The Wall St Journal’s Editorial Board has written a pithy condemnation of Britain’s Net Zero obsession, holding it directly responsible for the fact that up to a third of Britons are about to be plunged into poverty thanks to unaffordable energy bills. “The underlying cause of Britain’s energy misery is its fixation with climate goals, especially the ambition to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050,” it says. No argument here.
Americans who fancy themselves net-zero climate advocates might want to take a look at Britain for a guide to the future. Household energy bills were expected to rise 40% this autumn, but on Friday the government regulator announced they’ll leap 80% in a single bound.
This boost follows a 54% rise in April and brings the average household’s annual bill to £3,549 ($4,208). The median household income is £31,400, which gives a sense of the growing proportion of each household’s budget that will go toward central heating, cooking and keeping the lights on. For the ruling Tories, this is a political calamity.
And that’s merely what households will spend directly on energy. Britain is also in the grip of an energy-price crisis for businesses, whose rates aren’t subject to a cap. Some small businesses report they can’t get any utility to supply them without paying a steep deposit up front, because energy companies are concerned that high prices will push more small firms into insolvency. Lower-income households in particular will bear the brunt of this as prices for goods and services skyrocket and companies lay off employees.
If you think this couldn’t happen in America, think again. The underlying cause of Britain’s energy misery is its fixation with climate goals, especially the ambition to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. To meet that goal Britain has grown hostile to domestic energy exploration, banning shale-gas fracking and slapping windfall-profits taxes on North Sea oil and gas producers that will deter investment. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hurt, but the U.K.’s policies made its citizens vulnerable to such a global shock.
The U.K. is belatedly building new nuclear plants, but those will take years to come online. Unreliable wind and solar raise the cost the electric grid must pay to balance supply and demand when the winds are still and the sun is behind clouds, and more than 80% of English households rely on gas rather than electricity to heat their homes. All of this drives up the cost of supplying power, and then the government adds about £153 in green levies and a 5% consumption tax directly on household bills.
This isn’t all that different from the energy policies the Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress, California and New York are imposing via the Inflation Reduction Act and myriad regulatory assaults on fossil fuels and favors for renewables. Britain’s inane innovation is a price cap that causes disastrous price increases to happen twice a year rather than continuously.
To adapt Hemingway, net zero drives you bankrupt gradually, then suddenly. Britain’s sudden energy agony is a five-alarm warning if the climate progressives continue to have their way.
Stop Press: Meanwhile, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey proudly claims the credit for stopping fracking.
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A little disappointing to have to read in US media a fair, balanced, and accurate assessment of the energy crisis in UK.
In UK the media focus is on demands to government to “help” and “support” the people.
Digging a bigger hole.
It reminds me of that old story about a bank customer, being told he is overdrawn, saying not to worry, he will write a cheque to cover the amount. The government seems to show about the same amount of fiscal ineptitude.
Where are architects of this crisis that so many of us have been calling out for 20 years. We want some contrition!
Purely political, this agenda. Christopher Booker detailed some years ago about how a CCP sympathiser and architect of the IPCC drove this agenda forward. People who want global government and a bigger role for the UN (or for that matter depopulation) will keep pushing things they think will help to achieve this. They won’t let free and frank discussion of the facts get in their way. Not whilst there are useful idiots around to give them succour. They will only stop when enough people decide they must be stopped.
N.B. Christopher Monckton just said on Neil Oliver’s GB News show how China has been pushing this agenda.
Stuff the net zero sense maniacs. There can be no excuse for them with what we know now (and some have warned of for years). They have blood on their hands.
Can’t believe the whole of Parliament are net zero fools, if they aren’t, are they too timorous and fearful to speak up.
They’re on holiday. Of course, it could be that the other side want more than zero – that’s to say, negative. A bankruptcy race, perhaps – after all, some of them wanted even more lockdown.
Ah yes, the ‘Opposition’ party (guffaws)
They could have spoken up long before their holiday but yes, for now, extremism rules
We saw what happened to Owen Paterson. Do we really believe that his alleged transgressions were worse than lots of other people in that place?
Most MPs now are cowardly careerists, who are easily controlled by “the machine.”
It gives me no pleasure that the pain will be felt by my folk. The well-off fools that have promoted this nonsense will merely ask that all taxpayers give those folk a pittance and make them more dependent on their masters.
Contrition is not enough – blood must flow.
Currently policy drives poverty. Maybe soon poverty will drive policy. Else we enter a new dark age (double-entendre intended). History is littered with toxic memes that endure for centuries 🙁
Taking the headline literally, did they not kno we were bankrupt ever since we had the services of Gordon Brown?
Cheap and secure energy is the foundation of all of our systems in a capitalist society. Abundant Hydrocarbons have provided that cheap and plentiful energy that have enabled western countries to attain a level of quality life undreamed of even in our parents times. Politicians and ordinary people just have no idea how destructive this net 50 policy is. It will not only raised energy costs but it will destroy the lives we all built. It’s just high energy bills at the moment, wait until high energy costs on everything that is consumed, hits.
This is the result of Boris Johnson being influenced by his partner and having to champion the net zero mantra to keep her happy. I’m pretty sure he has no opinion of his own on it. Neither of them have any scientific knowledge, so why should they be deciding our energy policies. I just hope our new prime minister searches out people within her (or unlkely and disastrous,his) party who have scientific knowledge and good contacts in the wider scientific community including those in the mostly unheard group who understand that the effect of humanity on climate is very small compared to natural changes and the efect of massive earthquakes. Why does nobody say the proportion 0f CO2 in our atmosphere is 0.042 % and has been much higher during life’s evolution. CO2 is not a pollutant but is necessary for plant growth and plants grow better with more of it. Without it there would be no life on earth. Nett Zero what rubbish! Why are we crippling our country and our economy listening to these idiots?
The WSJ chose to focus on the U.K. however it would’ve been even better if they also mentioned Germany. The U.K. has the second highest electricity prices in Europe, and the second highest percentage of generating capacity provided by renewables. The only country that has more renewables than us and higher prices is Germany, who are also shutting down their nuclear plants. IMO the U.K. will probably make it through the winter without rationing or blackouts (although these could happen if there’s a long cold spell with low wind speeds). Germany has already introduced “voluntary” cuts to energy consumption which will probably become mandatory, and is far more likely to see blackouts this winter. This shows that the more a country allows energy policy to be guided by green ideology the worse the outcome.