Last Thursday, the House of Lords debated the affordability of Net Zero (thanks to Mike H for alerting me to this debate). The chamber was, shall we say, sparsely attended, considering a) how damn many “lords” there are Zimmering around, and b) the paramount importance of the matter.
An admirable opening was made by Lord Offord. After denying his denialism, he went on to outline several of the problems of Net Zero. I won’t reproduce all of his words here – space precludes – but you can find it all at the parliamentlive or Hansard links. In summing up, he said:
Net zero 2050 is a laudable ambition that was passed through the House of Commons in 70 minutes in 2019, without any real assessment of its achievability. It has now become a straitjacket that is preventing the UK from resuming our place in this modern world as an industrial, technological and military powerhouse. In 2025, it is now clear to see that it is neither practical nor affordable, and it behoves all of us to think again. That is why I am proud that my party and my leader, Kemi Badenoch, has had the courage to grasp this thorny nettle. She made it clear in her keynote speech two weeks ago that net zero 2050 is unachievable. This requires our party in opposition to do some serious work to set out an alternative plan for the citizens and businesses of the UK—a plan that, at its heart, is affordable.
So far so good. Then came a parliament of rooks. Or is that crows?
Anyway, I sat through the entire debate, and was much disturbed by the attempts of most of the contributors to bat away the issue of the costs of Net Zero. Logical fallacies abounded. Wrong things were said. Now, I cannot reproduce the entire thing here, as noted: it runs to 19,000 words as transcribed, and let me say that the transcription omits all the minor mistakes, such as when Baroness Hayman went to reference Oscar Wilde, and instead cited Orson Welles. No; all I can do is excerpt a few of the highlights, which, for the most part, are in fact lowlights.
Baroness Curran (Lab):
Moreover, no one should be permitted to make claims about the costs of achieving the net-zero target without factoring in the costs of doing nothing. As the OBR has recently stated,
“unmitigated climate change would ultimately have catastrophic economic and fiscal consequences for the UK”,
and that reality must be faced too. That is why clean energy is properly a central mission of this Government and helps us to maintain our commitment to net zero.
Jit: This is a favourite non-sequitur throughout the debate. A generalisation is made from the UK’s efforts to achieve Net Zero to the World’s efforts. As we know, the World is making, on the average, no attempt whatsoever to achieve Net Zero. A hydrophobe could see that, if you presented him with a graph of annual emissions, even as he tried to chew your fingers off.
Lord Teverson (Lib Dem):
However, to give Mr Sunak his due, he unsuspectingly asked his former Energy Minister, Chris Skidmore, to produce a report on net zero independently. For the benefit of the Conservative Front Bench in particular, Chris Skidmore was no bleeding-heart liberal. He came up with these conclusions as part of his report, under the heading
“Net zero is the growth opportunity of the 21st century”:
first,
“The UK must act decisively to seize the economic opportunities”;
secondly,
“The benefits of investing in net zero today outweigh the costs”;
thirdly,
“Net zero can materially improve people’s lives—now and in 2050”;
and, lastly,
“Net zero by 2050 remains the right target for the UK: it is backed by the science”.
That was a former Conservative Front-Bencher—not anybody who would ever be a Liberal Democrat—yet those were his conclusions.
Mr Sunak paid little attention to that and stayed on his retreat. What was the result? He lost 251 seats in the House of Commons last year. I suspect that his move towards Reform was not particularly successful, and that that will continue to be the case.
We now have the leader of the Opposition, first, declaring herself a “net-zero sceptic” and, secondly and more recently, saying that net zero is “impossible” without “bankrupting” the nation. The consequences if we do nothing are, as the noble Baroness just said, far greater.
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The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, said that climate breakdown
“is a recipe for permanent recession”.
If we follow the Conservative Party down the route it is taking then that is where we are heading. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Offord, that he reads his colleague Chris Skidmore’s report to really get how this works.
Jit: the Skidmore “review” is just laughable. I have reviewed it here. Its ghost should not be haunting the red benches. If Offord were to read the “review” he would probably understand it to be balderdash, which it is.
Lord Stern (CB):
The clean is cheaper than the dirty across much of the economy. There is rapid innovation in the new technologies. Better energy efficiency is higher productivity. Cities where you can move and breathe more easily are more productive than those where you cannot. Air pollution kills around 35,000 people a year in the UK and maims and disables many more.
