Far from leading the way, Britain is a cautionary tale on the dangers of net zero zealotry. We are too poor to continue a policy of self-harm, says James Price
A friend came back from a trip to the United States recently and told me her biggest takeaway was how warm every home and business is there, even in the bitter cold of winter. Back in Blighty, this friend is always wrapped in more layers than an F Scott Fitzgerald metaphor. But in the US, no one worried about the electricity bill, or letting down money saving expert Martin Lewis by fiddling with the thermostat.
This simple observation speaks volumes about how our quality of life is dramatically impacted by policy decisions in Whitehall. Energy costs are more than a third more expensive in the UK than they are in France, and over 70 per cent more than they are in the United States. This is almost all down to the mad zealotry with which red Ed Miliband, and much of the wider establishment, are prosecuting a war against both hydrocarbons and the laws of thermodynamics.
For some years, Britain has been pursuing a net zero agenda that is doing little to actually ameliorate the impact of climate change while increasingly immiserating those of us who live here. We are poorer, colder and less industrious than our peers as a result. Far from leading the way, we are a cautionary tale to the world.
Impossible-to-keep commitments
There are businesses who have really staked their fortunes on the energy transition, but with waning interest in the States and other nations, this gamble will look foolish. But there are also many companies who, while paying lip service to the net zero agenda, will be quietly longing for a preference cascade that will allow them to be unburdened by these impossible-to-keep commitments.
I am not someone who thinks that the climate doesn’t matter. Far from it – I think that we have a duty to conserve and even repair the damage done to the environment. But that will be achieved by capitalism and free markets. We are too poor a country to continue a policy of colossal self-harm, and must take emergency measures.
What would these look like? Instead of the absurd rules around the generation and use of energy, the government should promote supply side reforms that enable providers to flood the system with cheap, plentiful energy. In the short term, that means fracking here in Britain, and switching north sea oil and gas back on. We still need fossil fuels, so we should generate the benefits of doing so here.
We also still need hydrocarbons from multiple sources to guard against geopolitical shocks. We were wise not to use Russian energy, a choice that means our economy isn’t as hopelessly floundering as, say, Germany’s. But we should be strategic and take energy from all over, spreading the benefits that brings. We could boost our allegiances in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, bolstering the fledgling democracy there. We could encourage Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus to work together to supply energy (potentially solving a chronic territory dispute along the way). And we should get more from our core allies in the US and Canada.
With the cash we would save by not bankrupting ourselves, Britain could do what it does best – invent the future
It also means massively promoting next-generation nuclear power. The Adam Smith Institute has demonstrated the potential of advanced modular reactors and other nuclear technologies in a recent paper, Fission Impossible. It’s a perfect example of how technological developments will wean us off fossil fuels in a way that doesn’t crater the economy.
So, with the cash we would save by not bankrupting ourselves, Britain could do what it does best – invent the future. Just imagine a world where our creative and scientific efforts were focused on truly futuristic ways to generate energy that don’t rely on the Green Party’s dream of turning off all the lights and huddling in the cold and dark.
Imagine transparent solar panels that turn windows into sources of energy. Roads that absorb the energy from cars going over them and send it back into the car. Solar satellites that beam energy back onto the earth. Direct air capture to just suck the carbon out of the air. Britain led the industrial revolution. We could do so again, if we only had the energy.
James Price is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute