KEMI Badenoch has now confirmed that she will scrap the Climate Change Act, along with its Net Zero targets.
But will her MPs allow her to do it?
Forty-nine of them are members of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) along with a bunch of Tory peers:
https://www.cen.uk.com/our-caucus
The CEN paints itself in terms of caring for the environment, conserving the countryside and so on. But its funders give the game away;
The European Climate Foundation and the other green blob funders are not handing money over to the CEN to campaign for nature reserves. The ECF has one, solitary purpose:
And this is what the ECF are paying for:
It could not be clearer – CEN want zero emissions by mid-century.
Sam Hall, director of CEN and a leading light in the Conservative green movement for years, has yet to respond to Badenoch’s announcement. But he did write a piece for CapX this week, criticising Ed Miliband’s blindly ideological approach. Notably, however, although Hall opposed the 2030 Clean Power target, it was clear he was still committed to the 2050 target.
Each and every one of those 49 MPs should be challenged whether they support Badenoch’s cancellation of Net Zero or not. And if they do support, will they now tender their resignation from CEN, which is now firmly opposed to their leader’s stated policy.
Could I therefore enlist the help of readers and invite anybody with one of these MPs in their constituency to write to them with these questions.
It would be good to expose them once and for all.
Is Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to abolish Net Zero all it seems?
The strategy seems to be focussed around the fact that the Climate Change Act has increased our energy bills, and will carry on making them even higher.
Their plan then is to replace binding emissions targets with an energy policy designed to bring down costs.
But there is little of real substance in their programme itself:
Indeed there remains an intention to reduce emissions and remain in the Paris Agreement.
So is this merely window dressing, intended to fool the public? Will we just carry on as before, but just at a slightly slower pace?
What we need now is some meat putting on the bones. While details will remain to be sorted out, there are some fundamental questions that the public deserve answering:
1) Will the 2030 ban on petrol/diesel cars be abolished, not just delayed? Will the Zero Emission Vehicle mandates be dropped?
2) Will the Tories promise never to ban gas boilers?
3) What action will be taken to cut existing subsidies for renewables?
4) Will subsidies be ended for all future renewable schemes?
5) What action will be taken to provide a reserve of dispatchable power capacity, vital if we are to avoid blackouts?
6) Will DESNZ be shut? Will Ed Miliband’s spending plans be cancelled?
7) Will all government spending on Net Zero be ended?
8) Will the UK Emissions Trading Scheme be abolished?
If Badenoch cannot commit to these perfectly reasonable requests, it is hard to see how we will be any better off.
The biggest problem that will face any new government in 2029 is that by then much of the damage done by Miliband will be nigh irreversible.
CfDs signed up in the next four years will add billions more to the subsidy bill. Grid upgrades costing £80billion will be in progress or completed, for all of which we will have to foot the bill.
The motor industry will be wrecked by EV targets and Miliband’s crazy plan to spend £22billion on carbon capture may well be cast in stone by then.
That is why there now needs to be a full accounting by the Conservatives of just how much we are paying for Net Zero. The figures are already out there, officially calculated by the OBR and Ofgem, so there is no need for any lengthy study.
As I and others, such as John Constable and Kathryn Porter, have shown, the cost is of the order of £20billion a year or more. And this is just the cost added to our electricity bills because of Net Zero. There are other substantial costs coming our way via EVs, heat pumps, the deindustrialisation of the economy and hundreds of billions of government expenditure.
And as NESO have stated publicly, Labour’s 2030 Clean Power Plan will significantly increase the cost of electricity yet further.
These costs have been deliberately kept hidden from voters for years. But they are essential if we are to have a rational debate about climate policy.
These revelations will be hugely embarrassing for the Tories, as most of them are the direct consequence of Conservative government policy since the Cameron era.
