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

The UK may not be directly responsible for much of the global emissions, but we consume so many of the goods that higher polluting countries produce that we are indeed responsible. It is foolish and simplistic to say oh, this is on China. They wouldn’t be making those goods for export if we weren’t buying them.

I think far too many people are short sighted about this issue. Global warming is a very real threat and our children’s futures are at real risk. Is that really worth damaging for the sake of slightly lower bills? Especially when investment now will result in lower bills in the future as well as a safer and more habitable world?

Politicians and parties who ignore this care only about power and what they can gain in the short term. I think that is dangerous and stupid.

And then when they get their right wing government do you really think they will spend money saving the British population? Food security, water security, fuel, protection from flood and heat?

have you any idea how much that would cost in a 3 degree warmer world ?

the dystopian future novels with only a few humans left scouring the devastated planet ? That becomes very likely at those kind of temperatures

head in the sand again everyone get those heads back in the sand . just like Brexit - so many thought that would lead to us being better off and yet even though we have had the most right wing governments ever we still are less well off

and more at risk from climate change as a result

it’s so terribly sad.

We are just a small part of the world population. If we take steps towards reducing our carbon footprint it should be by importing less especially foods out of season and being more self sufficient as a country including self sufficient in energy production that includes north sea gas until it is gone

Net zero, the way we do it, is way too expensive. It is shameful environmental vandalism to continue this way.

For parochial political reasons we choose to reduce small amounts of carbon in the UK rather than large amounts overseas, for the same money.

The UK is an expensive country which is already relatively carbon efficient. You mention heat pumps: £1000 buys about 3-5 tonnes of carbon abatement if spent on UK heat pumps, or 150-300 tonnes if spent substituting bio-fuel burning in SE Asia.

Which do you think we would be doing, if we cared about the environment or warming rather than presentation?

I support net zero (indeed, I support net negative), which is why I think most of our net zero policies need to be scrapped.

Swivel eyed 😆 🤣 he gives me the creeps

Where did I say we shouldn’t talk about it? My point is it’s such a complicated issue that taking a few strands from social media and extrapolating it to claim “ most people” think X is hugely simplistic.

“There aren’t any deserts in Britain.”
Surely you can make the leap that we can send it to a desert?

There are roughly 450 nuclear reactors around the world, they seem to manage the nuclear waste.

Storing waste is not cheap no, nor is having power cuts and an unreliable supply, nor is burning fossil fuels.

So the argument is it’s ok for you to contribute to climate change because you will only cause a few more deaths compared to a county with a much bigger population?

and are you attributing all of chinas emissions to the Chinese population when it’s you buying the goods they make ? But that’s only a few more deaths what does it matter ?

tragedy of the commons - everyone is convinced they personally have such a small impact that everyone dies of starvation through over grazing

At the end of the day, people will vote for what they want, so if the Right wing are wrong, they will suffer at the ballot box and if they are correct, they will reap the benefits at the ballot box.

Agree with this. Net Zero is a PR stunt. One that isn’t working.

I’ve always thought it would be good to start with social housing with insulation / solar panels etc. to establish the market & make it affordable for everyone else.

Thank you

There aren’t any deserts in Britain.

Last time I was in Eskdale (a year or two ago) there were posters against having a nuclear dump there.

Storing radioactive waste is not cheap.

I agree with Kemi and the best move Burnham has made is removing that swivel eyed loon Milliband as energy and net zero minister

You don't speak for me or anyone I know, thank you very much 😊

That is a minor issue. It can be encased in concrete underground, or in the middle of a desert.

What does that actually mean though that we just don't talk about it because it's, 'complex'.

I think most people would pick policies that enable them to have more money in their pocket. Most are happy with the concept in abstract, but when it starts creating a hindrance to their life in some way they won’t prioritise net zero. Heck look how irate paper straws make people. I think RW politicians are correct in their assumption.

There’s just the minor problem of dealing with the waste.

My frustration with net zero is that the energy resilience piece isn’t hammered home as the primary benefit. People can’t grasp slim but real future risks like food insecurity, regular flooding of roads etc but they can grasp saving money today.

Buildings that need very little energy to heat or cool, and use renewable energy for their energy needs (and therefore are by definition low carbon to operate) cost less to run.

It has always baffled me until the very recent Future Homes Standard that no one has mandated that new homes have heat pumps, battery and solar panels as standard. Yes, it may cost in the region of £5-10k additional on build costs, albeit this is cheaper than a retrofit.

But (and this where the government really lets themselves down) average energy costs for a 3 bed house are around £150pm. A 30 year mortgage on the extra £10,000 is £50pm. By setting new builds up for energy sufficiency from Day 1, you can actually save people £100 per month.

Why this isn’t the approach of the government is beyond me.

We are only 1% of emissions. We need to make energy cheap and plentiful. Scrapping the VAT on electricity was a good thing from Burnham. Expand that to gas as well.

Remove the green levies and taxes will bring costs down a bit. We need to focus on bringing energy costs down. Might as well use north sea for tax revenue. If renewables are the answer, build them out then.

Did that study look at the carbon footprint over 25 years for the life of the panels, or just the Year 1 carbon footprint? Notwithstanding that Chinese slave labour is bad, it’s a significant problem when procuring panels.

It’s a bit like the argument that EVs have a bigger carbon footprint on Day 1 - but that drops away once the car has been driven for c. 15,000 miles.

Having said that, the transition to net zero can’t actually happen carbon free. Carbon needs to be incurred to develop the tech that makes future production low carbon.

The opening post feels a bit simplistic. There’s issues with net zero beyond ‘right wing press’. If you look at the unions there’s a split because some don’t want their members to face high redundancies.

The fact that the UK produces less than 1% of emissions is not a complete picture. We manufacture very few of the goods we consume so have essentially exported our emissions. If we take that into account our contribution to global emissions increases. We are also not a huge country. It is useful to consider per capita emissions. This is interesting https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita

It does feel a little arbitrary to say by x date we will be NET ZERO and most people probably think what does that even really mean?! I think climate issues have suffered greatly from activists like XR over the past few years. Everyone just thinks they’re nobs who sit on top of tubes or in the road. Then you had Just stop Oil throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting. Nobheads, in other words.

Normal people are worried about paying bills and making it through each day. Climate change also isn’t really impacting us much yet beyond the heatwaves. It’s a hard sell to the ordinary person. Also many people think like Karl Pilkington “why am I washing this tin of beans out when China exists” sort of thing…

Not everyone right of center opposes net zero, nor does everyone left of center support net zero.
The public wants cheap reliable power, from wherever.
If there was less opposition to nuclear in the past we would be sitting pretty by now.