Needs To: In The UK The Net Zero Consensus Has Crumbled

Here in the U.S., ever since the push to “de-carbonize” the energy system to “save the planet” from global warming got going in a big way 20 or so years ago, there has always been a critical mass of skeptics strongly pushing back.  I count myself among them.  Another prominent example is the CO2 Coalition, an organization of about 200 scientists and intellectuals who dissent from the climate orthodoxy.  Large portions of our Republican Party — recently approaching near unanimity — have also joined the dissent from climate orthodoxy.

But over in Europe, the same has not been true at all; and it has particularly not been true in the UK.  There, at least until very recently, there was a near total consensus across the political spectrum in favor of mandatory reductions in carbon emissions, with an ultimate goal of zero emissions.  In 2008, the then-Labour-controlled UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act, setting a mandatory target for reduction of “greenhouse gas” emissions in the energy system of 80% by 2050.  The vote in Parliament in favor of this Act and its mandate was 463-3 in favor.  In 2019, Parliament amended the mandatory target to increase the required greenhouse gas reduction to a full 100% by 2050 — in other words, full “net zero.”  That amendment passed by acclamation without any recorded dissent.  This time, Theresa May was the Prime Minister, and her Conservative Party held a comfortable majority in the Parliament.

A lonely exception to the UK’s total climate consensus has been the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a small think tank founded in 2009 by Lord Nigel Lawson and Benny Peiser.  (I serve on the Board of its American affiliate.). For many years, literally nobody listened to us.

We dissenters have long warned that the “net zero” fantasy was doomed to failure.  A new centrally-planned energy system based mostly on intermittent wind and sun would inevitably prove to be wildly expensive, and would never be able to replace 100%, or even close to that, of the existing system.  They didn’t believe us.

Well, let’s take a look at where the UK finds itself today.