The public doesn't hate Net Zero as much as RW politicians insist they do

But the biggest burner of coal in Asia is China. And they don't need our money to replace with solar. They already are doing it because it benefits them. They are a booming economy they don't need Britain's help to switch to renewables. People in Britain do. Likewise even in poorer parts of Asia the switch to cleaner methods of cooking etc is happening already. Solar use in India is sky rocketing. India and large parts of Asia already use produce less carbon dioxide per capita than the UK. There was a fear as they developed it would increase but it's already being offset by renewed use of renewables because it's cheaper and better for energy security.

I'm all for overseas funding. But in this area I am worried the UK will be left behind countries like China who, for their own self interest, pursue renewable energy and energy security. It feels like a great act of self harm not to do the same.

The installation of heat pumps reduces costs for people. It helps the environment but it also helps consumers and British tax payers. Complicated schemes to offset carbon use don't.

What about the network, infrastructure, backup and constraint payments needed? And Cfd subsidises as well. Renewables are cheaper in Texas where they just pay the market rate and aren't over subsidised.

Yes. Treaties allow our net zero target to be met by funding abatement overseas. Switzerland does a lot of this but we have chosen to do none.

That’s a massive loss to us, the overseas projects, and the planet.

Bear in mind what UK policies cost: heat pump grants are roughly £250/tonne, carbon capture well over £100/tonne in subsidy.

All money that could be much better spent if we cared about results not process.

Examples:

1. Destroying nitrous oxide at fertiliser/nylon plants. Around 100–200 million tonnes a year available worldwide at $1–5/tonne.

1. Switching household cooking and heating fuel in Asia. Clean stoves replacing wood, charcoal and coal. Costs $4–35/tonne depending on quality. Over two billion people still cook on solid fuels, which also kills millions a year from smoke.

1. Retiring Asian coal plants early and replacing with solar. Buying out the contracts costs $6–50/tonne.

Switzerland does it at about $30/tonne. Let’s be conservative and assume only half is effective while 100% of UK projects are effective. That’s still a huge waste in our policies compared to the good we could be doing. Or, looked at more positively, a huge opportunity to do more for the planet while also saving money.

Renewables are currently cheaper than oil and gas.

It's the oil and gas companies telling you you need it.

If we broke the link between oil and gas and the energy prices cap your energy prices would fail significantly.

Renewables are cheaper currently than oil and gas.

We need energy. We need oil and gas.

The best thing for the environment would be to reduce the population.

"Likewise the UKs oil fields are mature and almost completely depleted"

This is not actually correct. See Rosebank.

There is plenty of oil left in the North Sea. There isn't plenty of easy oil. But techniques to extract it are improving all the time (see EOR).

Businesses are just getting less and less interested because the politics makes it pointless for them to engage in the significant costs of E&P when the political climate seems to turn on a sixpence. This isn't compatible with the long term planning requirements of offshore oil extraction.

The oil industry is more than about the profit made from drilling for oil. It's also about the jobs and the industry that that goes along with that which employs a significant number of people in the UK and ensures we have world class expertise in this area.

If some is there we should allow the choices for private firms to go and extract it if they want to.

We should maximise energy production.

I don't know what you mean by carbon abatement is much better done overseas. Is it anything in particular you are thinking of? Or just a hypothetical?

It was thought at one point the geology of parts of the UK were suited to shale oil extraction as happens in America. There was huge political debate. It turns out that actually we don't have the right type of shale anyway, and it isn't economically viable. Yet it gets repeated as a solution. Likewise the UKs oil fields are mature and almost completely depleted at least of oil it's ecomically viable to remove. We can give licenses to companies to remove the remainder of we can not give them licenses. They may or may not decide themselves to drill based on how high oil prices are likely to be in 6 months or a year's time. Either way, it won't have any impact on the UKs gas and oil and energy prices.

Drilling or not drilling won't make energy in the UK cheaper. Long term the only chance we have is reducing our dependence on the oil and gas market which is highly volatile and completely out of the UKs control.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jul/24/france-spain-wildfires-cap-ferret-europe-latest-news-updates?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

It's because the whole process is complicated.

The government is struggling to build the amount of homes it said it would (less than half). The more conditions you put on builders the less homes will be built.

Take something like heat pumps. On paper and in isolation they sound like a good idea. They are pretty much as expensive to heat your home as gas. But they require a lot of electricity to run.

That electricity needs grid infrastructure to transport it. Housing starts are already being delayed because the grid infrastructure isn't in place. There is no point building an estate full of heat pumps if you can't actually pipe the electricity to it to make them run.

Government policy is obviously targeted to increase the use of heat pumps for domestic heating (hence the subsidy, which we all have to pay for through taxes). But it is targeted to try to make sure the uptake rate matches the infrastructure. Otherwise we have all our houses with heat pumps but no way of actually getting the electricity to them.

We should frack as well

I’m very pro net zero, would pay more tax to get there quicker.

I accept it makes no difference while the US/China etc pump out emissions at the rate they do, but I believe we should do our best regardless of what others are doing (I don’t start dropping litter because the side of the road is already littered, for example).

