.com/net-zero-heat-pump-plans-are-dead-and-buried/
Mr Nut Nut PM needs a reality check. Bloody cold here, in August!
I like to think the Press misheard. ‘Numbnuts’ is so apposite.
JF
Urban dictionaries give some other definitions, I cant mention them here
While the cost of Net Zero is very important, why are few questioning if the methods proposed will actually work, despite spending vast amounts of tax payers money.
What sort of conservative government have we got?
“What sort of conservative government have we got?”
We haven’t! 😉
Correct. ‘It really should not have taken a genius to work out that forcing people to buy hugely expensive electric cars and heat pumps was would cripple most family budgets.’
Net Zero means no electricity. Net Zero means no electric cars and heat pumps, either. The forced fixes fix nothing.
Wrong message. The real point is that climate is not one scintilla affected by “carbon” i.e. minicscule traces of highly benign carbon dioxide upon which all life depends.gas
I have seen two very interesting, unbiased discussions of this on GB News.
It’s NOT Boris Johnson’s green agenda …
it’s Carrie Symonds (Boris’s Bint ) green agenda !!
She’s the driving force (gimme what I want or no sex !! ) & the one who spends other peoples money on ‘£840-a-roll’ wallpaper, a £9,800 Baby Bear sofa, a £3,000 Lily Drum table, with speculation as much as £200,000 has been spent on refurbishing the four-bedroom Downing Street flat.
So she’s not bothered who goes cold or hungry.
He’s just an ambitious, unscrupulousness, weak man & perpetual liar.
(don’t ask what I really think !!! (:-) )
You took the pixels right off my screen! BJ is a chancer; a man after his own fortune – but nobody else’s (bugger the rest); a man, like Blairs cushion: retaining the impression of the last person to sit on him. This is a sad conclusion given how long a conservative I have been.
Why haven’t the likes of Davis, John Redwood and Lawson done more to argue the case??
Paul, your ‘… would cripple most family budgets’ is reality, whereas the DT’s ‘… could cripple working class families in newly-won Tory seats’ is a pathetic attempt at describing what would happen: yet another ‘Could’!
Even comfortably off families would find it a burden. They might have some money stashed away, but it would be earmarked for something, like replacing worn-out appliances, a new car or for a rainy day. And in later life, when savings are most likely to be accumulated, it would be for retirement, with care home costs looming. And single people would find it a burden as well.
And then, the not-in-work and low paid will require grants, so the well off will be hammered again with even more green taxes! It will be the more productive that will suffer most by being handicapped with inferior heating, cooking, travel and electronic communications, and will therefore become less productive.
We haven’t even approached the long forbidden questions of ‘Is there a Climate Emergency?’, ‘Is the warming due to increased atmospheric concentrations of Carbon Dioxide?’, ‘Why don’t we have an overall plan?’, and ‘Why are so few Economic Blocks striving for Net Zero Carbon (Dioxide) Emissions?’.
To add to your questions (RC)….(and in today’s parlance): Why can’t we just suck it up?
Obvious. Why is it that a CC means we have to completely change society (to the left) rather than just live with it until nature changes course?
Of course, the change of course (sorry!) is liable to be to the COLD side, if REAL scientists (especially the Russian ones) are to be believed. Then, the world will need cheap, 24/7 power – either nuclear (Russia again) or fossil fuelled. Unfortunately, the politicians are doing the exact opposite of what will be needed when the Dalton Minimum freeze starts!
The whole racket is unravelling nicely!
Ideology seldom wins in the long run simply because it’s usually based on woolly thinking and falsehoods rather than pragmatic solutions that do what they’re supposed to, at market-affordable prices.
* China and India refuse to submit their ‘carbon’ plans for COP 26.
* Multiple UK government plans collapse at the first serious scrutiny, which the CCC has been disgracefully glossing over for years.
* UK policy won’t reduce global carbon emissions.
* It won’t reduce carbon atmospheric concentrations.
* Therefore it cannot reduce any ‘man made’ warming, whether real or theoretical.
