I’ve always thought Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister at the time of writing, was a shameless huckster who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near high office.  I can’t deny a big dollop of schadenfreude as his ‘rules don’t apply to me’ career trajectory hits the brick wall of public decency over the lockdown parties at No10 Downing St. Everything about Johnson, but particularly his fluid relationship with honesty, goes against everything I hold dear.

Except one thing.

And it’s a pretty big ‘un.

In my book, his one redeeming feature has been his very vocal support for Net Zero. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t trust him on Net Zero and I don’t think his assertion that we can achieve Net Zero without substantial behavioural change stacks up (I’ll believe Jet Zero when I see it). But at least it’s there and he keeps banging on about it which sends out a strong, important signal to everybody else. Every week at Prime Minister’s Questions, a Tory backbencher or two will lob him a softball question – “does he agree with me that [project in my constituency] will bring green jobs to the area and help deliver Net Zero” – just so the PM can make the case again. And that counts.

The problem is what happens if the sharks currently circling Johnson decide to go in for the kill?

Whoever wants to take over from Boris Johnson will have to win over Tory MPs until two candidates remain, and then Tory members in a final ballot. In the former, the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) may only have 18 members, but they are battle-hardened through their Brexit campaign (the Venn diagram of climate scepticism and rampant euroscepticism has a huge overlap) and candidates will be very tempted to throw red meat in that direction. Amongst the Tory membership, I don’t think Net Zero would be missed.

The track record of the two main candidates to take over doesn’t fill me with glee either. Chancellor Rishi Sunak managed to avoid the topic altogether in his conference speech, a quite extraordinary omission given the level of change required in the economy to deliver Net Zero. While Liz Truss has made some supportive noises (limited to “a freer country is greener” in her conference speech), she reportedly allowed the climate change elements to be stripped out of her trade deal with Australia and, being a dyed in the wool free marketeer, is said to be ‘cool’ on the whole agenda. Will either be prepared to stand up for Net Zero in a torrid leadership campaign? Particularly if the NZSG start lobbing hand grenades?

But Johnson surviving his current shipwreck doesn’t mean he will be hauling Net Zero onto the lifeboat with him. As domestic energy prices soar, the temptation to strip out green subsidies from bills will harden (never mind that those subsidies are a big part of the medium-long term solution, including helping people out of fuel poverty etc). Jettisoning them would certainly be welcomed by the right-leaning press who have been getting increasingly vocal about “partygate” and may buy him enough favour to keep his hand on the tiller.

So while I sit here and watch poetic justice catch up with the PM, deep in my gut there is a queasy feeling about the whole thing.