A couple of weeks ago, I met with a group from Friends of the Earth. Committed to our environment, they struck me as sensible and driven. They were at the front of my mind when, last week, Rishi Sunak rowed back on climate change ambitions.
To be accurate, he hasn’t rowed back at all on long term goals – net zero by 2050. But what he has done is to push back the UK’s ban on traditional engine cars to 2035, and removed the ban on traditional boilers, replacing it with a 50% increase in the financial incentive to fit a heat pump.
There have been howls of anger from the climate change lobby. I’m certainly disappointed at the confused messages being sent to business. But what Rishi Sunak has done is to confront the truth that meeting these short-term targets was never possible.
Ever since Boris Johnson changed our targets, I have been questioning what analysis he did to underpin the rationale. Vehicles moving from petrol and diesel to electricity, and boilers from gas to electricity, albeit with lower energy consumption, requires an electricity infrastructure that meets complex increasing demands. Given how the source of our electricity production is changing, the reality is that with the variety of generation, and the more than doubling of demand to meet Boris’s targets, we would need to at least double the size of the national grid, and double electricity generation – in the next 3 or 4 years. That is simply impossible. Add to that the uncertainty of weather dependent power (wind and solar) and the problem becomes yet more complicated.
Since becoming vice chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero select committee, I have followed an app called GridCarbon. It is quite revealing, showing where our electricity comes from. Sometimes wind and solar, but always gas, nuclear, biomass, and imports from the EU.
Our grid – the distribution network for electricity – is woefully inadequate for our net zero expectations. There are some completed green energy projects that will not be connected for 15 years, due to expansion capacity limits and that old faithful of red tape, planning bureaucracy. Rishi Sunak is dealing with planning in his proposals but witness how planning leniency for delivering superfast broadband has met with dismay in parts of Stourport.
I am 100% behind transitioning to a clean environment that protects our planet. But I am also 100% behind honesty, and that is what Rishi Sunak is being.