Religions have extremists and irreversible truths, but also moderate followers who tolerate other beliefs. Without sufficient support religions die.
Net zero targets are perhaps becoming like religion, and arguably are not helped by zealots and extremists. They will certainly only be deliverable with public support, which in turn will wither if the tools for delivery are unusable. Pragmatic flexibility balancing costs and benefits is required. Equally action cannot be deferred until all global obstacles are overcome. The journey to overcome climate change and its potentially devastating effects will be bumpy, a long and winding road, requiring political differences to be laid aside to enable decisions to be consistently implemented. This is not a matter for dogma, but for sensible solutions, which may involve admitting errors and reversing mistakes, and even moving artificial timetables. And fundamentally a convincing honest communication programme about net zero is required to counter misinformation and minority extremist propaganda which drowns sensible thought
AN UNKNOWN COST BUT SET IN STONE
Numerous agencies and experts publish their forecasts of the cost of net zero targets globally and nationally. An FT article “The $100tn Net Zero Trap” leads to only one conclusion, being that nobody has any real idea. This is hardly surprising as the estimates are over a period of decades and are based on so many assumptions. An IMF estimate referred to by the FT, suggesting a cost globally which is not too expensive, seems based upon unrealistic and undoable assumptions as reported. Costs will vary country by country, and climate by climate demanding different solutions, and technology will improve but at what rate is unknown. If green hydrogen became highly economical why would one build wind turbines?
Carbon emission reduction is almost universally accepted as the key to the containment of adverse climate change. Reducing those emissions by 1% by 2050 will hardly move the emissions needle. However, that will be the effect globally of the UK policy target of net zero by 2050. A noble idea, leading the world by example, but at what cost?
That target is embodied in the 2008 Climate Change Act, which also created the UK Climate Change Committee. To meet the ultimate target, 5-year carbon budgets are accompanied by policies to see them through. Of course, detailed plans are needed along the target journey, with milestones, but along the road unforeseen major events will arise and assumptions underpinning the best intentions will need adaptation and nimble flexibility. If factual events render a plan unreal it is the plan that has to change, rather than continuing blind adherence to the unachievable. The UK has reached a point perhaps where it should relook at targets on the journey, modifying not rescinding. (It is important too that in 2015 by signing the Paris Agreement, 194 states plus the whole of the EU committed voluntarily to make pledges to lower emissions and adapt to climate change, called National Determined Contributions which should set a framework plan to wards 2050 results).
The global energy crisis, with the background of Putin’s policy of destruction and disruption, alone requires a rethink as the consequences of a war, without an end point, need to be factored in. However, the CCC voices speak to make oil and gas disappear from the UK’s energy sources and have, like all specialised quangos, a single remit with no obligation to account for the realities of other interests and policies, such as UK prosperity as a whole. The cost is someone else’s problem. It is a lot like the SAGE Covid pandemic committee whose remit was a narrow assessment of ways to stop infection, so lockdown was their advice, emphasising that the decision accounting for other impacts such as on the economy were a matter for Government.
Taking specifics: the UK will, under the CCC’s own predictions, by 2050 still rely on oil and gas for 25% of its energy supply. As for world energy supply, the IEA predicts that 49% of global energy will be sourced from oil and gas. Oil, irrespective of energy, is the source of all plastic, polyurethane nylon etc. Coal, dirtiest of all, is predicted by 2050, by the IEA, to still be the source of 15% of global energy. For the UK to licence new oil fields in the North Sea is reasonably justifiable as the oil is not adding to consumption, but dogma may deny it. Domestically, while the UK is a leader in offshore wind, as turbines’ rotor blades get bigger for more efficiency, can the UK make enough and how quickly can it install them, especially when in the latest auction round there were no bidders for the next offshore fields? To speed process, onshore wind is needed but NIMBYISM stands in the way. It is obvious too that nuclear energy is a vital piece to diversify non-fossil fuel energy and the UK needs to ramp up investment here and speed the process of development: large sums will be needed.
The policy of no new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 in the UK looked unachievable, as battery supply is yet to be established locally, and EVs are still far too expensive for the average household. Substitute domestic heating systems to replace gas boilers are currently simply unaffordable for most people in the UK. Are there enough engineers to install them in the target timescale? Air source heat pumps are not just expensive but have numerous disadvantages, such as providing too little heat! Realistic alternatives are a prerequisite for public buy-in. And they will emerge: in the last week Octopus, the UK energy supplier, announced it plans to unveil cheaper heat pumps by the end of the year.
The UK Government, through dogmatic insistence on artificial man-made deadlines which are probably unrealistic but insisted on by the CCC, risks losing public support to meet the targets. It needs flexibility as circumstances change. For example, with EVs, Government is moving to the European target of 2035 for no new petrol or diesel cars – though there will be a risk that EV manufacturers and battery makers will slow down accordingly. The USA and the EU are offering massive subsidies to encourage green and tech projects. The UK has to compete for investment and is well placed with its innovative green tech companies. Impossible targets doomed to fail will not help success.
