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

Channel Tunnel paths from St Pancras are available at 1, 4, 16, 30 and 34 minutes past every hour. Assuming a first departure at 06:01 and a last departure at 20:04, that's 72 departures per day. Today there are 18 departures to Paris, and 11 to Brussels (5 of which continue to Amsterdam). Total 29 departures with about 26,000 seats.

Each e320 can carry 902 passengers, which means the theoretical unused capacity of the infrastructure is 38,786 passengers per day. For context, the number of London-Paris air passengers is around 2,500 per day each way.

Eurostar dominates the London-Paris market (what flights still exist mostly survive for connecting passengers) and would rather take advantage of their monopoly to extract the most profit they can. The Rail Regulator has now forced them to make depot space at Temple Mills available to Virgin, which will bring some competition in. Trenitalia didn't succeed in getting depot space in London, but they are still interested in UK traffic and have a new depot in Paris. Virgin have ordered 12 Avelia Stream units. Trenitalia are ordering units too.

Fifty years ago you paid £50 pp for a flight from Manchester to Faro. It was a comfortable experience.

My suggestion stick another £25 pp per flight on short haul to Europe, say £50 per person to USA. And so on.

Pile tax on cheap flights. Spain don't want cheap skating holiday makers, nor other countries. Their housing stock is being eroded.

You make good points.. Thanks for telling me

It makes no difference that 14,000 people a week fly...out of a population of 8.3 billion...that was my point. That it's pissing in the wind for the UK to hit net zero. It's politically driven rather than driven by the practicality of the situation

And what about poor fucking Tina working 2 jobs...the GMB union reckons that the cost of net zero by 2050 for Tina is £32 a week... probably a little high but per head that's probably in the right ball park...to achieve sweet nothing

Blimey, even the Telegraph recognise the issue:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/26/climate-change-real-right-needs-to-get-serious/

Congestion is inevitable if everyone drives as cars are a very inefficient way of transporting people (as in they take up lot of physical space). The modern trend towards large SUVs is even more inefficient as is seen by large SUVs needing bigger parking spaces. Then there’s the issue of weight: a couple of years ago the Institute of Structural Engineers issued a warning about older car parks not being able to cope with the weight of the heaviest.

If you don’t want congestion, then the traffic needs to be managed to encourage people who can to walk, cycle & take public transport. Cycling & rail are much more efficient ways to transport people from a space perspective.

Actually EVs are typically 200kg to 500kg heavier than average petrol equivalents due to heavy battery packs.

Car parks built in the 1960s and 1970s were designed for much lighter vehicles.

How am I going to do family groceries without a car?

I'm all for it along with a gentle realistic easy transition whilst we come off oil and gas which will be a while yet won't it.
Most sensible people including the very intelligent maverick boss of octopus energy agrees.

Unfortunately, as can be seen in lots of towns, where the council have pedestrianised town centres, imposed one way systems and access only roads, imposed lots of cycle lanes, pedestrian traffic lights, hiked car park charges, etc., it's reduced car use into the centre, but just driven car users to out of town retail parks and supermarkets or onto the internet for shopping, rather than the intention of getting them to walk, cycle or use buses to the town centre, thus leaving the town centres with lots of empty closed down shops etc. It's a nice idea in theory, but in lots of places it's ruined town centres.

Not just town centres either - same has happened in a few "shopping streets" around where we live - previously pretty busy precincts/streets with several shops, but once they were "traffic calmed" with speed humps, pedestrian refuges, chicanes for wider pavements and tree planting, etc., it's just driven away the majority of customers who went by car, who now shop elsewhere. As I say, there are three such streets within a couple of miles of where I live, now barely any shops remaining open and plagued with money laundering shops. Yes, the streets are now more attractive/accessible for pedestrians, but there's nothing for pedestrians to go there for anymore!

In Central London? Walk like almost everyone else does.

In Aultgrishan? You might still need a car.

Unfortunately we may not have the opportunity to have a "gentle, easy transition".

We have had three years of poor harvests, we are seeing record-breaking heat, and France is on fire. We may well be fucked already.

Speed bumps are killing the high street?