Jit: Koff. Splutter. That air pollution number has been thoroughly rinsed. And I strongly doubt that air pollution maims anyone. Better efficiency is higher productivity? Sure. That’s why we need renewables, and to build out three or five times the generating capacity that we intend to use, in order to allow for its intermittency.
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All the numbers I use will be referenced from tomorrow on the website of the Grantham Research Institute at the LSE. An average household today spends around £4,000 a year on energy bills and car running costs. Net-zero measures could save between a quarter and a third of this. Allowing for capital costs, a driver could save up to £400 a year by switching from petrol or diesel to an electric vehicle, an average household could save up to £550 a year through energy efficiency, and installing solar panels could save £300 or so a year.
Jit: It might impress the fossils of the Lords, but do not go mouthing the words “Grantham Research Institute” in these parts.
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Let us look at energy security and resilience. The UK’s dependence on fossil fuels involves great risk.
Jit: Yes, especially if you destroy all domestic production!
!!!!!
(That was me grinding my teeth.)
Our dependence on our geopolitical enemies for our wind and solar power, on the other hand, entails no risk whatever.
Let us remember why we must go for net zero. On current policies, the world is heading towards global average temperature increases of 2.5 or 3 degrees centigrade. We are fast approaching 1.5 degrees centigrade and the possibility of tipping points which could make climate change unmanageable. Continuing in this way would likely make many large, heavily populated parts of the world uninhabitable through inundation, intolerable heat, desertification, extreme weather events and disease. We have to keep the science right at the forefront. Hundreds of millions, probably billions, would have to move or perish. We would destroy much of the biodiversity and natural capital on which we depend. The effects would be devastating. Delay is deeply dangerous.
Jit: The debate is replete with this sort of blah blah. As noted under Baroness Curran, it is a non-sequitur. Even if true, that apocalypse was nigh, our noble trip to NetZeroLand would avail us naught, unless other countries joined in the game. Global emissions ARE STILL RISING.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark:
Not only the scientific consensus about human activity and climate but the dramatic changes of one’s lifetime—expanding deserts, retreating glaciers, rising sea temperature, extreme weather events—lead me to believe that this is a situation where the option is not “when”, or even “what”, but “how”.
Jit: Yeh, all those expanding deserts, them ones that aren’t expanding. Which the Bishop would know, if he had troubled to look. Yes, there are reports alleging the opposite. They are generated using garbage methods, as I showed here.
(after quoting Keats)
The price of hesitation, though, will be irreversible. The time is now.
Jit: No it isn’t.
Baroness Jones (GREEEEEEEEN)
The previous Government held back progress in a shameful way, and I am very concerned that this Government too are not as focused as they could be on the solutions that are more practical than the ones they propose. Climate chaos will hit our economy hard, whether we reach net zero or not. Global warming is already with us; the increase in the scale of wildfires and flash floods are just the first—quite mild—symptoms. We might focus on the increased energy of an individual hurricane season sucking up energy from the warming air, but it is the growing shift in temperature ranges and droughts that should really concern us. The changes to agricultural productivity around the globe will mean scarcity, inflation, famines and movements of people that could impact very seriously on other areas.
Jit: This is unsustainable bullcrap. Nevertheless, the stoics in the crowd said naught, for now.
Some Governments will collapse. A country that rebuilds and bounces back from one major catastrophe will eventually collapse if that one-in-a-thousand climate event is repeated year after year. California is one of the most affluent places on earth, yet whole areas have been abandoned by private insurance, and people cannot afford either to rebuild after the wildfires or to move away because no one will buy their house. That is the new normal all over the world. Our economy is part of a global economy, and when parts of that international trade start to collapse, there will be far bigger impacts than Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Jit: More bullcrap and more silence in the several-strong audience.
If we want to know where all the objections to net zero have come from, we have to follow the money. The Conservative Party leader has abandoned net zero by 2050 because she is in the pay of the climate deniers in Tufton Street. She made the announcement immediately after receiving donations from the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the linked pressure group Net Zero Watch. At least four members of Kemi Badenoch’s shadow Cabinet—including her shadow Net Zero Secretary, Claire Coutinho—have also received donations from funders of the group. It was the same under the previous Government, with the fossil fuel lobby writing this country’s laws. The right-wing think tank Policy Exchange got money from American oil giant ExxonMobil. Policy Exchange then advised Prime Minister Sunak on drawing up new laws to clamp down on protesters such as Just Stop Oil. That is two-tier democracy: the people with the big money get access to the Prime Minister to create draconian laws aimed at silencing the people with not very much money.
