THE planned re-imposition of the green levy on our energy bills, set to cost households £170 a year, reminds us of Net Zero’s insatiable appetite for devouring the hard-earned money of struggling families. If you are unlucky enough to live in one of the 32 London boroughs (as I am) and own a diesel vehicle (as I do) you’ll not only have to buy a new ULEZ-compliant car, but you’ll also have to pay the reintroduced green tax – and let’s not forget your already soaring energy bills, living costs and mortgage payments.
For what? To save the world from anthropogenic global warming? Pull the other one. Britain accounts for only 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. China (33 per cent) isn’t going to follow our example. Nor is India. They want to develop and become richer. They’ve got billions to feed, after all.
Our government’s legally binding commitment to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 can be described as an act of national self-harm. According to Ross Clark’s excellent new book, Not Zero, achieving Net Zero by 2050 is an irrational target which will impoverish us, help China, ‘and won’t even save the planet’. He argues that we are piling costs on industry as process emissions in steel and cement production, fertiliser manufacture and farming are discouraged and commercially viable green alternatives sought – alternative technologies which may not be found in time to meet the 2050 target.
Because of the Government’s plan to remove all gas-generated energy by 2035, moreover, people are being compelled to pay thousands for insulation and replace their gas boilers (cost £2,000) with heat pumps (cost £10,000) which, according to some reports, provide only 90 per cent of household heating needs.
In addition, we won’t be able to buy a petrol or diesel car in Britain by 2030, nor a hybrid vehicle by 2035. But electric vehicles are far too expensive, difficult to recharge and have a limited battery life.
And let us remember our baffling decision to prohibit the use of domestic shale gas, which has led not only to higher energy prices but also the importation of liquified natural gas from the US which releases even more carbon emissions than would be emitted if we produced our own. You couldn’t make it up.
As for all those green jobs we’ve been promised, they’ve been created – in China!
In its self-destructive vacuity, Net Zero is strikingly similar to the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Its advocates claim that it will act as an example to be followed by the rest of the world, but, as any half-sentient being will tell you, this is the stuff of fairy tales. Countries such as China, the US and Russia will not risk their future security and prosperity by following suit, making us, in the case of unilateral nuclear disarmament, vulnerable to attack and the predatory pretensions of aggressive states and, in the case of Net Zero, impoverished thus disadvantaged vis-à-vis our international competitors.
At least in the case of unilateral nuclear disarmament our governments have chosen to maintain the deterrent, helped by the good sense of the British people who, in both the 1983 and 1987 general elections, unambiguously rejected the policy’s mainstream advocates, the Labour Party.
In contrast, Net Zero, with the support of most opposition parties, has been adopted wholesale. An act of self-harm in the idealistic hope that others will follow our example has thus been passed into law.
The green movement’s historic embrace of unilateral nuclear disarmament should ring alarm bells. The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas MP – who openly calls herself a socialist – was an anti-nuclear activist and in 2016 became chair of the Parliamentary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Once more, the Glastonbury Festival has campaigning relationships with the CND and Greenpeace, both movements inextricably linked through initiatives such as The Green Fields. One has only to glance at the CND website to notice its commitment to Net Zero on steroids. It calls for the Government to spend £205billion – the cost of the renewal of Trident – on the ‘looming threat of climate catastrophe’.
These are both far-left campaigns supported by far-left activists. Just look at some of the people in attendance at the CND rally against the renewal of the Trident Missile System in March 2007: Emily Thornberry, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and, of course, Caroline Lucas – all committed to destructive green policies as well as the abolition of our nuclear deterrent.
These are typical leftist follies, sister campaigns as detached from the real world as their Marxist parent. In the case of socialism/communism, the idealistic belief is that that changing someone’s material circumstances can alter their very nature, turning them from self-interested individuals into selfless communitarians. In the case of nuclear disarmament and Net Zero, the quixotic dream is that unilateralism will lead to world peace and the global eradication of greenhouse gas emissions.
So, in relation to Net Zero, why is a nominally Conservative government dancing to a tune played by left-wing dreamers? Why is it not following the example of the Conservative governments of the Eighties in rejecting such self-destructive nonsense? It’s bizarre.
It must repeal its commitment to Net Zero and emancipate the British people from its suffocating grip. Come on, Rishi. Start with blocking the ULEZ expansion and the re-imposition of the green levy on energy bills. If you do, I might be able to go on holiday this summer.
