When I produced my on-demand Net Zero for Business course three years ago, I suggested the snappiness of the phrase Net Zero was a double edged sword. It was both a totemic vision you could rally the troops around, but also an Aunt Sally for culture warriors to chuck nonsense at. But now the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee of UK MPs has recommended ditching the phrase ‘Net Zero’ saying it has “become a lightning rod for opposition to climate action.”

Polling has suggested that anti-climate action forces have had some, but limited success, at both detaching Net Zero from ‘action on climate’ and toxifying it – 79% of the public want action on climate, but that falls to 60% who support ‘Net Zero’. I assume most readers on this blog would know that ‘Net Zero by 2050’ is not the ‘arbitrary target’ that its detractors claim, but an expression of what is required to meet our obligations under the Paris Agreement.

But if the contents of the Net Zero jar are being tainted by the brand name on the label, should we change the label? My Green Jujitsu approach is all about framing Sustainability to match the views of each audience, but I never considered being bullied into doing it by populists, vested interests and conspiracy theorists. I have mulled on the fact that we don’t have a phrase like the pro-biodiversity ‘nature positive’ movement, but if we’re going to replace ‘Net Zero’, the new phrase would need to be better, not worse.

My view is probably tainted by my innate Northern Irish obstinance to not let the bastards win (my late mother would call me ‘thran’). But, more objectively, that 60% positive support vs 25% against, despite everything the culture warriors have thrown at Net Zero, is a relatively strong position to be moving forward. But we’ve got to narrow the gap on public perception – ie to persuade some of the ‘missing 19%’ that, if you want climate action, the concept of Net Zero is the only answer, no matter what we call it.

Part of the problem is we’ve allowed the anti-voices to frame ‘Net Zero’ to suit their arguments. The Conservative Party say they want to ditch Net Zero in favour of nuclear. Now we can argue the economics and practicalities of nuclear another time, but nuclear is very much a tool in the Net Zero toolbox alongside hydropower and geothermal, not just wind and solar as implied. Journalist Andrew Neil bizarrely claimed this week that Net Zero was solely about decarbonising the electricity grid (obviously confusing it with the Government’s Clean Power Plan) and not about transport – Neil is usually adroit at avoiding such elephant traps while pushing his pro-fossil fuel views, but he fell headlong into that one.

An alternative view to the MPs’ is that it is Net Zero’s success that has led to increasingly desperate attacks – and those attacks have failed to decisively turn the public against it. If we did come up with an alternative phrase that would rally the troops better than Net Zero, the forces of fossil fuel resistance would simply recalibrate their sights on the new brand, while the public would wonder what happened to the old one. Call me thran, but now is not the time to retreat, but to push forward purposefully.