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

I tell you what, we'll pay the renewable price for electricity and you pay the fossil fuel-generated price. Deal?

In the morning I will put the washing on hot. The electricity won't cost me a penny - in fact I'll be paid for the electricity I use. This is because the wind will be blowing at the same time as there's plenty of sun, so there is so much electricity that I get paid to waste it. Yay Octopus!

You meanwhile can cough up for importing fossil fuels at the price that various dodgy dictatorships (Russia, Iran, China, the USA...) decide you should pay. Is the Strait of Hormuz open yet?

You understand this is a crisis, right ?

You realise we have no choice but to act ?

When World War II started, the Royal Air Force had a small number of mainly fabric covered low-powered biplanes. By the time it ended we had huge numbers of 400-500mph aircraft, strategic bombers, trained pilots to fly them and total dominance of our skies.

Because in a crisis you can - and must - make literally anything happen to survive.

Or we can use the local North sea for our gas needs. We use most of it anyway. Use the local supply.

@WhippedCreamPie where’s that graphic from?

yes we are in a crisis, read the news, Europe is the fastest heating continent on earth and is currently ravaged by wildfires and drought.
if cost is the main factor making people reluctant to go to renewables then we need to subsidise them, nationalise household renewables providers and investigate the insulation disaster so that it becomes a viable safe and affordable solution.

A "crisis". More people in the UK die due to the cold every year than due to the heat. What impact does destroying our industry and making our own energy prohibitively expensive have when we make up 1% of global emissions and we've massively decarbonised anyway.

Because if we don’t then we have given up hope.
we are saying that we will leave the world to burn.
it may well happen anyway, but there is a slither of hope - we owe it to future generations to at least try.

France and Spain aren’t though. Nor the the people who needed to be evacuated in the Cairngorms.

Cars do cause air pollution - nitrogen dioxide is linked to stuff like asthma, cancer etc. Not speculatively - nhs.uk advises asthma sufferers to avoid air pollution. Electric cars are better, but still have particulate pollution.

That’s why ULEZ and similar charges have been introduced and there are now reports of premature deaths in London falling.

This is a good point and I also don’t like the use of jargon that is meaningless to people who don’t work in that sector (“net zero” itself being a good example of jargon).

However, this issue isn’t just limited to net zero / climate change - my Council for example produces a lot of documents that are very wordy & full of jargon even though they have lots of residents who speak English as a second language & the there’s also the general issue of low literacy rates (The National Literacy Trust seem to think that 18% of the English* population are functionally illiterate). Documents have also got a lot longer during my lifetime. A move towards more concise documents & more use of plain English would be really helpful re climate change (& many other things).

*I’ve only quoted the English stats as they are from 2024 & the ones for the other three nations are much older. Apparently there isn’t a common definition of basic literacy skills between the four nations which hinders comparisons between nations: this really does seem emblematic of the problems in this area.

We still need to drive cars though. If people are worried about air pollution they can choose to wear a mask or an n95. Their personal choice

Climate change may yet cause extreme cold in the UK.

Why are you obsessed with it getting hotter.

If you’re worried about increased deaths from cold you should be pushing for every possible mitigation and adaptation going. If the AMOC fails we’re going full Labrador-mode every winter.

My car does not release diesel particulates, CO, CO2, N2O into the air around where I drive it. And I can and do drive it. I need a car and I need to drive, so I ensured mine doesn’t release poisons into the air.

Fewer people need to drive cars than do at present though - much more efficient to use trains for long journeys & bicycles for short trips. Buses to cover where the trains do not go.

Then those who do have to drive benefit from lower pollution & fewer cars on the roads.

The Netherlands have been doing this for years & their driver satisfaction rates are higher than ours.

Net zero may not be popular, but neither is mask wearing.

I support net zero (though not how we are doing it) and take catastrophic climate risk seriously.

But there is a danger in framing this as an overriding crisis.

The main risk is that it drives thinking along the lines of “something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done.” Ie we get the wrong solutions because we aren’t applying normal scrutiny.

Secondly, we can end up fighting the wrong crises. It’s hard to get this right when talking about big future risks at the best of times, but made harder if we have picked one as the crisis and think of it in war-footing terms.

The “something” that needs to be done is clear: stop burning fossil fuels.

Our energy & transport policies need to do that first and foremost, followed by our food policies.

That’s essentially what our net zero policies are for.

I’d like to see massive investment in nuclear power infrastructure for base load.

