"We have to stop pretending there are no trade-offs or costs in reducing emissions"
Telegraph: 18th March 2025: Peter Lilley pens an article praising the Opposition leader on taking a bold stand on net zero
"In 2008 when the Climate Change Act was passed with all-party support, its huge potential costs seemed too far in the future to worry about... In 2019, Parliament agreed, after only 90 minutes of debate and without a vote, to replace the target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent with the far more challenging target of net zero emissions by 2050. This time, no cost benefit analysis was published at all. Only two MPs dared to query how much this would cost. One of them was Kemi Badenoch...
So it should be no surprise that the first step in Kemi’s programme of policy renewal... is to challenge claims that we can achieve net zero by 2050 without bankrupting ourselves, undermining living standards and driving industry overseas (where it will probably increase global carbon emissions)...
With the sort of unvarnished frankness we have not heard in British politics since Margaret Thatcher, Kemi declared “net zero by 2050 is impossible”. She emphasised that that gave her no pleasure, because, citing Thatcher, Conservatives are “custodians of our natural environment” who must “safeguard the delicate balance of nature for future generations”. But we have to stop pretending there are no trade-offs or costs in reducing emissions. So she is right to refuse to set a new target date for net zero until we have a credible, costed plan.
...The independent Climate Change Committee has been unable, or unwilling, to estimate the cost of reaching the net zero target that the Committee itself originally proposed – though, amazingly, it claims to know how much it will cost annually from 2050 onwards once we have achieved net zero..."
READ ALSO :
KEMI BADENOCH: FULL SPEECH [READ HERE]
CITY AM: : JAMES PRICE : RADICAL HONESTY ON NET ZERO IS BADENOCH AT HER BEST [READ HERE]
SPECTATOR : KEMI'S STANCE ON NET ZERO IS COURAGEOUS - AND CORRECT [READ HERE]