NET ZERO ATE MY HAMSTER!
When I was writing my Net Zero for Business course a couple of years ago, I mused that while ‘Net Zero’ had many upsides as a target – catchy, ambitious, but ambiguous enough to allow a bit of wiggle room, it could also become an easy Aunt Sally which the reactionary right could use to pitch all sorts of nonsense at. Well, that turned out to be something of an understatement as much of our press and a depressing number of MPs now try to blame as many of the country’s ills as possible on Net Zero. I suppose they no longer have ‘faceless Brussels bureaucrats’ to blame for everything.
The most frequently trotted out trope is that Net Zero is destroying UK industry. The below graph from Economics Help shows that whatever destroyed British industry, it certainly wasn’t Net Zero, a policy adopted in 2019. But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good myth.
The Telegraph in particular appears to have some kind of editorial edict to turn every possible story into an anti-Net Zero headline. So for an innocent story about how some UK Councils are crowd-funding Net Zero projects*, the headline has to be the rather sinister “Councils eyeing up your life savings to cover Net Zero bills.” Yesterday, Donald Trump’s lengthy anti-wind turbine rambling, littered with obviously fatuous falsehoods, formed the paper’s main headline. And I note that the Telegraph still hasn’t put a correction on their totally debunked front page claim that the Heathrow blackout was due to Net Zero.
We have two choices:
- Dismiss all this guff as background noise and keep marching proudly on to Net Zero, appreciating that the British public is still behind climate action and momentum towards a low carbon economy is building.
- Go full Green Jujitsu and reframe climate action as being driven by energy security, cleaner air and green jobs etc, ie benefits which are more tangible than avoided climate impacts.
My instinct for now is to do both. Keep flying the Net Zero flag and append the non-climate benefits as extra ballast.
* Full Disclosure: I have several small investments in these Council schemes.
NB: For those unfamiliar with 1980s tabloid headlines, click here for more on the hamster reference.