I don’t like the teaming and lading of numbers to get there (ie don’t generate our own gas/oil but buy someone else’s). We should aim to be broadly self sustaining, and then reduce our fossil fuel extraction as we replace it with other energy sources.

It's not a question of modelling the carbon footprint over 25 years. Australian coal is still being transported to and burned in dirty Chinese power plants every day.

It would emit less CO2 to avoid transporting the coal to China, keep it in Australia and burn it in cleaner Australian power plants and at the same time produce cheaper and importantly non intermittent power for Australian businesses and citizens.

I agree those things matter too. Policies that make sense on economic or security grounds should go ahead.

Some things must be done locally in order to be effective (like energy-security arguments). But carbon abatement is not one of those. It's done much better overseas.

By ignoring that, and by dressing up net zero policies in the language of economic opportunity and vice versa, we do both badly:

We have the highest industrial energy costs in the rich world. That hampers growth (and industry) far, far more than the growth that our green energy sector provides.

We have some of the most expensive carbon-abatement projects in the world (naturally, as we are an expensive country that is already pretty carbon efficient).

It's mainly political vanity, plus a wrongheaded anti-markets hangover in the environmental movement, that keeps us doing net zero in this way, which is, ironically, far worse for global carbon emissions than the alternatives.

I don't think we will ever go back to coal in the UK.

UK coal generally is expensive and difficult to extract, it's dirty to burn producing sulphur that has to be scrubbed and generates a significant amount more CO2 emissions (I think maybe double) compared to gas.

It can't really replace domestic gas for heating due to the pollution it generates when a lot of it is burnt in cities.

There isn't really any role for it in the UK energy mix.

I think there was a mine proposed somewhere (open cast) to continue to mine coal in the UK, but that would have been used for specialist purposes rather than electricity generation.

Oil I think is different. Plastic material is used for all sorts of applications. We need to reduce our usage of it, but it is still the best choice for many things. Some applications are never going to happen without oil. Electric aircraft aren't really viable and are unlikely to be without significant technological breakthroughs. Oil is also used in a lot of military applications.

We are currently going for the low hanging fruit replacing oil where we don't need to use it, but I can't see us getting rid of it entirely for decades.

The thing about extracting oil is that it is a process that takes decades to put in place in the UK. You can't simply drill a hole and have oil come out a couple of weeks later. If you decide for whatever reason you want oil and you have no facilities in place its probably 5-10 years before you get it.

The problem is the debate over oil has been taken over by zealots from both sides of the argument. People who believe that we should stop it instantly with potentially catastrophic consequences for our current way of life, and people who believe we should be unrestrained in drilling for more of it. Whereas in reality there is a better balance between those two extremes. That really applies to the net zero debate as a whole.

Last time I checked the decommissioning costs for our old nuclear plants were about £60 billion.

We don't even have a solution for long term storage. The Germans chucked a lot of their stuff down a mine and it started leaking. Now they have to figure out how to clean it up. Or leave it for someone else to clean up.

There's a reason why there are a load of rusting old nuclear subs in Devonport. It's because they cost serious money to dispose of. And no government actually wants to deal with the cost of it.

I think nuclear is a good solution to our baseload problem and helps energy diversity and we need nuclear plants, maybe 3x of HPC. It is not some sort of panacea though.

Ok it’s a drink I like, very nice, it has sugar so only rarely.

I hate it, you are not talking for everyone. Its stumps growth, its making energy bills more expensive, its given councils a reason to charge you going into certain areas, its a contribution of a declining industrial industry. We pay more than any country in the G7 for gas and yet we produce about 1%. Its an awful policy

My mistake. It wasnt meant as an insult. Yes I saw "Eastern Standard" and assumed it was a reference to EST.

I think most people are in favour of reducing pollution, sustainability, etc., but most people can also see through the lies and stupidity.

I.e. reducing our production of oil, gas and coal, yet importing it from abroad instead.

Councils keen on householders segregating waste etc when some of the recyclables are still ending up in landfill.

Higher prices for "clean" energy that lots of people simply can't afford.

Air source heat pumps that require huge investment and aren't actually that effective unless your home is ultra insulated.

Environmental impact of scrapping perfectly good old cars and making new ones, transported half way around the World to replace them.

Environmental impact of oil guzzling ships carrying coal/wood etc to burn in UK power stations and transporting our waste/recycling abroad.

Make it make sense!

Of course I’m not American, I’m in sunny London and have been for decades. About to get on the overground into the centre.

Why say that, my username? Is your real name actually Persephonia? (Perhaps it is).

On Labour ‘values’ they switch like the wind, you just back it as it’s your party.

(The UK Conservatives used to be deeply pragmatic while holding to certain principles, even if I didn't agree with those principles. It was always different to American conservativism and that must be quite confusing. They have completely lost themselves in the last decade or so. Being all over the place in terms of ideal and also wildly impractical/contradictory. It's not just Kemi Badenochs fault.)