Where confusion arises is when other environmental measures are conflated with net zero. Water quality. Plastic waste. All important, but the threat to our very existence is climate related.

If you want to stop burning fossil fuels.....how will people heat their homes and drive their cars.

Heat pumps are very expensive, we don't want people to be in fuel poverty and unable to heat their homes now. Not everyone can afford an EV and also ICE cars have a longer range.

Would love to know where you've got that graph from cause it literally contradicts every report I've ever seen on the lcoe of energy from any reputable source...

The problem is it costs money for people who are already struggling. Electric cars, for example, expensive to buy and expensive to put in chargers etc.

The plastic bags started at 5p but then companies started profiteering and charging much more.

Being reliant on other countries on fuel cost us more in domestic heating oil.

All around us land is being built on, old hedgerows and trees being destroyed at a time when we need more plant life to take in carbon from the atmosphere.

Even bring self sufficient is difficult in a world everyone has to work and can’t maintain their own veg and animals due to time.

If the UK achieves net zero. There's no impact on the climate at all. 1% of emissions ain't going to do jack shit at all. No need for economic suicide.

LCOE ain't everything.

https://x.com/LoftusSteve/status/1935230694956941444

Look at the thread here and explain why he's wrong

Electric cars are expensive but improving public transport takes the pressure of those who are genuinely struggling, especially if (for example) you also cap bus prices. Reliable bus routes are particularly helpful for young people, especially those living in the forgotten towns or rurally. Not needing to buy a car or borrow to buy a car when also looking for jobs is massive for the group that's struggling the most right now. And buses/trams etc can be made to run on green energy but even if they aren't they use far less CO2 than everyone on it driving instead. Electric cars are fine as well for people that want to buy cars and can afford to buy new cars. But new car buyers aren't usually the strugglers.

We will always be reliant on other countries to set fuel prices because the amount of exploitable oil we have is a drop in the ocean. And even if all of it was drilled out in the next few weeks it would be sold on the open market, at market prices not handed out for cheap to UK buyers. Major oil companies aren't that altruistic. Until we find a way to break the hold oil prices have on the UK economy we will be trapped. Moving away from fossil fuels as much as possible helps to break that hold. It should be a priority for economic reasons as well as environmental ones.

I would take that deal every day of the week.

What you are referring to is negative power prices where because solar and wind produce electricity when there is sufficient sun and wind rather than being driven by demand, you get a situation of supply being greater than demand leading to negative prices - ie paying people to use electricity.

The key point you have missed is that the Government gives the solar and wind generators a guaranteed price so that if the market price drops below this price (and in certain cases goes negative) then the Government tops up this price with a subsidy to the guaranteed price.

And where do think the Government gets the money to pay for this subsidy? From a charge / tax on everyone's electricity bills.

So yes if you are happy to go completely renewable, pay for this entire tax and accept no power when it's not windy or sunny then great. Meanwhile I will happily go with gas fired power especially if it's fuelled using N Sea or UK fracked gas.

Don’t they do something similar with steel? Sell the minerals to China and buy back (often not great quality) steel made of those very same minerals, all shipped back and forth across the ocean?

Sounds like a nonsense

There are so many problems with ‘net zero’ it is hard to know where to start.

Anthropogenic climate change is real and it is accelerating, but not nearly enough people want to personally sacrifice anything to combat it,

The UK is a tiny fraction of the World’s carbon emissIons. If we are to ‘lead by example’ someone needs to explain precisely why. It strikes me as a colonial mindset. No one looks up to the UK any more and truss to copy us.

Secondly, we need to consider who is paying for it. It is an incredibly regressive tax on the poor, who have to shiver in winter and can no longer afford even basic holidays. Meanwhile the new champagne socialists embrace net zero, have their houses at a toasty 23 degrees (thanks to the £15k they have invested in a heat pump), still go on two foreign holidays a year, one probably long haul, and can afford whatever food they want.

We could of course expect people to share the cost equally, limit jet miles per person by law for leisure travel, and have an enforced 18 degrees maximum in winter (enforced by thermal cameras).

And, as others have pointed out, our grid can’t cope with renewables, especially direct current input (solar and batteries). We need our AC supply to be at (or very near) 50Hz. We failed recently due to a large solar input. And for renewables to be effective, we need to build them close to users (leafy Surrey comes to mind here).

Global warming is like a slow motion car crash. Most now believe it is a problem but want others to make the sacrifices to combat it. It is a games theory issue, with the probably outcome being continued warming until the local consequences become too dire to ignore