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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom

From that source
One such announcement was the Low Carbon Transition Plan launched by the Brown ministry in July 2009, which aimed to generate 30% electricity from renewable sources, and 40% from low-carbon content fuels by 2020.[5] The UK is one of the best sites in Europe for wind energy, and wind power production is its fastest growing supply.[6][7][8] Wind power contributed 29.4% of UK electricity generation in 2023.[9
The electricity sector's grid supply for the United Kingdom in 2024 came from 26.9% fossil fuel power (almost all from natural gas), 51% zero-carbon power (including 14% nuclear power and 37% from wind, solar and hydroelectricity), 6.8% from biomass, 14.1% imports, and 1.2% from storage.[9]

In summary it doesn't support your statement.

In 2020 maybe the 40% thing was true. No more...

Environmental for one, ulez is having significant positive impact on air quality, if we can go further and stop more oil public health will improve.

We will also start to break dependency on foreign oil. That is a big benefit.

Just one some all point...

the "1%" argument posted many times on the first few pages is beyond stupid.

There are 17 countries above the arbitrary 1%... and only 8 above 2%

That leaves the rest of the 195 countries not needing to do anything right? Because they are all less than 1%...

The problem with this logic is that it doesn't account for how many countries there are, and outside of a select few, the picture is one of many many smaller countries. Of course the vast majority of countries are going to produce less than 1% of emissions, when there are nearly 200 of them.. But if you want any meaningful change, you need both the small number of larger poulters to act AND a large number of smaller polluters to act.

Imagine a beach, where 195 people drop rubbish in a day. Sure there are 17 people dropping 4-5 pieces of rubbish each ... but then there are 178 people each dropping 1 piece or a half a piece.

Stopping dropping your 1 piece, doesn't clean up the beach... but the beach won't ever get cleaned up if all of those 178 people refuse to stop because on their own it won't matter...

Most people can't actually afford a heat pump and not everyone can afford an EV.

The impact north sea has on global emissions is negligible, why not export and sell a valuable commodity, make some money and also get some tax revenue to invest in these renewables you love so much.

So what ?

80% of the UKs energy use comes from fossil fuels. That's the claim I made and what that article supports in the primary energy graph.

The gas used for domestic heating and oil used for transport can be ignored if people want to.

But if the claim is that we can do without fossil fuels, we have to find replacement for that energy from somewhere. And if it is to come from renewables like wind then we also have to find a way of transmitting it through the electricity grid.

We need gas to heat homes. We need oil for transport..why not use the local supply instead of paying from Norway.

if transport costs come down as well that's great

It wouldn’t lower household bills and experts say it will not bring a large boost to the overall economy or lower household energy bills very much.The North Sea is an old basin, meaning most of the easiest and cheapest oil and gas has already been taken out over the last 60 years. Building new projects requires high costs and tax reliefs, meaning the public take on heavy financial risks while private companies keep most profits.
Oil and gas from the North Sea are sold on the global market by private companies, so UK citizens do not get a special discount either.

Research indicates that spending money on renewable energy saves households much more money than drilling for more fossil fuels.

Re EV cars. I’ve only got a hybrid and that has cut my bills from £60 a week to £15. We need to find a way to help people switch and the same with heat pumps and solar panels.

In 2024. It had already reduced a bit by 2025. The bulk of that use was heating and transport not electrocoty prodiction. Alternatives already exist for heating (heat pumps) and private transport (electric cars) and the use of said alternativea has been steadily increasing. Making take up of these alternatives easier is part of net zero. That might include charging points for electric cars, or making installing heat pumps in new builds mandatory or subsidising heat pump installation

If the argument is, that as people switch to electricity, there aren't enough renewables, that isn't truenat all. As the page you linked to shows,the share of electricity provided by renewables is dramatically increasing year by year.

And yes, the grid needs to be able to provide that electricity. Net zero or otherwise, we need grid infrastructure and spending on it. And it is being upgraded so yay. Saying net zero is a bad idea because it requires a functioning electric grid is crazy work.