To make ambitious net zero targets affordable, the UK needs a thriving and growing economy. To meet climate change targets the public must be engaged, and the private energy sector must provide a lot of the investment needed, requiring incentivisation. As things stand it is the poorest in society who will be hit the most by expensive targets. The costs are unknown, and public buy in will only be possible if the public can believe the pragmatic steps to meet net zero. Should not a core priority be an all-party agreement on the way forward, as policies cannot chop and change with newly elected governments as the solutions span decades not electoral terms? But whatever happens, ongoing national prosperity is a necessity to be able to reduce emissions sufficiently at any time. And so, securing that prosperity in the medium term is paramount, even if it means changing the targets for emissions reduction to defer that expense.
ENERGY SECURITY OVERRIDES DEPENDENCY
The lessons of energy dependency are stark from Putin’s global disruption through war. That includes green energy. China is the world leader by far in economic EV production, battery production, offshore and onshore wind, and so wind turbine manufacture, and solar. China produces 60% of the world’s turbines, and 80% of the world’s solar panels. China is controller of the supply chain for core minerals for batteries, such as graphite. And it buys up supplies of core materials in the developing world, as part of its global hegemony drive. It has a clear long-term strategy. If emission reduction depends on a hostile state, the risks are self-evident, and should not be acceptable. Does not the UK, perhaps in cooperation with Europe and the USA, need to ensure independence in developing non fossil fuel energy sources, including in solar, wind, batteries, storage and carbon capture, as well as nuclear? At the moment there seems to be a Western competition rather than collaboration. The USA is a in a different energy space to European countries as it is self-sufficient, and Europe is fuel poor, which makes across Europe strategic cohesion the more essential. Both the EU and the USA are distorting markets by huge protectionist subsidy of green related projects, diverting investment to themselves.
AID TO THE DEVELOPING WORLD
There is little point in Europe, the USA and the UK setting or even achieving green energy targets if the developing world lags a long way behind. This is the reason for the Western commitments made at COP gatherings to provide $100 billion in aid for developing countries to move to non-fossil fuels: apparently promises come easy but delivery of the cash does not. It remains unclear how many poorer countries can move away from fossil fuels in a big way within timetables for a global net zero. China and India seem to classify themselves sometimes as developing, and for this purpose they clearly should not be.
In the developing world perhaps, the aid needed for green energy to displace fossil fuels should be considered and dealt with having regard to a much more holistic attitude. Swathes of Africa are in turmoil, including across the central sub-Saharan belt, the Sahel. The violence of Niger and Mali, Sudan and Somalia, exemplify the problem. With autocratic rulers, and China and Russia dominating influence creating instability or syphoning off resources, Jihadists active across much of the Continent, the Western world ignores the fragility of so many African states at its peril. Energy issues need consideration alongside the poverty and hopelessness in some countries, especially young male unemployment, with the potential migration of millions exacerbated by heating of the African earth. Those millions will head North, across the Mediterranean to survive and have a chance of prosperity. See Migration, Politicisation and Distortion.
Climate change has huge potential political ramifications around the world and has to be contained in poorer countries as well as the wealthier who can manage control of emissions more easily.
A delayed net zero programme in the UK may be more beneficial if it means resources devoted to countries less able to cope: but that needs a global united developed country response, and a long-range commitment to a prosperous Africa. Does the West have the leadership to grapple with these non-domestic mega issues? From a UK perspective, if it is to play a meaningful part in the wider world on climate change, and it should, it must have a credible and doable net zero policy of its own which it is seen to be implementing.
TECHNOLOGY, A PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION
Is the UK a crucible where the answers will emerge? Unquestionably the UK must reduce to net zero within a meaningful timeframe, maybe 2050, maybe 2055. But the cost especially of investment in green technology and transitioning from fossil fuels to alternatives like nuclear and solar is a guess and certainly vast. That investment and cost cannot come from the public purse as UK taxpayers have not the resources. That is especially so when several other life essential sectors are equally or more demanding and perhaps more immediate: a health service, a social care programme, an infrastructure building programme, a burgeoning pension cost are but some examples of bottomless money pits on the immediate horizon. Is not the only approach which can possibly work one which in all these matters calls upon the united resources of the public treasury and the even greater resources of private investment, working in tandem. To pretend that public servants, that is the civil service, will deliver the big picture results needed is to promote a big lie. That requires a cultural and political mindset shift, especially when it comes to benefits, welfare, health and pensions. Private money and know-how is critical, and there needs to be a proper honest public discussion to achieve the partnership needed. It is a source of hope that the UK is home to some of the most creative minds on the planet, whether in science or finance. Are they working together sufficiently to solve the conundrums?
Against that background, technology in all these areas is the cavalry potentially, whether Artificial Intelligence, or new energy sources, like hydrogen or nuclear fusion, or new ways to generate food sustainably. Perhaps the most significant tool to procure public support of a net zero strategy which works is a concerted communication programme which is understandable, honest and costed to demonstrate affordability and doability in a way which will not make people poorer.
