It’s easy to be cynical about a climate conference that sees plutocrats flying their private jets to a petrostate claiming they’re going to save the world. That’s certainly the position of Greta Thunberg, who has dismissed COP29 as an exercise in greenwashing Azerbaijan’s human rights violations, a view shared – in City AM recently – by former Unilever boss, Paul Polman. But scepticism should not lead us into a counsel of despair.
The headline goal of the latest conference – to agree who will actually pay for the green energy transition – is both a necessity and an enormous opportunity for investors. It is disappointing, therefore, that Keir Starmer used his platform as one of the few world leaders to attend the event to put Britain at a major competitive disadvantage.
In committing to reduce Britain’s carbon emissions by 81 per cent compared to 1990 levels, Starmer is going harder and faster than other major economies when much of the world is moving in the opposite direction. The election of Donald Trump means that Net Zero is effectively dead in the US while China still generates 60 per cent of its electricity – the very power it uses to manufacture all those wind turbines and solar panels – from coal.
It’s worth noting, too, that the 53 per cent cut in emissions the UK has already achieved since 1990 is largely a result of industrial decline, a fall in North Sea gas production and lower agricultural output. It’s a funny kind of environmentalism that outsources manufacturing to more polluting countries.
Immiserating taxpayers to meet an arbitrary goal won’t just be a disaster for growth, it will erode support for the green agenda, putting current investment and – more importantly – future lives at risk
The fact is, reaching Starmer’s target will demand serious sacrifice from consumers. The independent committee that first floated the 81 per cent figure themselves said it would require people to eat less meat and dairy and take fewer flights. This comes on top of an existing commitment to a renewable grid by 2030 that the IFS says will add £120 to household energy bills within five years, if it’s even achievable. A report into how this flagship policy can be realised – which includes fantastical assumptions about the scale and pace at which Britain will build the infrastructure required – still concludes that energy costs will end up higher.
Immiserating taxpayers to meet an arbitrary goal won’t just be a disaster for growth, it will erode support for the green agenda, putting current investment and – more importantly – future lives at risk.
If COP29 can achieve anything, it should be for world leaders to agree that taxpayers in wealthy countries cannot shoulder the burden of mitigating climate change alone. Mobilising private finance, rather than rationing energy and sacrificing living standards, is the only way to make the world not only cleaner, but more prosperous too.