Tony Blair is talking nonsense on net zero. The reality is the UK isn't prepared

Opponents of action on climate change have predictably seized on a new paper by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change which criticises current approaches to achieving net zero emissions of greenhouse gases.

But the paper is based on a rather superficial analysis and as a result offers some mistaken solutions to the current challenges faced by policy-makers in the UK and other countries.

The paper on The Climate Paradox: Why We Need to Reset Action on Climate Change includes a foreword by the former prime minister, claiming “in developed countries, voters feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal”.

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Sir Tony also complains: “Too often, political leaders fear saying what many know to be true: the current approach isn’t working.” He declares that “any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail”.

Instead, Sir Tony argues, the world should “alter where we put our focus and resources”, including more investments in carbon capture and storage and nuclear power.

While these technologies have a role to play, they will not provide the acceleration in action required to stop the growing impacts of climate change by reaching net zero emissions of greenhouse gases.

The UK has already phased out coal as a source of electricity through the deployment of gas-fired power stations and renewables, particularly wind.

To completely decarbonise the power sector by 2030, the current government’s objective, there will need to be an even faster roll-out of renewables, as well as transmission lines and batteries for storage.

The main blockages to these are related to policy, such as the length of time required to obtain planning permission, which Sir Tony acknowledges but to which he provides no new solutions.

Sir Tony also hits out at the state of political debate about climate policy: “Political leaders by and large know that the debate has become irrational. But they’re terrified of saying so, for fear of being accused of being ‘climate deniers’.”

However, he remains silent on the sustained campaign of misinformation being carried out by some politicians and parts of the media who have been trying to fool the public into believing that renewables are responsible for high electricity costs in the UK, when prices are actually set by natural gas, or that more drilling for fossil fuels in the North Sea would cut prices, when the production rates are too small to affect international markets.

Indeed, the coverage by some British newspapers of Tony Blair’s comments has also been inaccurate and misrepresentative, reflecting the challenges of informing public debate when the press is determined to mislead its audiences.

This paper and the confusion it has caused deserve to be forgotten, in favour of more rigorous and thoughtful contributions by the Climate Change Committee and others.

The committee’s latest report, published Wednesday (30 April), warns that the UK is not prepared for the growing impacts of climate change.

Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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