Will we be bankrupted by net zero?

Yes; though it's because we left it too late.

The cheapest way to produce electricity (in history) is by solar. When compared to gas, wind and coal and taking into account the cost of panels, extraction, production plants, finance and maintenance as well as fuel prices (solar and wind are free!) solar is the cheapest.

However the price of fuel to the consumer tracks the price of the most expensive, so even if you get some green energy, you will still have high energy bills.

People complain about subsidies for green energy but they are outweighed by subsidies for fossil fuels, which cover pipelines, excavation and production as well as reducing the price direct to the consumer. The tax payer is giving money to companies who make $billions in profits. When implicit costs of fossil fuels to the environment and health are added in, we discover that the tax payer covers the oil billionaires to the tune of $7 trillion per year, far outweighing subsidies to renewables by miles.

People talk about withdrawing subsidies to green energy because they are now making money; subsidies to fossil fuels are continuing though the profits are in the $billions.

Not only are we giving fossil fuels money to cover some of the cost of production and artificially make them cheaper than renewables; industry is also using these $millions to block green energy policies, block investment in renewables and to spread climate denial misinformation!

What happened to bankrupt Germany? Only 6% of its energy came from nuclear making the cost of upkeep uneconomic. Neither closing nuclear nor its green policies were involved in bankrupting Germany, the cause was years of de-industrialisation, funding a proxy war (directly lining the pockets of the oil and arms industries) and cutting themselves off from affordable gas from Russia to avoid over-reliance on them. Germany has now made itself reliant on LNG from the States instead. The US blew up some NS1 pipelines as well as NS2 to ensure that the Germans didn’t change their minds, and created an enormous release of methane into the bargain.

Rising inflation and the unfunding of public services is caused by enriching a few tax and liability dodging, heavily subsidised wealthy industries at the expense of everyone else.

If we stop funding the profits and covering the cost of emissions of fossil fuels, divest them from savings and pensions, not only would they become uneconomic and unable to continue polluting, this money could be invested into grid infrastructure and EV charge points. Abandoning net zero and saying it’s OK to do so is demented nonsense. Actual net zero, not industry bullshit net zero, will save money as renewables become cheaper and cheaper as the market expands, as well as helping to save the planet.

When taking into account imports as well as territorial emissions, the UK accounts for about 2.7% of emissions, even though we are only 0.08% of the population. What we do matters.

However, we’ve left it too late. From the Environmental Journal in September;

‘Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s declaration that current UK green targets risk bankrupting a nation fails to take responsibility for financial failings at leadership level. 

You could easily argue that over the past 15 years of austerity-based governance, British politics has adopted a policy of toe-dipping. Our elected representatives test waters of change via off-the-cuff statements about flagship policies, and media leaks from ‘anonymous sources’. Depending on responses, they may formally act, or not. 

So the idea Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may now back peddle on a range of net zero pledges was inevitable. According to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the UK can’t really afford to meet environmental goals in the allotted time. The impact on finances would be too great for the public and essential services to cope with, having endured rocketing inflation, cost of living, energy bills, and the economic fallout of a pandemic since 2020. 

The tragedy is, the only way out of all those situations involves correcting the past. Not least healthcare. The NHS has been underfunded for so long few can remember anything else, and that shortfall long-since reached devastating proportions. Doing nothing before means we need to do a lot now, very quickly. And so the very real spectre of systemic failure appears. 

The countdown to a world only partially liveable has already begun, and seen in this context a lifetime’s worth of non-commitment offers only one lesson. When you skirt subjects and decisiveness, preferring u-turns to straight lines, boasting green credentials while handing out new fossil fuel licenses and subsidising polluters, the overall bill for environmental progress really does start to look impossibly high within the timeframe. Of course dates can easily be moved, providing you’re willing to detract from the predictions and modelling of a scientific community all-but-ignored for a generation.’

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