You've missed the bit about jobs and businesses in the UK which would be created if we explored and drilled in OUR own waters for OUR own oil/gas. The oil and gas industry is a massive employer, directly and indirectly through support businesses.

We really need to stop this flawed thinking about buying things from abroad because it's cheaper, whether fuel, chinese plastic crap or whatever. The "headline" price might be a bit cheaper, but we have to pay for the consequences of not manufacturing our own stuff via unemployment benefits, social deprivation costs, loss of tax revenues, etc.

Tax revenues are never invested, we'd have the Norwegian sovereign fund if they were.

They are used on tax breaks for the rich, time and again.

Why not put money directly in people's pockets instead?

People experience net zero as higher energy bills, reduced local manufacturing and jobs in their area because high energy bills, increased cost of products (because high energy bills), lack of investment in areas (because of high energy bills). We have had at least 6 power cuts this year so far in my area.
No one likes net zero as an experience, it is thoroughly unpleasant. Another wishy washy thought that the rest of the world mock us for, that self harms in reality.

That's nothing to do with net zero. You've been lied to. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels.

How's that playing out on your energy bill?

Yes and we are doing quite well at replacing the % of electricity generated by renewables.

But electricity still is only a relatively small proportion of the total energy we actually use.

Are you beginning to understand this now ? Domestic heating, industrial gas usage, lorries, most private car usage, it all uses a massive amount of energy and the vast majority currently comes from fossil fuels.

My argument isn't that there is not enough capacity to generate all our energy from renewables. There probably is. But it will take a very long time and a lot of money to exploit that capacity. One because just replacing the capacity like for like is a huge and expensive job both in terms of generation and transmission. And two because renewable energy can not be relied on for baseload.

The wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun doesn't shine all the time. So we actually need significantly more generation capacity than we have at the moment to mitigate that. Unless we want to learn to live in a society where we can't have energy on demand.

The key problem with energy bills is the price cap ties all energy prices to the most expensive, and the most expensive is oil and gas.

Break that link and energy bills will fall immediately.

Energy bills are reality for "the public", the wriggling why and how and what, no one cares. Our net zero policies make our energy bills the highest in Europe and that is what the public experience.

You have no evidence for that. I've given you the answer but you obtusely ignore it.

Search on Google how much cheaper is renewable energy than oil and gas in the UK.

Renewables are 40-50% cheaper.

I am quite happy with Net Zero, but trying to reach that goal by 2030 is stupidity squared and on stilts.

We are covering thousands of acres of farmland with solar installations producing more energy than the grid can handle, costing us billions in constraint payments, all on the say so of one man with a towering ego.

The former government chief adviser said 10+ years ago that the idea this country could be powered entirely on renewables was completely delusional. We need a proper cross-party long term strategy to secure our sustainable energy future and reach net zero by the target date of 2050.

Just as many jobs can be created in renewables.

You missed that bit.

A lot of heat pumps are already made in the UK. When you hear figures about the amount of households installing them, that directly transfers into jobs and growth. Likewise roofers don't make much but roofers with the qualifications to instal solar panels can make much more. And so on...
Even if we exploited all our oil right now it's an industry that won't be around much longer. Better to shift people into new jobs now than wait for them to collapse with no back up industry in place.

I see this trotted out regularly, uk doesn’t produce global emissions

per capita uk produces twice as much as India and the same as china

we might not have the industry we once had, but we still consume it

Renewables are cheaper to generate, when the wind blows it's free.

But you have to add in installation and set up costs, decommissioning costs, back up costs for when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, and the (absolutely massive) costs of constraint payments when the sun is shining and wind blowing too much. Plus there is the cost of the full scale update of the grid transmission system.

I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I wonder if anyone could explain how much air travel contributes to climate change, and why we don’t limit air travel? We managed with Zoom etc during Covid when air travel was limited.
And why a 3rd runway at Heathrow, but you can’t drive your car into major cities?