Majority of UK public back 2030 zero-carbon target

By Paul Homewood

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/07/majority-of-uk-public-back-2030-zero-carbon-target-poll

According to the Guardian, the majority of the UK public now backs a 2030 zero carbon target.

Of course, it is always useful to see the exact question asked:

It might just as well have said "do you want to carry on living as you do now but with more trees?"

As Julia Hartley-Brewer suggested, a more pertinent question might have been:

But this and other polls highlight a much more fundamental disconnect between what the public believe on one hand, and reality on the other.

Much of this arises from poor, and often downright misleading, reporting from the media.

Net Zero

Firstly, the implications that decarbonisation will have for the UK.

Only crackpots would even think it feasible to achieve full decarbonisation by 2030. So what on earth are the 32% thinking, who want it to happen by 2025? One can only assume that they think it is easy to do, just build a few more windmills and so on.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/updated-energy-and-emissions-projections-2018

In fact only about a tenth of our carbon dioxide emissions come from electricity generation. Phasing out of coal power has helped to reduce carbon dioxide in the power sector by 114 Mt, a quarter of the country’s emissions in 2010, but that was the easy bit.

No experts seriously suggest that the grid can run on intermittent renewables alone, without backup from reliable power, which essentially means fossil fuels.

But in the rest of the economy, little has changed since then 2010.

Transport accounts for a third of emissions, and there is still very little demand for electric cars, which so far this year still only account for 1% of new sales, as they simply are not fit for purpose for most people.

Millions of drivers, including those who do not have off street parking or who need cars for long journeys, would be forced to give up their cars.

Then there is the effect on the UK car industry, which would be decimated, as sales of all conventional cars would have to stop almost immediately, given average car life is around ten years.

Domestic demand for heating accounts for another fifth of emissions, so we would quickly be forced to abandon our gas boilers, and fork out £10,000 or more for much less efficient heat pumps.

Then there is industry, which produces another third of emissions. If companies are forced to invest in low carbon alternatives, the likelihood is that many will simply shut up shop and move their production abroad.

And, of course, a ban on petrol and diesel cars will spell the end for UK oil refineries and chemical plants.

As for the cost of all this, subsidies for renewable energy is already costing the UK £11bn a year, a figure which will carry on rising remorselessly for the next decade, as more low carbon power comes on stream.

But that is the tip of the iceberg. The Committee on Climate Change have estimated their Net Zero plan will eventually cost £50bn a year, about £1800 per household. Independent experts, including Philip Hammond believe this to be a gross underestimate.

Climate Change

But, I hear you say, surely we have no alternative, if we are to “save the planet”?

The problem here is that the UK’s emissions are only 1% of the global total, which continues to rise. In other words, whatever we do will have no effect whatsoever on the climate.

BP Energy Review

Yet so often we hear people saying we “must do something immediately”! And not just the likes of the Extinction Rebellion rabble. Rebecca Long-Bailey, who might be our Business Secretary next month, (no, please don’t titter), literally said in a speech last week that our chance to tackle climate change would be lost if we did not start investing in her climate plan next month.

In any event, the idea that there is some sort of climate emergency is absurd, regardless of your views on global warming. There is nothing in the data to suggest there is, or will be in the immediate future.

Even the IPCC reports say that the world’s weather is not getting more extreme. Contrary to popular myth, hurricanes, tornadoes and other storms are not getting stronger. Neither are there any overall changes in the frequency or severity of droughts and floods. Experts also tell us that wildfires burn much less land than they used to.

Global food production continues to steadily rise year on year, whilst the number of deaths from weather disasters has plummeted in recent decades.

Even the poor polar bears, who we are regularly told are under threat, are actually doing fine and increasing in numbers.

In the UK too, it simply is not true that our weather has gotten more extreme. In fact, apart from being slightly warmer than a century ago, our climate has changed remarkably little.

Remember the claims a few years ago from so-called experts that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is”, or that we would be soon be having Mediterranean summers every year? The good old British weather knew better!

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But when do you ever hear any of this on the telly, or read about it in the papers? If you did, I suspect opinion polls would show rather different results.