Jit: At some point during this diatribe, there were hoots from some of those present, who had finally remembered their voices. Personally, I think this entire blather was a shameful wordsick to heave onto the carpet of what is supposed to be the heart of the British State. Tufton Street! Do me a favour! Tot up the funds of the other side, add up the sum of their numbers in thinktanks, agitators, lawfare experts, street sitters, government departments, committees, quangos, charities, and **** peers.
That is how modern Parliament works. It is systematically corrupt and biased in favour of those with fat wallets. It starts with the fossil fuel industry making money out of killing the planet and ends with Ministers colluding with that destruction by dishing out new licences and tax breaks for North Sea oil and gas. Those who object, even if they do so peacefully and non-violently, are arrested and convicted for just planning a protest—as we saw at the Quaker meeting house just last week.
Jit: Yes, why do you think they chose to have their meeting at a Quaker house?
Lord Berkeley (Lab):
Jit: Interminable waffle. No highlights.
Lord Howell (Con):
My Lords, I am certainly not a climate denier.
Jit: Do not pay them the respect of this obeisance. Howell goes on to ask about the cost of Net Zero, and where all the energy is going to come from.
Lord Freyberg (CB):
The need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions to prevent climate catastrophe is clear.
Jit: It is not remotely clear. The warming that has gone on so far does not inexorably lead to this “climate catastrophe” of which you speak.
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The clean energy transition is already under way, with solar and wind offering the cheapest forms of energy generation. This cost advantage is likely to improve further as gas and electricity prices decouple. Households and businesses embracing decarbonisation will see significant financial benefits in the near term. Crucially, we already possess many of the technologies needed to decarbonise. Renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps and energy-efficient buildings are not futuristic concepts; they are scalable, increasingly affordable and often outcompete fossil fuel alternatives.
Jit: In some books, wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity generation. In non-fiction books, they can’t stand on their own two feet absent subsidies, favourable purchasing terms, and penalties for the opposition.
The construction sector illustrates this opportunity perfectly. Currently, one-third of UK construction materials is sourced internationally, making the sector vulnerable to global price volatility and supply chain disruptions, as exemplified by today’s US tariffs. A smarter strategy would be to develop a robust domestic supply chain using renewable bio-based materials such as hemp, timber and mycelium. This approach would reduce embodied carbon in buildings, strengthen the UK’s industrial base, support rural economies and improve our trade balance. Natural materials also promote healthier environments and enable safer construction practices.
Jit: Walk around a building site. See where the breeze blocks in their plastic wrappers come from. Clue: not the UK. And I want to live in a house made of mycelium, don’t you?
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The evidence speaks for itself: the net-zero sector is growing three times faster than the overall UK economy.
Jit: Claims along this line are rife in the debate. It’s a bit like throwing ten billion a year of free money at duck breeding, and then having noble lords quacking about how the duck-breeding economy is going from strength to strength.
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Let us consider the alternative—the costs of inaction. It was a pleasure to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stern, earlier. His report and subsequent analyses have made it clear that the economic damage from unmitigated climate change will far outstrip the investment needed for transition. Delaying action only compounds these costs. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s analysis concludes:
“From 2040 onwards, net operating savings are projected to outweigh investment costs. And by 2050, the CCC projects a £19 billion annual saving”.
The same report warned that:
“Unmitigated climate change would ultimately have catastrophic economic and fiscal consequences for the UK”.
The question of whether we can afford net zero is the wrong question. The real question is whether we can afford to continue our high-carbon status quo. The answer is no. The costs of delay are too great and the benefits of action are too numerous. Net zero is beneficial for business, essential for the economy and necessary for our environment.
Jit: Again with the same non-sequitur. The feared outcome can only be thwarted with global action, if it has any chance of occurring. The costs of delay are there, whether we reach Net Zero or not. We have to play hardball with the rest of the world. I would start by cancelling all emissions targets for the UK. We’ll put them back on the table if other countries do too. They won’t: because unlike the ferrets in the House of Lords, they are not afraid of this phantom catastrophe.
