By Paul Homewood
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Ed Miliband has been desperately defending his insane Net Zero agenda, in the face of growing criticism from Reform and the Tories, as well as increasing disquiet on his own front bench.
He has run to his allies at the Observer with a pack of lies and misinformation. The BBC report:
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said the government will "double down" on its environmental agenda and accused those against the move to net zero of "making up nonsense and lies".
Political opponents in the Conservatives and Reform UK – and some trade unions – have argued that his agenda is putting jobs in traditional industries at risk and have urged a change of course.
The UK is legally committed to moving to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 – a goal set under a previous Conservative government.
Writing in the Observer, external, Miliband warned that an anti-net zero agenda would not only risk "climate breakdown" but "forfeit the clean energy jobs of the future".
A green power transition will help secure social justice and national security,
Miliband argued.
He said that the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels meant "markets went into meltdown and prices rocketed" after Russia waged its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
"The cost of living impacts caused back then still stalk families today," he said.
"So the argument for the clean energy transition is not just the traditional climate case but the social justice case too – it is working people who pay the greatest price for our energy insecurity."
On his opponents, he said there are "siren voices that want to knock us off course" and added "they will also make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda".
Miliband has been concerned that his green policies will be blamed for the well-publicised difficulties at British Steel.
Parts of the labour movement, including unions such as the GMB and Unite, have warned of risks to thousands of well-paid jobs in the oil and gas sector.
But Miliband has attempted to reassure them by declaring that green energy generation will provide the good unionised jobs of the future.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjn0pn830ko
The same tired old arguments which have been wheeled out for years, and are just as false now as they were then.
His talk of national security are an insult to our intelligence. Reliance on a world market for oil and gas does not endanger national security. These products can be sourced anywhere. And if he wants a secure domestic supply, why is he shutting down North Sea gas and oil and blocking the Whitehaven coal mine?
What most certainly will endanger security is the overwhelming reliance on China for so much of our energy infrastructure and transport under his plans. Where will we source EV batteries from in future if we fall out with President Xi? Or the solar panels which Miliband wants to plaster the countryside with? Or the rare earths vital for wind turbines?
His comments about the problems caused by the Ukraine war ignore the fact that subsidies for renewables over the years have far outweighed the spike in electricity prices seen in 2021/22:
https://data.spectator.co.uk/energy
During 2022, for instance, low carbon generators paid back £345 million into the system, when market prices exceeded their strike prices. Since 2017, however, they have been subsidised overall to the tune of £10 billion.
How the idiot Miliband can talk about “social justice” takes the biscuit though! It is the poorest who suffer most from high energy prices, as these costs are a much bigger proportion of their disposable income. It is the poorest who will suffer the most from the ban on petrol cars, as they cannot afford to buy expensive EVs and probably won’t have offstreet parking to charge them at home. And it is the poorest who will die from the cold when their gas boilers are taken away.
We all know, of course, that the promise of green jobs has always been one big lie, when even the unions object to Labour’s job destroying green agenda.
And in true Guardian style, Miliband resorts to his planet saving excuse warning that an anti-net zero agenda would risk "climate breakdown”, as if the UK’s 1% of the world’s emissions will make a jot of difference.
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April 20, 2025 at 06:15AM
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