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

[Echobelly]

Politicians like Kemi Badenoch and right wing newspaper front pages love to talk as though everyone hates Net Zero and sustainability as concepts and wants us to get on with burning coal and drilling for oil. They seem to stake an awful lot on people not like sustainability mostly because they see it as 'woke' as far as I can tell.

I think most people don't think about it enough to hate it really and most people broadly want the outcomes of improved sustainability but would like it to happen without it needing any investment. I reckon some people don't like feeling 'nagged' about saving the environment and in many ways I don't blame them as, while we should all do our bit, really it's up to governments and big businesses to actually do the damn work to truly make a difference.

Maybe Net Zero has a bit of a PR problem as it sounds unachievable, and also maybe it sounds like you get nothing, or something will be taken away from you/society. It might do better to have a name that sounds more 'positive'. But it's a shame because ultimately, even if for some reason you don't believe in climate change it seems to me that the benefits of renewable energy (such as ending energy dependence on some not always friendly countries and less pollution) are pretty clear and I'm not sure people realise it's not just powering a few kettles, it's often around 50% of UK energy production

For double decker trains, it's not a matter of just buying double decker trains. The infrastructure (in this case bridges) isn't set up for it so you would need to close down vast swathes of the UK rail network to rebuild the bridges and make this possible. I put it to you that banning all short distance flights such that the only way for people to travel is via those rail networks would not make this work more likely to happen. It would make it harder. Likewise longer trains need longer railway platforms. Not impossible to do, but needs building work and necessitates some disruption.
"Make it happen". How do you make things happen? You build shit. The UKs train network is already at full capacity in a lot of areas. It's not really open to debate that we need more rail capacity. Pretty much everyone agrees with that. But the market isn't some magical force that just delivers things. It still takes time and government effort and pressure.

Look at china and India and see how much their emissions have risen. We've cut emissions a lot since 2010. Fastest in the G7.

Make it happen means stop saying “yeah but” and literally make it happen.

If we can create tunnels for Cotswold residents to not have to see a railway, we can do the same so that we can run double decker trains. Like an actual proper country should.

Make. It. Happen.

Good for us - fastest in G7 is impressive.

We do our part, the others do their part. If we’re faster, then that’s incredible for us - those who rework their energy systems fastest for the post oil-age will be the winners of the 22nd century.

The laggards will be the ones who face economic ruin when fossil fuels are no longer competitive.

We need to cut energy costs. The Tories have a cheap power plan which will make energy cheaper.

London and Manchester are about 160 miles apart. Currently trains between the two cities take about 2 hours. You could save some time if you didn't slow down or stop at any of the stations so went at max speed all the way. And of course if there aren't delays getting stuck behind slower trains etc. In theory** you could do it in less than an hour and a half using existing UK mainline maximum safe train speeds.

If we built a super fast 200 mile an hour train line between Manchester and London and went from 0to200 in a minute, kept that speed and then decelerated at the same pace you could cut the journey time down to less than 50 minutes. Amazing! But also you just turned all the passengers to mush. If you allow a standard acceleration/deceleration rate then by the time you have reached 200mph you only sustain it for about 20 minutes before decelerating. So the actual journey time is still likely to be an hour minimum. You save maximum 25 minutes time but for an increased cost of tens of billions or more.

When some people talk high speed they mean 125mph, which is a much better target to aim for. A lot of South West train lines have that already. In some places this is achieved by tilting trains that are able to travel faster safely on bending track. Likewise there are plans to build 125mph an hour track over the pennines. But when people talk about high speed rail in terms of 200 mph as in Japan, it just isn't worth it. You get the law of diminishing returns (the time saving goes down because of the acceleration restrictions) and the requirements to have completely straight track cost exponentially more. Increasing rail capacity by creating more rail lines means faster trains don't get held up by local trains, means freight gets its own rail line etc. It's just more suited to the UKs needs. And a 125 mph hour direct train from London to Edinburgh would still be faster than flying when you allow check in etc. it just has to be affordable and reliable to be competitive.

**Theory being a long way from reality.

You make it happen.

Edit: we will also have to redig all the tunnels in the Cotswolds. God help us.
And double decker trains aren't even high speed anyway and can't be high speed. They don't add that much extra capacity though they are very cool. You can add much more capacity for every point spent by building more rail lines. They can be suitable for double decker trains if you really want it to be.

It's a pity they didn't put that brilliant plan into action during the 14 years they were in government really.

Edinburgh to Paris is easy by train - Intercity to King’s Cross, walk next door to St Pancras then Eurostar to Paris.

If you are really poor (relying on food bank poor) you probably can’t afford flights anyway.

There are other problems with expanding Heathrow such as noise and air pollution.