Lord Sharma (Con):
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Offord noted that, under the UK’s leadership of COP 26, we went from less than 30% of the global economy covered by a net-zero target to nigh on 90%.
Jit: Targets mean nothing. I have a target to sell a million books. So far, I’m making steady progress.
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As there is for the rest of the world, for our country there is a big cost of inaction on net zero. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, referenced the OBR’s fiscal risks report. She talked about the 2021 report, but the most recent one has climate change in the top three long-term pressures on the public purse. That report is clear that rising temperatures impact productivity, agricultural output, energy costs and, ultimately, people’s lives and livelihoods.
Jit: There goes the non-sequitur again. The cost is the same for us, climate wise, either way. The only choice is whether we want whatever pain climate change is bringing (I think not much) with a few quid in our pocket, or in penury.
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Then there is the issue of cross-party consensus. I think that it is cross-party consensus on net zero over the past two decades, which many of us in this House have striven to maintain, which has given the private sector confidence to invest in the UK.
Jit: Yes, of course. That is why it is absolutely imperative that there is NOT consensus on Net Zero. We must have a party who are willing to say, “Should we win power, we’re going to roll back all the green crap.” And they have to mean it. And they have to make clear that these one-sided contracts that are sucking out our country’s lifeblood will, by hook or by crook, be terminated.
Lord Ashcombe (Con):
The UK accounts for only 0.81% of global emissions, as we have heard, according to the International Energy Agency. In contrast, the top three emitters—China, the USA and India—are responsible for over 50% of the world’s emissions yet show little interest in reducing them. China is rapidly building coal-fired power stations, while the US has a clear stance on prioritising oil and gas production over environmental concerns.
Jit: Quite.
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Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy shows that the lowest-cost sources of energy are onshore wind and solar, and combined cycle gas generation.
Jit: We need better metrics. The cost of a kWh from wind may well be lower than that of gas. But gas has to pay a fine for the carbon dioxide emitted; it has to give way to wind, if wind deigns to offer its services; gas’s unit is worth far more, because we can have it whenever we want it.
Lord Turner (CB):
My Lords, I declare my interest recorded in the register, which relates to a battery-manufacturing company. Our debate today asks us to take note of the affordability of getting to net-zero emissions, but of course we know that the background is that the leader of the Conservative Party has asserted that getting there is unaffordable, and indeed impossible without a serious drop in living standards. She has also declared that the UK has foolishly committed to achieve net-zero emissions without any plan in place for how to get there.
Nothing could be further from the truth. There are very clear plans set out in the immensely detailed reports of the Climate Change Committee that have been accepted by Governments, both Labour and Conservative, over the past 17 years.
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I would note, in response to the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Offord and Lord Howell, that there is a tendency for many people to mention intermittency as if they were the first person to think about it and nobody had looked at it before. In fact, it is an issue on which the CCC was focused right from the point in March 2008 when I became the first chair. It has been analysed in detail by many people and is achievable.
Jit: Yes, we know intermittency is achievable. Thanks, professor.
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In 2019, when the CCC recommended a 100% net-zero target, there was close to unanimous support in both Houses and in all major parties for accepting the need for that small but not zero investment. What has changed since then is not reasonable estimates of the cost. It is not that those cost estimates have increased, but we now have political voices who believe that around 1% of GDP is too much for today’s generation to invest on behalf of future generations. That is quite a legitimate argument to make; people can differ in their view of what this generation owes to future generations. But, if you want to make that argument, it should be made explicitly and openly, rather than on the basis of unfounded assertions that the costs are much higher than those that the CCC has estimated.
Jit: The cost estimates have gone down and down year by year. And year by year the electricity costs have gone up, for homes and businesses. One piece of evidence is a piece of paper. The other is concrete. Turner and chums are sensing a shift in the ground beneath their feet. The fact is, Net Zero is going to be cancelled. It might take another ten years. I really hope not. But the first stage of that cancellation is, has to be, the cracking of the consensus that has led us to this dismal valley.
