The Case Against Net Zero
By Paul Homewood
Robin Guenier, long time contributor to Notalot, is to be congratulated for his article in Daily Sceptic today:
In October 2008, Parliament passed the Climate Change Act requiring the U.K. Government to ensure that by 2050 “the net U.K. carbon account” was reduced to a level at least 80% lower than that of 1990. (“Carbon account’ refers to CO2 emissions and “other targeted greenhouse gas emissions”.) Only five MPs voted against it. Then in 2019, by secondary legislation and without serious debate, Parliament increased the 80% reduction requirement to 100% – thereby creating the Net Zero policy.
Unfortunately, it’s a policy that’s unachievable, disastrous and in any case pointless – and, importantly, that’s the case even if you accept that human carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to a rise in global temperature.
Full article here.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
NET ZERO FOLLYAs most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. It is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including nuclear power to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. In the Ordovician ice age atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than now. There was no industrial revolution then to be the cause . The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases. We have no control over the climate. Statistically we are overdue a period of cooling.The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. Most importantly, the Net-Zero (carbon dioxide) Policy will not do anything to change it. Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.
I daresay you’re right – I’m not a scientist so I don’t know. But what I do know is that, if it’s possible to make an irrefutable case for abandoning net zero without going anywhere near the ghastly and highly emotional area of climate change science ‘debate’, that’s the way to go. This essay is an attempt to achieve that.
Agreed. There is no chance of convincing people about the science. What needs to be understood is the consequences of this mad, economically stupid dash to be a “world leader”.
It is fallacy to think that only “scientists” (define that for me) are qualified to have opinions.
I AM a scientist w/ AB in botany and MA in plant taxonomy/ecology and a PhD in plant ecosystems. I full well understand the idiocy of the current statements and thus am viewed as a “science denier”. BUT what is science? It is curiosity, hypothesized and TESTED. It does not take 3 degrees to be accomplished at that and no number of degrees can make up for a closed mind.
In West Virginia, Christmas tree growers are pumping out CO2 into their fields to green up the trees. We are still LOW on CO2 following the Pleistocene glaciation.
“What the scientists say ” has been used for a long time as propaganda for the Global Marxist fraud against the people of the world .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewJ6TI8ccAw
Here is a link showing how the 97% lies have been made up over the years .And scientists are not allowed to tell the truth ,only what their paymasters and politicians want .
I daresay that’s all true Joan – but I’ve no doubt that, if your objective is to persuade politicians and the public that the Net Zero policy is a dangerous absurdity, it’s best to keep well away from discussion about the science.
Robin is right – avoiding an upfront battle with the ecofascists but ending Net Zero is the best way to go. Bjorn Lomborg has shown that the economic case for adaption makes that feasible should anything actually happen, which we know it won’t.
A nicely argued piece – and one that can have a Heineken effect by not falling foul of climate evangelists trying to claim heresy.
I came across a quote from Donald Regan today (ex US Treasury Secretary):
“When all else fails, tell the truth”.
Well explained Sean. Many people such as yourself have openly stated this same truth, and I am one also one of those. Unfortunately the media in the west was hijacked long ago and the public has been brainwashed for decades into accepting the fallacy of man made climate change. In time the truth will become self evident . .
Maybe so. But take note of Phoenix44’s comment.
I hope, one day, to see the CCA repealed and the CCC scrapped, along with the net zero nonsense – I have lost faith in politicians these days, the whole shabby lot are captured by globalists and their Machiavellian agendas (the dark triad is alive and thriving) – the only thing that will stop net zero in its tracks now, is a severe dose of reality and it’s starting to happen – the masses are increasingly saying no to the net zero tat trying to be forced upon them by politicians of all hues in WEFminster – you just know that 98% of our political class have absolutely no understanding of climate science, energy or technology and yet, they are willingly, forcibly thrusting the whole scam on the masses they pretend to represent – some are personally benefitting, others just follow like narrative sheep, bereft of any analytical thinking for themselves, unaware they’ve been captured and used
Gets my vote
Well said, but is it only 98%?
“… a severe dose of reality …”. Nothing to do with reality, or it would never have got off the ground. It never was about climate as such, other than it being a useful vehicle for getting the message across. Covid lockdowns was step 2, and it worked.
energywise: the real point is that THERE IS NO SCIENCE in climate change. It is all just anecdotal, stastistics (mostly manipulated) and computer models (mostly corrupted). I found a fascinating paper on the web a while ago by a Russian (lady) professor who attempted to analyse the science by heat and material balance, emmssivities and lots of other relevant variables and her conclusion was that she couldn’t come up with anything meaningful. Its just random (OK to the previous poster who referred to the distance from the sun being controlling: I don’t know if that is correct but I’m damn sure that the sun does control our climate).