* Which means it cannot reduce actual global temperatures a jot.
Therefore all four key UK metrics are already guaranteed to fail, so everyone can now see the crackpot Net Zero is an undeliverable policy.
This is reality, biting.
“The whole racket is unravelling nicely!”
But will it have unraveled enough to affect the Glasgow extravaganza in October/November? 🙂
Notwithstanding the whole shebang is based on an egregious politically fashioned fiction ‘man made warming’.
The logistics of and man made lunacy, ridding the country of natural gas sourced heat and generation, simply put is insane. It’s not feasible, it’s not sustainable, it’s not bleeding logical. And then, when did the greens, Boris and the princess, Stoma’s gang inclusive and crackpot climate change committee ever live in the real world?
“In years to come, people will look back and wonder how politicians of all parties were so naive to believe that Net Zero could be attained at little cost.”
The great and the good who rule over us are neither great nor good but often highly inadequate, with no practical experience or common sense. There are few of the 650 or so MP’s and those holding important jobs in many quangos, who could hold down important jobs in the wider world where patronage is not helping them.
They are mostly at the middle manager of a supermarket level and really I would like those creating our policies to be at the top of the tree not scrambling around in the lower branches.
“In years to come, people will look back and wonder how politicians of all parties were so naive to believe that Net Zero could be attained at little cost.”
To believe that Net Zero could be done at all, regardless of cost. Simply impossible to balance what is put into the atmosphere by taking out an equivalent amount and burying it somewhere.
Another sign that virtue signalling is being challenged
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9872451/RICHARD-NORTH-problem-electricity-come-electric-cars.html
As he notes even the government climate spokesperson doesn’t want to lose the practicality of her old diesel:http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=88058
Richard North makes many good points in the DM article.
He lets himself down by parroting the dirty fossil fuels taboo (“more than 37 per cent still derived from dirty fossil fuels, mostly from power stations using natural gas”).
Yuk!! On what rational basis can we describe burning natural gas as dirty, when IED standards of environmental performance are being adhered to? Even coal fired generation does not deserve this, because it too must comply with IED standards.
Germany certainly doesn’t seem to consider coal unacceptable. It would be hypocrisy to describe German industry as “dirty”, while importing goods from them.
Kudos to North when he says this: “Lights could start going out across the country if just one major power station suffers a mechanical failure or a shortage of fuel”.
It has probably been happening for a couple of years now, but masked by the Covid19 downturn. There will be many businesses dipping their toes into DSM to get a cut-price interruptible energy supply contract (power and gas). Now there are shortages along the supply chain, businesses will see extra value in satisfying customer promises, and savings in energy supply costs will drop down the pecking order.
North’s mention of shortage of fuel is noteworthy as technically available capacity can be curtailed due to lack of fuel. Every gas fired power station can be forced to shut down if ordered to do so to protect the gas network, and this includes physical shortage of gas.
The UK increasingly relies on gas in the role of “swing fuel” to balance uncertainty of many GW of wind power. Shortage of gas will become one of the top risks for security of energy supply in the UK and NW Europe. This alone is a good enough reason to keep a significant coal fired element to electricity supply.
Diversity of energy supply is your friend.
Having been lifelong self employed I bought and developed over the years three rental properties as my pension plan. I have recently finished upgrading them all to achieve “C” rating on their EPCs ahead of time of compulsion. One of the properties ( a 2 bed terrace of just 49 square metres total floor area – very bijou but also very cosy) has a gas combi boiler and also a wood burner in the living room. I have just found out the tenants are so concerned about energy prices rising that they are stock piling logs they find when taking their dog for a walk. I discussed their fears with them and they showed me their Bulb bills were just £55 per month (gas and electricity combined) and they were in significant credit. Given the husband is a postman and the rent of £600 per month is very modest for Canterbury, they are in no financial problems whatsoever.
Unfortunately the media is scaring the living daylights out of people and these tenants were concerned how they would heat their home and get hot water if I was forced to take the boiler out. They even raised the point over who to vote for to stop this (Canterbury is actually a Labour seat) as every party seemed to want it. These are regular working people absurdly becoming frightened by their own government over absolutely nothing at all. Something has got to change.