Lord Fuller (Con):
My Lords, several months ago, as a new Member of your Lordships’ House, I made a proposal for a special investigation committee to try to get consensus around the various numbers that have been bandied around today. My intent was not to rerun the debate about whether net zero is a good thing, but to have a mechanism whereby we could have an honest reckoning with the public about the expense of reaching these targets. At some stage the public need to be helped to see the reality of the situation that applies to them personally, in terms of their finances, comfort and mobility. They need to see the reality of the world as it is, not through the starry-eyed rhetoric of 2007, when 2050 seemed such a long time away. The longer we leave this reckoning, the more expensive it will be, not only in cost but in public support, and the mountain we have to climb will be steeper.
Jit: Fuller says some good stuff, but the problem with this paragraph is that it assumes that, when the public are given the real picture regarding the costs and benefits of Net Zero, that they will then choose the path of “green” immiseration.
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Governments trumpet reductions in emissions but we are all paying the price by deindustrialising. I want to spend a moment thinking about the net-zero systems that count emissions in the UK only. That leads to the insanity of allowing Drax to present itself as a green power station while cutting down American forests and transporting them across continents and oceans, to be burned in North Yorkshire. If a steel plant shuts down in Scunthorpe and we start importing steel from India that counts as a British carbon win, even if that steel is produced using Russian oil or the most polluting Chinese coal.
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We have ended up in a situation where the primary production of ammonia has been chased from our shores to less efficient places…
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You can still be in favour of net zero while recognising that the accounting systems are taking us down the wrong path. We have sleepwalked into an insane, synthetic economic accounting model that lives only in the minds of Treasury wonks—not in the real world—but whose victims are British steelworkers, glassworkers, ceramicists and car workers: precisely the people the Labour Party was established to represent.
Jit: From memory only Fuller raised the issue of the “synthetic economic accounting model” problem. What he means here is that things made here for our use count on our carbon tab, whereas things made in China and used here do not. The result is that closure of factories results in a win for Net Zero statistics.
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We are nearly half way there. Now is the time to pivot from simply wishing for net zero to focus on the real life numbers and valuation methods to test the affordability, at a family level, of the path we have set ourselves out on. We owe it to ourselves to stop the transition of a proud, global trading Great Britain into a deindustrialised, virtue signalling little Britain, sanctimoniously standing alone while everyone else digs and drills, and British industrial jobs are destroyed on the altar of decarbonisation.
Jit: “We are nearly half-way there.” But only under the “synthetic economic accounting model” that the noble lord just decried. Other than that, he’s right.
Lord Rees (Lab):
…there are solutions, and I declare an interest here because I have an ongoing relationship with one of the companies we worked with in Bristol. We did a deal in Bristol called Bristol City Leap, which has unlocked £1 billion of inward investment to decarbonise our energy system over the next 20 years, involving local supply chains and £60 million of social value. Look at London EDGE, a £100 million fund for the decarbonisation of buildings, energy systems and transport networks.
Jit: It is a logical fallacy to equate expenditure on “climate-related” projects with actually doing something to retard climate change. This was Rees’ maiden speech, and it was quite well done. Though it may be churlish, we must note that so successful was Rees’ tenure as Bristol mayor, that asked in a referendum, the locals answered that they would rather not have one at all going forward. Still, the noble lord landed well.
Baroness Hayman (CB):
Turning to my own contribution to this debate, I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. I put on record at the outset, because the point has been made by others, how much I regret the crumbling of the cross-party consensus that has served this country so well in our efforts to combat climate change, and which has given us such soft power globally and allowed us to lead so effectively on the international stage.
Jit: If this is what effective leadership looks like, what does ineffective leadership look like? Does it look at all like blazing a trail that no-one is following? If so, the two appear to be quite similar.
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We have heard from the noble Lords, Lord Sharma, Lord Turner and Lord Stern, people who have huge authority in this area. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Offord, might share the relevant Hansard with the leader of his party, so she can perhaps reflect on the rather high-level attitude she has taken on these issues.
Jit: Authority should not matter one jot. It is possible to be authoritative, and wrong. The noble lords came across as dogmatic in this debate. Sending Hansard to Kemi Badenoch would allow her to work out how much wood hardener is needed to restore the upper house to working order.
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We have reduced our dependence on fossil fuels, improved our air quality and, strikingly, grown our economy. … The net-zero economy, as others have said, is growing three times faster than the wider economy…
Jit: The duck breeding fallacy.
