It was just a couple of weeks ago — October 3 to be precise — that I reported that the long-running “net zero” political consensus in the UK was finally “crumbling.” In the intervening two-plus weeks, the slow crumbling has turned into a rapid collapse.
The biggest roadblock for opponents of a green energy transition in the UK has been that the Conservative Party, which should have been the natural home of opposition to net zero, has instead long (and foolishly) allied itself with the net zero cause. In June 2019, the Conservatives (under Prime Minister Theresa May) put through an ambitious amendment to enhance the net zero targets of the 2008 Climate Act, and then proceeded to a general election that December where they won a substantial majority of 365 seats (in a parliament of 650). In subsequent years, a parliamentary faction in the House of Commons called the Net Zero Scrutiny Group struggled to get to about 50 or so Conservative members, who were far outnumbered by the opposing faction of the same party called the Conservative Environment Network. The UK voters had surely demonstrated their climate virtue.
But unfortunately things did not work out quite as they had anticipated. Energy bills accelerated until, as reported in the Telegraph on September 30 and then here on October 3, UK electricity bills have become the highest in the world. De-industrialization has set in and worsened. Britain’s last primary blast furnace steel works at Port Talbot closed in September 2024. A final rolling mill at Scunthorpe, now under Chinese ownership, threatened to close earlier this year until the government intervened. Similar reports of factory closures come regularly from all energy-intensive industries.
On October 6, immediately after my prior post, the Conservatives held a party conference in Manchester. One of the speakers was Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary. Her speech was an incredible breath of fresh air, and marked a dramatic u-turn from prior Conservative energy policy. The title was “Energy Is Prosperity.” Some excerpts:
Join the conversation as a VIP Member