In October 2008, Parliament passed the Climate Change Act requiring the
U.K. Government to ensure that by 2050 “the net U.K. carbon account” was
reduced to a level at least 80% lower than that of 1990. (“Carbon
account’ refers to CO2 emissions and “other targeted greenhouse gas
emissions”.) Only five MPs voted against it. Then in 2019, by secondary
legislation and without serious debate, Parliament increased the 80%
reduction requirement to 100% – thereby creating the Net Zero policy.
Unfortunately,
it’s a policy that’s unachievable, disastrous and in any case pointless
– and, importantly, that’s the case even if you accept that human
carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to a rise in global
temperature.
1. It’s unachievable.
Many vehicles and
machines (used for example in mining, mineral processing, agriculture,
construction, heavy transportation, commercial shipping and aviation,
the military and emergency services) and products (for example concrete,
steel, plastics – all needed for the construction of renewables –
fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, anaesthetics, lubricants, solvents,
paints, adhesives, insecticides, insulation, tyres and asphalt)
essential to life and wellbeing require the combustion of fossil fuels
or are made from oil derivatives. There are no easily deployable,
commercially viable alternatives. Our civilisation is based on fossil
fuels, something that’s unlikely to change for a long time.
Wind is the most effective source of renewable electricity in the U.K., but: (i) the substantial costs
of building the huge numbers of turbines needed for Net Zero; (ii) the
complex engineering and cost challenges of establishing a stable,
reliable non-fossil fuel grid by 2035 (2030 for Labour) – not least the
need to cope with a vast increase in high voltage grid capacity and
local distribution; (iii) the enormous scale of what’s involved (immense
amounts of space and of increasingly unavailable and expensive raw
materials, such as so-called ‘rare earths’, required because, unlike
fossil fuels, the ‘energy density’ of wind is so low); and (iv) the
intermittency of renewable energy (see point 2 below), make it most unlikely
that the U.K. will be able to generate sufficient electricity for
current needs let alone for the mandated EVs and heat pumps plus
industry’s requirements and other demands such as huge data centres the
predicted growth of AI....<<<Read More>>>...