Ray, I like your post very much. I’m engaged in a debate about what the Royal Navy should do about decarbonisation and I’m horrified at the extent to which perfectly reasonable people ( mariners, engineers) have been BRAINWASHED into believing there’s a climate catastrophe coming down the pike. It’s all very sad.
Your comment does not surprise me at all. I have worked in the energy infrastructure business for many years and noticed a huge cultural change in the management. Many are no longer particularly well qualified in actual engineering at all! I posted some time ago about an incident when a EL sub station manager genuinely thought a colleague and I were discussing football when we were talking about VAR (Volt Amperes Reactive not Video Assistant referee). At first we both thought he was joking and it came as one hell of a shock to discover he didn’t know what we meant. Essentially the upper echelons have been taken over by poorly trained graduates with very
“wishy- washy” qualifications such as Business Management with Engineering rather than real Engineering i.e.
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/universities/university-of-warwick-4029/warwick-manufacturing-group-15216/courses/engineering-business-management-4257
These types of people manage to get their way up the ladder based on graduate trainee entry options combined with the Peter Principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
They succeed by not rocking any boats (sorry for the pun) and simply trotting out anything somebody else told them to say – however absurd they do not know enough to actually think for themselves.
Things will change but it is going to take a lot of problems before the system resets itself.
I’m in the same position with 3 rentals for my pension. Could you possibly give an idea of the cost of upgrading a 2 bedroom house from grade E to C. I already increased the wall insulation with multi foil to four times the original U value and put 300mm insulation in the roof, double glazed and put felt and 22mm boarding over the suspended ground floor, with an efficient boiler- but it only got an E.
Here is the crazy thing…it is actually not as difficult as you may think! This is a link to a property a friend of mine has just bought at auction
https://find-energy-certificate.digital.communities.gov.uk/energy-certificate/0754-2842-6885-9491-3565
It has solid walls with no additional insulation and yet is Band C. If you have already double glazed and insulated the loft sensibly then all you have to do is ensure you have a condensing CH boiler (either gas or oil fired is acceptable – forget them banning them because it is not going to happen!) and ensure all but one of the radiators have thermostatic valves and there is an overall room stat for the room without the TRV. Then make sure all lights are low energy and you should be okay.
If the assessor says it doesn’t meet the standard then argue the toss because they probably do not know what they are talking about.
In a way their fears are very valid. Fear of government not climate.
Just wait until the IPCC report is broadcast today.
The UK is not willing to sacrifice itself for (maybe) saving the planet? How selfish.
Not strictly on topic but we have had unplanned power cuts in South Lakeland today with no reason given and are due a “planned” one tomorrow that no one told us about until a short time ago. Again, no reason given. A check on the grid right now shows UK demand at around 29GW with gas and nuclear providing 11.5 and wind and solar most of the rest. The cynic in me asks whether controls are being introduced to boost intermittent supply figures in the run up to the Cop (out) conference, leading to difficulties with reliable supply? Would anyone know and could anyone say if there is an intermittent supplier level, perhaps in percentage of demand terms, at which power supplies become unstable?
Unfortunately, intermittent instability is not that simple. A lot depends on what you have ready to back it up. Given proper backup one can do 100% intermittent. In other cases 10% is too much.
If the interruption is due to a fault on the local distribution system, the following link might help you to get more information:
https://www.enwl.co.uk/power-cuts/power-cuts-power-cuts-live-power-cut-information-fault-list/fault-list/?postcodeOrReferenceNumber=
The distribution network is an element of the route to deliver electricity to your doorstep, and is a likely culprit for the issues you are experiencing. Your description doesn’t immediately sound like Electricity System Operator actions to balance supply and demand.
I suspect the cost review will be postponed until after COP26.
Has anyone seen the Met Office claim of a hotter drier summer?
In today’s Sunday Mail
It’s fantasy
It’s beginning to approach, if not already reached, malfeasance in public office??