The media hive mind has seized on a report from the Tony Blair Institute this morning, which amusingly says net zero policies are “doomed to fail.” The paper has sent Labour, the Greens and the wider left into complete meltdown and Sir Tony has since rowed back under pressure from No 10…
What does Sir Tony suggest as an alternative to fossil fuel phase out? Basically a word salad outlining a wide array of exotic measures such as “underwater drones/robots for seagrass and mangrove seeding, with autonomous vehicles capable of planting thousands of seedlings per day” and “digital tools such as geospatial mapping, IoT-enabled monitoring and predictive analytics.” Righto…
You can tell that no journalists have actually read the report because they have missed the bit where it promotes a bonkers plan to reflect sunlight back into space:
“In the most extreme case, in which we fail to make significant progress on decarbonisation, the world may need to seriously consider solar radiation management (SRM), a technology generally considered a last resort for addressing global warming. One of the most radical and controversial forms of disruption, SRM involves the direct manipulation of the Earth’s climate system to counteract global warming through techniques aiming to reflect sunlight away or limit the radiation that reaches the Earth. While highly controversial, such technologies may become necessary if mitigation efforts fail to prevent catastrophic climate shifts.”
One method of ‘SRM’ proposed by some scientists is indeed putting giant mirrors into space. Tone has managed to make Ed Miliband look sane…
Ed Miliband is busy this morning boasting about a new report from state-owned National Energy System Operator on the government’s Clean-Power-by-2030 target. He says “Expert analysis backs our policy and its benefits for the country. Defeatist critics should take note”…
What proposals is he actually talking about? The report is very careful in its wording and makes clear that Clean Power targets will only be reached with:
Wind power is known to falter in Britain – at which point blackout prevention systems come into place. This occured as recently as last month. Relying on wind generation for half of all power in the UK and demand will have to be forced very low indeed…
Neso is clear that “a dramatic acceleration in progress compared to anything achieved historically” is required and “failure in any single area – generation, flexibility, networks – will lead to failure overall; all parts need to deliver to achieve clean power.” Success in any single area is unlikely enough…
If enough households don’t voluntarily agree to keep the kettle off to save electricity in high-demand periods they will have to be compelled. Good that Net Zero won’t help to generate GDP growth either…
Guido was scrolling on the internet and wanted to see how Miliband’s much-vaunted GB Energy is getting along after its founding hiring run flopped with almost zero interest from applicants. No luck – Labour has taken down the GB Energy website…
Now the public can’t admire the stock image logo any more – the link http://great-british-energy.org.uk/redirects to boring updates on the project over at the gov.uk website. Gone are testimonials from members of the public and a postcode search feature to see: “How will it help in my area?” Could Labour not think of any answers to that one now the election’s over?
Thankfully the old website is still available on the internet archive. Now Labour has given up on saying energy bills will fall by £300 GB Energy is increasingly looking like just another stunt…
Green Deputy Leader Rachel Millward said:
“The reality is that it’s Zack Polanski who brought the nation, Andy Burnham. And if we hadn’t had the success of the Green Party in this last year since Zack’s been leading, which has been unprecedented, phenomenal success and a growth from about 60,000 members to 230,000, if we hadn’t had that much pressure on Labour, then we’d probably still be in the Starmer regime, which was pretty much ushering in a Reform government with its lurch to the right. So actually, what we’re seeing now is that we’ve set the political agenda and the government is picking that up.”