Rational arguments such as if we proceed with Net Zero we will not be able to produce many of the things that we value today and energy supply will become unreliable fall down when confronted with the reality of the Climate Change Act and the unerring and unshakeable belief that the world will end unless we follow the plan.
Worse still the eco-maniacs are becoming more extreme and Roger Hallam frequently urges revolution and “structural change”.
Nothing to be done.
Don’t give up. There are clear signs that the Net Zero edifice is beginning to crumble.
I like optimism but I find it hard to manufacture these days.
No need for ‘manufacture’ anything. Just consider what’s happening: Labour has abandoned its £28 billion p.a. pledge, both parties plan to build gas-fired power station, SNP drop their Net Zero pledge … It’s beginning to crumble at last. Don’t give up now.
Not really. They are just fine tuning bits, finding how far they can push us. COVID was the latest push , now it’s the ‘forever war’ with the 7bn outside ‘the garden’. Net zero is a means of control, so are pandemics etc. ditto CBDCs etc. Noone particularly wants any of this, but the vast majority of the western population believes in ‘the State’. Lemmings happily fall off the cliff, population decimation is a key objective.
Net zero is only a means to an end, it’s malleable.
No JW they’re not ‘fine tuning’. What’s happening is that they’re – for the first time – encountering harsh reality. It’s proving to be far more expensive and technically difficult than they expected, intermittent ‘renewables’ have to have backup and the only viable solution is new gas-fired power plants (thereby invalidating the entire project), there aren’t nearly enough skilled people to do all the tasks that are required to achieve Net Zero … etc.
As Ayn Rand said: ‘we can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.’ Well, we’ve been evading realty for a long time and now the consequences are upon us.
Gamecock believes that if the UK gets to Net Zero, the world will not end.
Thanks!
We desperately need a collapse of the grid system somewhere in Europe, preferably the UK, to snap people out of their apathy towards net zero.
A documentary showing how “life” would look without fossil fuels would also help bring sanity to the net zero scam.
Excellent article which summarises much of what has been discussed on this site. I hope that some of the so-called “policymakers” can be persuaded to read it.
For those who are interested, a variation on Robin’s post is at Cliscep, with an ongoing discussion in the comments below the line:
https://cliscep.com/2024/03/31/the-uks-net-zero-policy-a-second-update/
It was Theresa May’s idea – isn’t that evidence enough that it’s wrong?
Shows the quality of the “idiots” who govern us ?! They must know that every living animal exhales carbon dioxide??
Mosquitoes know but I’m not sure of the idiots of whom you write. 🙂
Sometimes I think that “those who govern us” have less intelligence than mosquitoes…..
The problem with politicians is they believe experts.
”they believe experts”. They believe the greasers, and the exploiters of tax-payers money – the grant system. One never hears of those who decide the grants, nor approves their giving. That will most likely not be politicians but those in the civil service and in the other organs that deal with public money. The audit of such largesse is a joke; usually a ponderous report long after the money has gone filled with woe of appalling management, then just forgotten. No-one is held to account, certainly in public.
They believe the experts who tell them what they want to hear. Politicians go in to politics already certain of what they want to do.
Politicians bow to prestige not knowledge. So if you arrive with the right credentials in their tiny minds they will listen but you may be talking complete bollocks. If you happen to be a normal person who fully knows your subject it is unlikely you would get anywhere near a politician. In the UK was have Parliamentary Committees that are supposed to be on top of their subject but fail in two ways. They invite the wrong people to appear before them and of course they lack any knowledge themselves so struggle to conduct a proper questioning of these people to know they don’t know much either.
Correct.
The systemic problem is these ignoramuses are given power.
The problem won’t be fixed because the public wants an all-powerful government that will fix things . . . even though it’s these same ignoramuses doing the “fixing,” thus usually making problems worse!
The [2nd] United States was formed with a Constitution that severely limited what the national government could do. During Gamecock’s lifetime, the people have demanded the government “do something!” Constitutional limits have been waved, and we now have a full-blown fascist government – strong, autocratic central control of a private economy.
Not experts, more benefitting shills
Everything Robin Guenier says in this piece is absolutely spot on. The NetZero fantasy will be destroyed through the failure to achieve any of its goals. How many billions will be squandered before this point is reached is another matter.