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In the words of the CBI’s chief economist,
“inaction is indisputably costlier than action”.
Nothing has changed the imperative of the transition; it has become only more urgent. Our climate is already warming faster than scientists initially predicted. In these circumstances, it is a category error of monumental proportions to suggest that investing to tackle climate change can be treated as just another spending issue, of no greater significance than any other in the annual spending decisions, and airily dismissed as an unaffordable dream. This is not the time to lose our nerve.
Jit: “This is not the time to lose our nerve.” So said every suicide cult, at the moment when its members lined up by the altar. Funny how so many speakers told us how well everything is going. The same voices caution that we must hold our nerve. The two lines portray two mirrored versions of reality.
Lord Teverson (LD):
My Lords, I apologise to the House. I forgot to declare my interests in the commercial battery storage sector.
Jit: LOL.
Earl Russell (LD):
The costs of achieving net zero have halved from the sixth to the seventh carbon budgets as renewables prices have continued to fall…
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I want to thank the Conservative Party—the party of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who visited the Arctic, of the noble Baroness, Lady May, and the Climate Change Act, and of the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, and others. It is their work that got us here. Just at the point when the Conservative Party should be taking a standing ovation for all it has done, its leader has decided to wave the white flag of surrender—the white flag with a message saying to our young people, “Sorry we have given up. We offer no solutions; we offer no alternatives; indeed, we offer no hope for the future at all”. I question a political strategy which argues that it is worth saving a few pounds today merely to hasten our own communal demise tomorrow—do spend any savings quickly.
Jit: Earl Russell made a number of vacuous points. I only have space to share the sprinkles of the entire cupcake. What about, as an alternative, cutting the “green” crap that has given us the highest industrial electricity prices? The Net Zero offer is hopelessness. It really is. I sometimes quote the Russian saying, “Hope dies last.” Well, Net Zero has the power to kill hope.
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I am disappointed that we no longer have an all-party political consensus on climate change…
I state unequivocally that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is not only affordable but the most economically sound and responsible path forward. Any deviation from this path will just end up costing people more. I disagree profoundly with the recent statements of the leader of the Conservative Party and her self-professed declaration that this vital target is impossible. The dismissal of our legally binding targets is deeply troubling and flies in the face of a huge body of scientific evidence and economic analysis.
The most expensive course of action we could possibly take is to do nothing. The longer we do nothing, the longer we will continue to pay more. The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that unmitigated global warming could lead to UK debt growing up to three times larger than our economic output by the end of the century. It also warns of greater and more frequent economic shocks caused by climate change. A study just published by Australian scientists suggests that average per person GDP across the globe will be reduced by 16% even if warming is kept to 2 degrees Celsius. Today, a top global insurance company has warned that the climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism.
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The claim that achieving net zero will bankrupt the country is simply not supported by any evidence. Analysis by the London School of Economics has found that, while reaching net zero by 2050 will involve initial costs, it is projected to save money by around 2040.
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The continued reliance on importing gas is a significant drain on our economy and a major source of economic instability. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has estimated that the UK spent around £140 billion in total on wholesale gas between the start of 2021 and the end of 2024.
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The transition to renewable energy offers a pathway to greater energy security and more stable and cheaper energy bills. Suggesting that abandoning our net-zero targets and continuing our dependence on the volatile international markets is a more affordable option is utter madness.
Renewable energy now accounts for just under half, or 45%, of the UK’s power generation….The claim that the target is “impossible” simply does not align with the expert analysis and modelling that has been done. The transition to a net-zero economy also presents significant economic opportunities. Being against green technology is the equivalent of saying at the start of the Industrial Revolution that you do not support steam power.
Jit: This was a particularly absurd analogy. In fact, it proves the opposite point to the one Russell wanted to prove. The governments of the Industrial Revolution did not put sales quotas on steam engines. Nor did they set a date at which water mills, Suffolk Punches and burly men were going to be banned. The people of the day chose steam because it was the superior technology. Bans (e.g. on ICE cars) illustrate that you are trying to substitute an inferior technology for a superior one.
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We can have cheaper bills and households will save money. It is important that we do not give up hope now.