I'd much rather speed bumps than pedestrianised high streets. We have 20mph speed limits but with the traffic lights, pedestrians, crossing all day it's a slow process anyway.

Don't you know, this is MN where everyone lives in either London, Manchester or Birmingham where you can take your groceries home on a bus which comes along every 5 to 15 minutes.

Apparently there might be some people living in this place called "rural areas" where people sometimes go on holiday, but they probably subsist off road kill and anyway who gives a fuck about them.

We need multiple big bags to carry

Mules with panniers are the way forward for us then 🙄😁

85% of the population live in urban areas. Again, I'm not interested in edge cases.

If it’s an area with high pedestrian footfall like a shopping street then you need 20 mph because people have a greater chance of survival than 30 mph. 20 mph incidentally doesn’t cause more pollution than higher speeds in urban areas.

The other issues recently mentioned aren’t directly to do with net zero, but they are interesting.

If a council opens a out of town shopping centre then yes, high streets & town centres will suffer as the shopping centre may well be more convenient to people who drive & it may be cheaper for businesses to operate there - that’s a planning issue. I can think of one high street near me where that’s an issue - lots of concern about the high street but very little discussion of how trade is affected by the nearby shopping centre. That’s nothing to do with walking & cycling as shopping centres tend to be poor for this.

If you have speed bumps then you have a dangerous driving issue - again that’s nothing to do with walking & cycling. Personally, I think speed bumps are a waste of money as they don’t seem to slow speeding drivers down: however they are less controversial than other more effective measures.

Protests against pedestrianisation & cycling routes are common but aren’t supported by transport research, which actually supports stuff like making places safe for walking & cycling. This makes sense as everyone is a pedestrian when they shop. A good example is Walthamstow, where the protesters brought a coffin - yet a decade on the stats show life expectancy has increased & the shops are thriving. This reflects what I see near me - the shopping streets which were made safer for cycling & walking are thriving, whereas the one where people fought against road safety improvements is doing ok, but I hear lots of complaints about there being too many charity shops & nailbars (which seems a bit unfair to these businesses).

The only caveat to this is when a council walking & cycling route is of poor design e.g. having a shared route for walkers & cyclists or having a painted cycle lane on the road that will be unusable / dangerous is people drive or park in it. Cyclists tend to get the blame for this, whereas really this is a problem with the council transport & planning departments not implementing the guidance in Local Transport Note 1/20.

The other issue is when cyclists are blamed for councils taking action to restrict car use. I can think of a couple of useful cycle routes near me that drivers are very bitter about losing. What they forget is that these routes were shut to through traffic due to repeated dangerous driving & that the council had tried to stop this with speed bumps. Creating a nice cycle route wasn’t the aim here - just a consequence of what happened. It’s a shame that the lesson from these closures hasn’t been learned, as I can think of another street local to me that could be heading towards similar measures due to dangerous driving.

No-one is going to stop you driving to the supermarket- not even in the Netherlands. Nor is it a problem for people to drive if they need to fill the boot.

That said, I can fit 4 bags on my bicycle and if I have to, I can carry a rucksack. That’s enough for most things including a shopping trip to town. I could carry more with front panniers.

Same logic applies:

short trip to a local shop etc - make it easy to walk & cycle

long trip transporting heavy stuff - sensible to drive.

Rural areas also benefit from walking & cycling & improving public transport routes not least because they help tourism.

We live fairly rural and have groceries delivered. They come in an electric vehicle and you can pick green slots. Costs less for delivery than it would to drive and do a shop.

Would like to add around 140 countries have announced or set net zero targets( including China and USA)with about 27 nations passing binding domestic laws. The way Kemi Badrnock just wants to ditch it and not be part of it along with the ECHR which gives women, the disabled and all of us protection speaks volumes. Talk about returning to the dark ages!

Good

I live pretty damn rurally- on the outskirts of a small village, 3 miles away from the nearest two lane road. We have a two hourly bus service (not on Sundays) which stops around 6.00pm. That bus takes you directly to Sainsbury's and Tesco in the nearest town.

Otherwise, there are plenty of supermarket delivery vans negotiating the twisty lanes.

So the delivery vans can drive but we can't?