Unfortunately, with the demise of NetZero the fundamental problems will not have gone away: 1) the CO2 nonsense which underpins the whole scam and 2) the thousands of activist ‘journalists’ in collectives around the world who are paid to spread the panic. They will not fade away, but will continue to fill the media with alarmism. Until we get rid of them, the CO2 show will roll onwards.
Furthermore, do not ignore the international angle. On climate the UK is in lockstep with many other nations. Does anyone here believe that the government will have the backbone to go it alone in abandoning NetZero?
‘On climate the UK is in lockstep with many other nations.’
Not so, few – if any – other nations have got a climate policy as absurd and dangerous as ours.
That experiment in the past that indicated CO2 causes warming-
The same experiment was repeated by Tufts University using Argon, not a greenhouse gas. The results were the same as CO2 though the warming was slightly more with Argon.
https://rtobin.phy.tufts.edu/Wagoner%20AJP%202010.pdf
That paper is a very good find and should be spread worldwide.
I would agree that the original experiment is flawed. But so is the one in the paper you reference. Both experiments fail to take into account the difference in heat capacity of the different gases. Air is circa 1.0, CO2 circa 0,8 and Argon circa 0.5.
So both experiments can be ignored, with the case for/against CO2 not being confirmed / denied.
The case against net zero is:
there is no proof to support the belief that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change
the estimated financial cost of the drive to net zero to date for the UK population is approx one trillion £££
the estimated financial cost to achieve net zero using a UK grid powered by wind/solar and with battery storage to provide backup and stability is approx twenty five trillion £££, to be paid for by the UK population.
the substantial costs that would occur using heat source pumps instead of gas, oil or solid fuel heating; this includes heating people’s homes.
the substantial costs that would occur using electric heating instead of gas, oil or solid fuel heating; this includes heating people’s homes. It is likely that the majority of heat pumps would require supplementary electric heating.
reduced energy security
restrictions on free movement within the UK and abroad
increased fire risk due to the proliferation of lithium-ion batteries
Such big numbers Micky, I had to check them out.
1 trillion would be £1,000,000,000,000. By contrast, the cost of the HS2 project is reported to be £68,000,000,000. The nuclear plant at Hinkley Point C, a mere £50,000,000,000.
Better without so many zeros – 1,000 billion vs 68 billion and 50 billion.
Seems that the UK would be thriving not ‘broke’ without Net Zero.
Such big numbers
Many people (including me) probably struggle to comprehend how much a trillion £££ is.
A million £ is a decent size pension pot or a house in a more expensive part of London.
A billion ££ represents the approx annual total of the state pension paid to 100,000 UK pensionsers per annum .
A trillion £££ approx represents the annual budget of the UK NHS x six.
All costs in my previous post have been detailed elsewhere on this message board
Net Zero by 2050 is estimated, by the GWPF, to cost over £3Tn, or £100k per household
Net Zero by 2050 is estimated, by the GWPF, to cost over £3Tn
My GUESS is that the GWPF estimate excludes storage for backup and stability
That alone should preclude any of the Parliamentary Estate from holding any office in Governance for the rest of their sorry lives?
Dim Dale made an appearance on GB News this morning in response to another ridiculous media claim that people will be holidaying in London – don’t forget your body armour to avoid being stabbed obviously – as it will be regularly over 30C. I could tell by his arm waving that Bev and Andrew were giving him a bit of a rough ride but couldn’t bear listening to him.
Jim Dale & Dale Vince – two poster boys of the climerati, must be a Dale thing
UK one per cent, China 31 %. And there is not a chance that the Keeling curve will be checked. So futile futile futile
We have been denied an open debate on the theory of Anthropogenic Climate Change by all main political parties which makes it all the more sickening. Climate scientists who have alternative views and firm data which clearly contradicts the line that our ignorant politicians are forcing have been shut out and shut down. The BBC which is funded by our taxes even openly states that it will not give any airtime to any scientist or science which inconveniently runs counter to the current political discourse. This is both contemptuous and arrogant and it must be stopped for the sake of all of us.
God help us all in the country because all our politicians are hell bent on smashing up our economy and chances in life by quite deliberately forcing us to pay punitively high energy prices. It will end in tears and I personally want there to be charges brought with jail terms for these ignorant, contemptuous idiots who have actively worked to deny us the process of a proper debate on the subject.
There needs to be a complete clean out at Westminster and now.