After Tony Blair's intervention, political tide is turning against net-zero folly

In a couple more years, other shibboleths about climate change might also be open to question

Just a couple of years ago, it was considered somewhat shocking to suggest that maybe net zero isn’t such a great idea after all. At best, it was deemed outre, contrarian or eccentric, and at worst it was met with screeches of “denier!” while the heretic was dragged to a ducking stool to recant.

But now there are undeniable signs that net-zero scepticism has entered mainstream politics, with none other than Sir Tony Blair, the patron saint of centrist dads, questioning the wisdom behind the philosophy that underpins so much disastrous government policy.

Blair, who led Labour to three successive general election victories, said limiting energy consumption and fossil fuel production was “doomed to fail”. In the foreword to a paper by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, titled The Climate Paradox: Why We Need To Reset Action On Climate Change, he wrote that voters “feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know the impact on global emissions is minimal”.

Sir Tony Blair has said net zero policies are "doomed to fail" | PA

‘Riven with irrationality’

Noting that long-promised green jobs and economic growth have failed to materialise, he said the “alarmist” tone of the debate on climate change is “riven with irrationality”. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour administration went into message management meltdown: “What Tony meant to say was…” But Blair knew what he was doing. He may have been shooting the breeze, in one sense, but this was no off-the-cuff intervention.

Meanwhile, a plausible explanation was starting to crystallise for a power outage that had crippled the Iberian Peninsula. Initially it seemed it was caused by one of only two things – a cyber attack or extreme weather. But the former was soon ruled out and conditions were warm and sunny, which is hardly “extreme” in Spain and Portugal in late April.

A third possibility began to emerge – “new ways of delivering electricity” or “renewables” as they are better known. Just days before inadvertently and completely decarbonising the grid 25 years early, Spanish authorities had heralded a record level of power generated through solar panels.

Travelers sit on the stairs as they prepare to spend the night at the Atocha train station in Madrid, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France | AFP via Getty Images

Cascading failures

Energy experts have long warned that too much intermittent wind and solar risk destabilising the grid, leaving it vulnerable when there is an outage. Other forms of generation, such as coal or gas-powered turbines or hydroelectric plants, are directly connected to the grid via heavy spinning parts that store inertia, acting as shock absorbers to protect against supply disruptions caused by changes in electrical frequency.

Independent energy analyst Kathryn Porter said: “In a low-inertia environment, the frequency can change much faster. If you have had a significant grid fault in one area... the grid operators have less time to react. That can lead to cascading failures.”

Many people are heavily invested – financially, philosophically or both – in this not being the case. Some have even gamely punted questionable theories that an abundance of renewables was actually what rescued the whole situation, thereby creating all the more need for even more solar and wind.

Climate evangelist in chief

But the episode prompted the general-secretary of the GMB union, Gary Smith, to implore that Starmer ignore “the false prophets of climate fundamentalism” and rethink the UK government’s net-zero plans. In an article for The Times, Smith said the “catastrophic” grid failure in Spain should be a “massive wake-up call”, adding: “I’d like to think our government… was asking the critical question ‘What if this happens to us?’ Because it could have.”

Smith was also highly critical of the government’s commitment to banning future North Sea exploration and production licences. He wrote: “Across society, bill-payers will question why they are subsidising a domestic clean power sprint that is offshoring UK jobs and value.”

Smith is not the only union leader to break ranks with the Labour leadership on net zero. Sharon Graham, head of Labour’s biggest union backer Unite, said the agenda had become a “political millstone” and took aim at climate evangelist Ed Miliband, who rejoices in the oxymoronic job title of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Graham pointed out that tens of thousands of jobs already sacrificed on the net-zero altar – in oil and gas, at Grangemouth, in the steel industry or car manufacturing, for example – were not being replaced in the “just transition” to a “green” economy.

The oil refinery at Grangemouth has now closed amid the drive to achieve net-zero carbon emissions (Picture: Andrew Milligan) | PA

Big bills

Another Labour big beast, former Home Secretary Lord Blunkett, warned the net-zero push could make the party “electorally toxic” if energy prices do not come down.

The connection between heavily subsidised “renewables” and British energy bills that are around five times higher than in the likes of the US is increasingly inarguable – except perhaps among those who wonder aloud whether grid instability was a help rather than a hindrance in Iberia, or boast about the UK “leading the world” in net zero without bothering to enquire why the world doesn’t seem to want to follow.

So now we have political heavyweights and union leaders saying the previously unsayable on net zero. The ducking stool is getting crowded, and that’s only on its Left side.

In opposition, the Tories have turned apostate under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch. Resurgent Reform – the most popular party in England judging by last week’s local election results – never believed in the whole thing in the first place.

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is opposed to net zero and won the highest vote share in last week's English local elections | PA

If there ever was any sort of consensus on net zero it has well and truly shattered on impact with reality. To a growing number of people, it feels like the ultimate luxury belief at a time when luxuries are increasingly unaffordable.

Give it another couple of years and the unbelievers might be asking questions about other articles of faith too. How much academic rigour is there behind the burgeoning new field of “attribution science?” Is carbon dioxide really the root of all evil?

We’re going to need a bigger stool.