It is but it's expensive. I've done it a lot, but I was visiting from abroad with an interrail ticket and those are great because they make almost all train travel in the UK free. You don't need to book weeks in advance to get the cheapest journey, you just decide what day you are using it on and you can do that on the day itself. The problem is this is only available to people visiting the UK from Europe, you can't use the interrail pass to get around your own country except to leave or enter it.
If they made those sort of journeys more affordable and flexible it would be so much better than flying by plane!

Yeah they didn't. But Kemi has new ideas

And that’s where policy comes in.

Literally make them cheaper.

1 - Make them fixed price - no airline style yield pricing - 1 km costs £X always.

2 - Make them cheap and offer half fare cards for anyone who wants to buy one for £200 a year.

Couldn’t be easier. Make it happen.

It will take ages. 4.5 hours to London. And then 2 hours to Paris. Whereas a direct Edinburgh to Paris flight can take 1 hour 50 minutes. So much faster. And you didn't address all the other things I said

You must really lack an understanding of economics

Noise , boo hoo it's an airport. Will help so much with local jobs.

It makes sense to use our resources sensibly and not waste them , but a lot of Net Zero is plain and simple performative nonsense - I work in an industry where every client has to produce a climate report each year, costing an absolute fortune to produce and all which largely say the same thing - it is very clearly a tick box exercise which is making someone very rich.

"Saying 'literally make them cheaper' is a nice fantasy, but it breaks down completely the second it hits reality for a few reasons:

The Taxpayer Tax: If a train journey costs £150 to run but the government mandates it must be sold for £30, the other £120 doesn’t magically vanish. Taxpayers who don't travel would have to pick up the multi-billion-pound tab to subsidise other people’s holidays to Paris.

The International Hurdle: Eurostar isn't a domestic British train—it is a private company owned by the French and Belgian state railways. The UK government cannot legally pass a law forcing foreign companies to lose millions by accepting a British £200 discount card.

The Tunnel Toll: Every train must pay a massive toll (thousands of pounds per trip) just to use the Channel Tunnel. A cheap flat-rate ticket wouldn't even cover the cost of entering the tunnel, let alone the track maintenance or electricity.

The Post-Brexit Bottleneck: You can make tickets cost 50p, but price caps don't create physical seats. St Pancras and Gare du Nord are already turning passengers away and running trains with empty seats because border control physically cannot process passport checks fast enough.

I agree that tickets are too expensive & too complicated - hopefully this is something that can be sorted out with the new nationalisation.

Forcing a per-kilometre flat rate and banning yield pricing is completely unworkable for Eurostar because it fundamentally misinterprets how international high-speed rail functions.

Eurostar operates on a modest 10% to 11% post-tax profit margin, managing an expensive €2 billion fleet replacement programme and a €520 million debt mountain. Outlawing yield pricing makes dynamic subsidisation illegal, meaning Eurostar could no longer use premium last-minute business fares to fund cheap £39 mid-week bargains—forcing the mandatory flat rate to be set at a high average that prices lower-income holidaymakers out of the market entirely.

Furthermore, every train must pay thousands of pounds in a massive flat toll just to pass through the Channel Tunnel, meaning a cheap per-kilometre fare wouldn't even cover the physical cost of entering the tunnel.

Worst of all, because post-Brexit passport stamping and stricter border control checks strictly limit terminal capacity—forcing Eurostar to leave hundreds of seats empty on purpose on peak services—artificially slashing ticket prices would trigger massive, unmanageable passenger demand that the stations physically and legally cannot process, forcing the company into instant bankruptcy while stuck on a permanent multi-year waiting list.

Reports this week that noise pollution might be linked to Parkinson’s. Lots of health conditions are linked to nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants in the air. Neither are good for people’s health - and if an industry makes people ill then there’s the risk of legal action.

The Transport Secretary has explicitly stated that the government cannot guarantee train tickets will get cheaper under renationalisation.

As lines like South Western Railway, West Midlands Trains, and Govia Thameslink Railway have been systematically brought into public ownership under the transition to Great British Railways, fares have remained tied to macroeconomic policies rather than magically dropping. Their profit margins are tiny as well.

Reports will say lots of things. Boo hoo it's noise. Driving cars also caused air pollution as well. The roads and cars around the airport already cause the pollution.

You must really lack a sense of the urgency of our situation.

When a moonshot is needed we have to literally deliver a moonshot. Not continue to slowly poison ourselves to service an “economy”.

Literally every single one of those problems can be solved by changing the rules / altering policy.

”Oh we can’t do it because some ink exists in close proximity with some paper”.

Jesus wept.

Make. It. Happen.

What’s to address - you can fly to all of the destinations you mention from Heathrow & I think our definitions of what being poor means differ somewhat. The rail companies are all being nationalised so they can’t have a “toxic monopoly” & people’s lifestyles may well have to change with climate change. Not being able to fly is a fairly minor issue compared to the disruption those caught up in the current wildfires are facing & sadly those wildfires may mean traditional tourist resorts are no longer so appealing as holiday destinations.