The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the cost of inaction far outweighs the investments required for transition. … We must not falter now.
Lord Hunt (Lab) (Minister from DESNZ):
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Offord, suggested that we cannot really afford our net-zero ambitions. The response of the Government is not only that we can afford our net-zero ambitions but that we must—and that we have to drive this as quickly as we possibly can. In a sense, the challenge from many noble Lords to the Government is not that that we are going too fast; it is that we need to accelerate our efforts….The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to the loss of consensus, which is indeed very unfortunate.
On the climate science, it is absolutely clear that climate change is happening. We are seeing it already; it impacts our everyday lives. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, put it, its effects range from severe and damaging heatwaves to heavy rainfall and floods, and from a loss of diversity to an increased risk of wildfires. The noble Lord, Lord Sharma, spoke of the inevitability of countries experiencing economic and environmental insolvency unless we take action.
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On energy security, surely the noble Lord, Lord Stern, was right to discuss the importance of ensuring our energy security and resilience. In fact, the only way to protect bill payers, in the long term, is to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels and towards homegrown clean energy. On the benefits of securing our energy security, the OBR has assessed that responding to future gas price shocks—let alone climate damage from a warming world—could be twice as expensive as the direct public investment needed to reach net zero. Energy security is key to our economic resilience. With households and businesses shielded from damaging price shocks, we will have a more stable and adaptable UK as a result.
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The noble Lord, Lord Stern, said that the best way to protect bill payers and mitigate the energy price spikes we saw in 2022 and 2023 is to deliver clean power by 2030. Low-cost and low-carbon energy is the way forward.
On the issue of what is driving the increase in prices, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Offord, that it is gas prices that are still mostly setting the GB wholesale electricity price, which has driven the recent price cap increases.
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The noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I agree on the importance of nuclear, but I fundamentally disagree with his remarks on Sizewell C. It is not a white elephant; it is a crucial development.
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We should surely turn this around and see the transition to net zero as the economic opportunity of the 21st century for this country. We have huge opportunities here. It is a chance to create hundreds of thousands of good jobs and drive new investment in all parts of the United Kingdom, benefiting people and businesses alike. The nuclear industry is a classic example where we started from scratch to build new nuclear. The jobs that are being created in areas of the country that have found it very difficult to develop new jobs have an amazingly positive impact. This is what investment in green energy and net zero can bring to us.
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The other issue here is the long-term consequences of not investing in net zero. There have been so many reports now, and they are objective. The Office for Budget Responsibility—I know that noble Lords sometimes disagree with its conclusions, but it is no soft touch—has been absolutely clear that delaying the move to net zero will cost us even more in the long term.
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We estimate that we will need £40 billion of investment mobilised annually over the next five years to reach clean power by 2030. My department’s analysis of Bloomberg New Energy Finance data estimates that total low-carbon investment of around £130 billion will be needed per year up to 2040, which is up from £51 billion in 2024….Why the UK? That is a question that noble Lords opposite have asked me, particularly during the passage of the Great British Energy Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Sharma, put it so eloquently, because he linked global leadership to action by this country. The two have to go together; we have to show by example if we seek to give global leadership. Why on earth should we not seek that? I find it very puzzling when noble Lords in this House seem to suggest that we should sit back and be a backwater. Surely we have so much to offer.
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The fact is that, whatever geopolitical waves and uncertainties we are going through at the moment, this is an unstoppable movement going towards decarbonisation and net zero. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, raised a number of points about the global position, and he mentioned China. It is just worth remarking that the International Energy Agency has reported that there will be an absolutely massive increase in the use of renewable energy in China over the next five years.
On the subject of global leadership, I am proud that we were the first country to set legally binding carbon budgets and the first major economy to establish a net-zero target in law….The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that now is not the time to lose our nerve. I agree.
Jit: Lord Hunt’s speech went on for a long time. I leave it to the reader to assess the merit of the excerpts I have included here.
My reflections upon listening to the entirety of the debate were that we need a better upper chamber than this shower. Erudite and polite, the greater part of them can be guaranteed to argue persuasively for the opinion that others in their circle find acceptable. But that is no good. I would be reluctant to staff the chamber with career politicians, or over-educated technocrats. What is the answer?
The final words went to Lord Offord:
Was it not Benjamin Franklin who said that when everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking?
