Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for the UK to scrap its Net Zero target. In a speech earlier today, she branded the drive to decarbonise the economy in the next 25 years ‘impossible’ and warned that it poses a ‘threat to living standards’.
Badenoch’s basic point is inarguable. Even just in terms of energy policy, the mounting costs of Net Zero are now unignorable. Thanks to successive governments’ embrace of unreliable renewables, and continued refusal to exploit homegrown supplies of fossil fuels, UK energy prices have soared to some of the highest in the world. This is an economic disaster on two fronts – it hikes inflation for households and pushes the cost of manufacturing to unsustainable levels, leading to devastating deindustrialisation.
Other measures that have been taken to hit the Net Zero target have proven equally damaging. The steel industry will be forced to shed thousands of jobs as it transitions to a more climate-friendly manufacturing process. The car industry is being decimated by the Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate, which forces car and van manufacturers to sell a minimum quota of electric vehicles or face crippling fines. Proposed taxes on gas boilers to encourage heat-pump take-up, as well as incoming rules to force insulation on rental homes, will only push up the cost of living further.
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