Kemi Badenoch’s Net Zero scepticism, announced in her speech this week, seemingly marks a new chapter in Britain’s climate wars. But is it going to be enough either to change her party or the country? Long on words, but short on detail, nothing is yet concrete – least of all the Tories’ path back to power. And standing in her way are some familiar characters.
A sea change occurred in British politics in the year following boiler-banning Boris Johnson’s departure from Number 10. Whereas for most of the century prior there had been increasingly little climate policy-sceptic discussion allowed in polite society, shards from the brittle Conservative Party’s collapse began to strike the cross-party Westminster consensus. In August 2023, former Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote in the Sun: “It’s time for this country’s hard-working, silent majority to take back control of the green agenda.” That signalled permission for Net Zero scepticism, which is now established as a mainstream, albeit minority position in the news media, mostly confined to the Right-of-centre.
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