Shambolic Net Zero Strategy according to Porritt

Porritt on HMG's Net Zero Strategy - my highlights

1. Do not doubt this is for real. For sure, it’s muddled, manipulative, repetitive and hopelessly inadequate when set against what the science of climate change tells us is now needed. But it’s still for real, with big money, vaulting ambition, and enough substance to keep us ticking over until the reality of what’s REALLY needed kicks in.

So does all this provide ‘an exemplar for other countries’ in the run up to CoP26? NO, IT DOES NOT.

Does this make the UK ‘fighting fit for the green Industrial Revolution’? NO, IT DOES NOT.

Does it map out a strategy for ‘working with the grain of consumer choice’? NO, IT DOES NOT.

Does it ensure a genuinely ‘just transition’, unambiguously exiting from the world of fossil fuels while supporting those whose jobs will inevitably be lost in the process? NO, IT DOES NOT.

That’s the high-level summary. Time to dig down into the detail – on two crunch issues: HEAT and NUCLEAR.

HEAT AND BUILDING STRATEGY

THE SCANDAL:

"With at least 2.5 million people still living in fuel poverty in the UK, with at least 10,000 excess winter deaths every year, and with more than 19 million properties with Energy Performance Certificates below the minimum C grade, this Strategy represents failure on a massive scale.

"New Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) is LESS generous than old RHI

"The BUS offers a one-off grant of £5,000 a pop, and will run for just three years. With a total of £450 million in the BUS pot, that amounts to precisely 90,000 new heat pumps. Exactly how this matches up with the overall target of 600,000 heat pumps to be installed every year by 2028, as announced with characteristic braggadocio by Boris Johnson in his 10 Point Plan in November last year, is yet to be revealed.

"The emphasis in this Strategy is all about swapping out boilers for electric heat pumps in people’s homes – regardless of how efficient or inefficient that home might be. The emphasis on FABRIC FIRST (through better insulated, better ventilated buildings) has all but disappeared, meaning that much of the benefit of a more efficient source of heat will still be lost through leaky, often damp and unhealthy, exploitatively costly buildings. Not much’ levelling up’ going on here.

"The emphasis on FABRIC FIRST (through better insulated, better ventilated buildings) has all but disappeared, meaning that much of the benefit of a more efficient source of heat will still be lost through leaky, often damp and unhealthy, exploitatively costly buildings. Not much’ levelling up’ going on here.

"With at least 2.5 million people still living in fuel poverty in the UK, with at least 10,000 excess winter deaths every year, and with more than 19 million properties with Energy Performance Certificates below the minimum C grade, this Strategy represents failure on a massive scale.

YET MORE NUCLEAR NONSENSE

"... the idea that a fleet of new SMRs is going to come online in time to make any kind of material contribution to our Net Zero target by 2050 is total pie in the sky.

"But the charade goes on. The pro-nuclear troops keep getting marched up and down that hill. Meanwhile, the things that really need doing now (a serious, fit-for-purpose retrofit scheme for the UK’s wretchedly unfit housing stock, mass investment in new battery manufacturing, serious, consistent support to bring down the cost of heat pumps, etc etc) are all there in the Net Zero Strategy, but starved of the kind of long-term strategic support they so urgently need.

"God knows what historians will make of this – and of the massive opportunity costs entailed in persevering with this whole fleet of nuclear fantasies."