Essay by Eric Worrall
Perhaps Britain’s technically illiterate leaders may have noticed that households paying £3,000 per year for home heating is lowering their chances of surviving the next election.
I’m one of the UK’s official climate change advisers – our new report says the country is no longer a world leader
Published: June 29, 2023 1.17am AEST
Piers Forster
Professor of Physical Climate Change; Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of LeedsThe UK’s Climate Change Committee – the official independent advisory body of which I am interim chair – has spent the past three months poring over thousands of pages of government strategy documents to inform its latest annual progress report to parliament. And our confidence in the UK meeting its climate goals is now markedly less than it was in our previous assessment a year ago. Key opportunities have been missed.
…
The UK is not giving its industries the support they need to electrify and decarbonise and there is little sign of progress. The government has set a laudable ambition to decarbonise steel and develop carbon dioxide removal industries but there are few concrete plans in place.
While the US, EU and China invested billions in green industries to help the energy and cost of living crises, the UK has so far failed to do the same. This risks losing green jobs and industries to overseas competitors.
…
It has gone from leading the world with its net zero commitment back in 2019, to showing support for new oil and gas and consenting to a new coal mine. It’s gone from hosting one of the most successful UN climate conferences ever, to undermining that legacy by risking delivery of its own commitments. This government has taken its foot off the throttle and the world has noticed.
…
Our report isn’t all bad news. Glimmers of the net zero transition can be seen in growing sales of new electric cars and the continued deployment of renewable energy generation, but the scale up of action overall is worryingly slow. There seems to be a sense that this can wait until other crises have been dealt with. But many of the crises we are facing – such as the war in Ukraine, the cost of living here in the UK – are interconnected.
…
That new Cumbrian coal mine Professor Forster mentioned is a metallurgical coal mine – exactly the kind of coal you would need to say kickstart a British solar panel manufacturing industry. Refining silica into solar panels requires lots of high grade coal, the coal is used as a chemical input into the process, not just a source of heat.
Odd that a “professor of physical climate change” doesn’t seem to know this.
But with Britain’s sky high energy prices, there seems little hope of any kind of significant new energy intensive industry developing in Britain. The main reason Britain still has a substantial manufacturing industry is Britain is a centre of excellence in precision engineering. The high value add of such products mitigates the energy cost disadvantage.
I would have had more respect if Professor Forster had explained how the UK could lower energy bills without “taking its foot of the throttle” towards Net Zero. I mean immediate relief, as in next year, not pie in the sky visions of investments in new industries.