Is Ed Miliband giving up on the Net Zero dream?

JOHN OXLEY

Governing is about choices, and the indication is that this government is choosing economic prosperity over Net Zero. In the wake of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s push for growth, Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband looks chastened. He has now had to concede his previous opposition to expanding Heathrow Airport, and also appears likely to approve the Rosebank oilfield. Once again, it clearly isn’t easy to be green.

Though the minister stresses that there is no conflict between Net Zero and economic growth, these policy moves suggest otherwise. Building bigger airports and extracting more oil are hardly climate-friendly moves, but both mean jobs and investments. Labour, for the time being, seems to be choosing the latter. If more decisions like this follow, the UK’s bold commitments on Net Zero could be in danger.

With the Government scrabbling around for growth ideas, however, and still conscious of the cost of living, fiscal demands will likely trump green credentials for a while. That could mean a greater reluctance to adopt the sort of changes which hit businesses and voters in the pocket. The difficulty is that these are often some of the most effective environmental measures.

Avoiding them will perhaps mean making tougher decisions elsewhere. It will also mean looking at the real challenges of reducing carbon, where some things that are popular or often of short-term benefit tend to be detrimental in the long run. Measures such as reducing plastic, for example, can cut the use of oil products but end up generating more waste and emissions. Future governments will have to get to grips with these sorts of problems if they want to build a credible road towards Net Zero.

There will be further looming battles about the things that need to be built to manage the transition. From grid infrastructure to housing, there is a real need to build newer, greener alternatives. These often come into conflict with ecological groups, who object to the immediate effects of building regardless of the future potential for carbon savings. These are difficult political conflicts to manage, as the Government is already seeing protests planned against its current wave of infrastructure building.

Managing public opinion around Net Zero could prove far trickier than dissent in Cabinet. Overall, the UK public has bought into environmental responsibility. A majority believe in human-driven climate change and want to stop it. As a headline idea, Net Zero is largely popular. This falls away, however, when voters are pushed on many of the policies that deliver it. People are protective of their individual polluting habits and are reluctant to embrace policies that reduce their quality of life or cost them too much.

These moves might be a sign that the tides are shifting against Net Zero. The flagship promise came in 2019, before energy price rises and security issues shocked the UK — and before the lack of growth seemed so stubbornly locked in. The target sought to constrain the choices of future administrations, putting them on a path where reducing carbon emissions trumped other concerns. Now, it seems like economic progress is again the priority for both voters and politicians. With even Miliband yielding on Heathrow, pragmatic environmentalism is likely to become the order of the day.

SOURCE: UnHerd

Miliband is in full-scale retreat – and that is good for Britain

The defeat of the UK’s fanatical green commissar is a desperately needed reprieve for the economy

MATTHEW LYNN

He will probably never be seen wearing a “drill, baby, drill” baseball cap, nor will he show up for the ceremony when the diggers break the ground for a new runway at Heathrow or anywhere else.

Even so, the Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, is in full-scale retreat. He has admitted that net zero can’t be the only target the Government has to meet and that growth has to be a priority as well. It might be very late and a lot of the damage has already been done.

And yet, Miliband’s defeat has granted the British economy a reprieve from industrial suicide – and the task now for business will be to capitalise on that before it is too late.

The Bank of England may have slashed its growth forecast, the Office For Budget Responsibility may be about to demand more tax rises and business and consumer confidence may well remain at record lows. Still, amid all the gloom, the British economy had one piece of good news this week. Miliband appears to have been put firmly in his place.

In a round of media interviews on Friday, the Energy Secretary conceded that he was in favour of a third runway at Heathrow, and that economic growth was an important objective.

He even managed to mumble, admittedly through gritted teeth, that he had nothing much to say on the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea – a project he had previously condemned as “climate vandalism” – amid reports that the Sir Keir Starmer is planning to push through the development.

For the UK’s fanatical green commissar it was a breathtaking reversal.

In reality, Miliband’s retreat is a desperately needed reprieve for the British economy. Everyone agrees – well, almost everyone –that climate change is a serious issue, that emissions need to be brought under control and that we need to switch to green energy.

Even so, there were two big problems with Miliband’s determination to make the UK the global leader on hitting net zero targets.

To start with, we had driven our industrial electricity prices to the highest in the world, with power costing 72pc more in this country than it does in the US and 32pc more than in neighbouring France.

On top of that we had extra levies for industrial users – along with a blizzard of levies such as taxes on business-class flights –and some of the toughest planning rules in the world, along with an activist judiciary that always seemed to side with the most extreme climate alarmists to block any form of development.

When you added it all up, it amounted to a form of industrial suicide and it was accelerating over the last few months, with giants such as Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos closing plants because it was no longer feasible to operate in the UK.

Next, ever since the election of President Trump there has been a change in the global zeitgeist. Banks and multinationals are pulling out of climate change groups, targets for electric vehicles are being ripped up and carbon border levies are being put under review – and often relaxed.

Clearly that is happening most dramatically in the United States, but it is happening in Europe as well, with the EU watering down some of the crazier elements of its green new deal, and that is going to accelerate with the election of a new centre-Right government in Germany next month.

Britain was looking more and more like a global outlier, with Miliband charging forward with fanatical green target as if it was still 2020 at precisely the moment when the rest of the world was rethinking how reduced emissions could be delivered at reasonable cost. We were doubling down on a failing strategy while our industrial rivals were quitting the table and that was punishing for any business trying to compete on global markets.

With a window of realism opening up, the task now for corporate leaders will be to drive home the need for more concessions. Sure, it is great that a third runaway is possible at Heathrow, that other airports may be allowed to expand and energy companies may be allowed to develop new oil and gas fields in the North Sea instead of simply importing everything we need from abroad.

But it needs to go much further. The price of industrial electricity needs to come down, certainly to match French levels and preferably American prices as well. We need to press ahead with small nuclear reactors and we need to repeal the Climate Change Act to stop activists using the courts to block every development.

The Telegraph: continue reading

Featured image: unitynewsnetwork.co.uk (modified)

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