The decision to go net carbon dioxide zero by 2050 has caused considerable public discussion. Has the Government and Parliament appropriate thought and consideration to how much this will truly cost. Instead of publishing their own estimates the government have instead decided to outsource this crucial task to the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). This is the organisation chaired by Lord Deben, Lord Debden also is chairmen of Sancroft International a ‘sustainable consultancy firm’. Some may question the validity of this supposed independent assessment.
The CCC have informed Parliament that the cost of achieving net-zero emissions will be between 1 and 2 per cent of GDP in 2050. The figure given was £50 billion. However, this information was misleading. The CCC’s estimate was for one year, this is despite the fact that there would be enormous capital costs in the intervening years. Equally significantly, the CCC would not explain their methodology, this renders the reliability of the estimate at approximately zero. The Government is, therefore, relying on an estimate that it can’t possibly explain or understand.
There are reportedly private concerns within Government that it will cost much more. The ‘Conservative Women’ website is reporting that “before they both left office, Philip Hammond wrote a letter to Theresa May warning that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) had estimated the cost would be 40 per cent higher, at £70billion per annum. This would mean households paying an average of £2,400 every year between now and 2050”.
Michael Kelly is the retired Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. His report named ‘Decarbonising Housing: The Net Zero Fantasy’ looks at data in order to achieve an 80 per cent decarbonisation (not 100%) target through retrofitting existing homes. That is, to make them more energy efficient by improving insulation, draught-proofing, cladding etc. Professor Kelly found that £2.1trillion would be required, or £75,000 per house. The findings are very much in line with those from the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), which found that £2trillion would be required for the entire UK housing stock. A further £1.5trillion would be needed to decarbonise non-residential buildings, resulting in a total cost of £3.5trillion.
Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and most Tory MPs seem yet to realise that such costs are not going to go down well with voters. These large sums may sound theoretical, but they would impose an unprecedented period of green austerity upon the public. Mr Johnson speaks of the need to ‘level up’. How about levelling with the public, the voters that appointed him Prime Minister…
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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