War and the cost of living crisis must not distract Britain from meeting its climate targets

Editorial: It may not be dominating the headlines, for obvious reasons, but climate danger remains the defining, transcendent challenge for this generation

(Brian Adcock)

There is much despairing talk about having to turn away from renewables and burn yet more hydrocarbons because of the impact of the war in Ukraine, illogical and dangerous as it would be to do so.

It is, then, something of a relief that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the pre-eminent experts – have chosen this moment of multiple crises to reiterate that the world can still halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.

Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5C (against pre-1850 levels) is beyond reach – but it can be done. War or no war, the planet can be saved, and there is no need to allow the climate deniers to prevail in their efforts to use the cost of living crisis and the agonies of Ukraine as an excuse to allow the world to revert to the path of destruction.

The technologies are there, as is the science; what is needed is popular pressure to ensure that politicians keep the faith and don’t lazily slide away from Cop26 and other commitments. It may not be dominating the headlines, for obvious reasons, but climate danger remains the defining, transcendent challenge for this generation.

It is far from hopeless. Indeed, the IPCC has some modest praise for the industrialised world. Global greenhouse gas emissions have never been higher, but the rate of increase over the past decade was at least lower than in the previous 10 years. The task now is to build on that progress.

This will be made far easier because of the broad decline in the cost of renewable energy per unit of electricity produced – partly a result of economies of scale, and partly due to the availability of far superior technology to that which existed even a few years ago.

Battery-powered electric cars, for example, now enjoy a longer range, greater convenience in charging, and better performance than was thought conceivable at, say, the turn of the millennium – a tribute to both the ingenuity of the car companies and the pressure exerted by governments through tax and regulations.

Such electric cars are still more expensive than their fossil-fuel-powered equivalents, but taking the total cost of ownership – factoring in lifetime lower fuel and maintenance costs – EVs are becoming a more feasible proposition for those buying a new car.

Much the same goes for wind turbines. They are not some experimental novelty but the cheapest way of generating electricity. In Britain, a form of militant nimbyism, well represented in the Conservative Party, is preventing their more widespread “planting”; but they are no more of an eyesore than power stations, and are far less ugly than a landscape ravaged by climate change.

Unlike fracking, nuclear fuel, and fresh exploration in the North Sea, they can be up and running in a matter of weeks, not decades – leaving aside the inevitably protracted process of obtaining planning permission. True, they do not now make much of a contribution on still days, but there are other sustainable technologies that can help plug the gaps.

Cheap, reliable, green electricity to power heat pumps and replace gas boilers in better insulated homes is the way forward, and it can be done, with the right investment and enough political will.

Hydrogen power and carbon capture are also new technologies that can help transform the situation. Old fashioned cavity wall and roof insulation, along with solar panels, can do much more as well – and the scrapping of green home incentives, introduced by the Cameron government to encourage their adoption, was a cardinal error that remains uncorrected.

By virtue of its status as the first industrial nation, and after decades of neglecting its social housing, Britain has a stock of still fine Victorian and inter-war housing well suited to cheap coal fires and boilers, but not to costly gas and the new sustainable alternatives.

One of the few things the prime minister has got consistently right in his time in office has been pushing the green agenda. So dedicated is he to the cause – albeit as a flawed warrior – that his natural allies suspect he has been placed under thought control by his wife, as if this wilful 57-year-old man were incapable of making his own mind up.

His problem, as with much else, isn’t a lack of ambition but a lack of money. If climate change is eventually to be halted, and if the UK is to meet its net zero targets (preferably accounting properly for pollution “exported” abroad through offshoring heavy industry and importing energy), then it will cost a great deal of money – whether public or private.

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On that point, it is understandable that Sir Dieter Helm, a professor of energy policy at Oxford University and adviser to the prime minister, strikes a more pessimistic note ahead of the (postponed) publication of the government’s climate change strategy.

Sir Dieter is reported as believing, understandably, that the government’s pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050 at minimal cost is “hopelessly unrealistic”. Yet even here there are some grounds for hope. The gross cost to the nation seems to have edged up to £1.4 trillion from the £1 trillion estimated by the then chancellor, Philip Hammond, a few years ago. But the prospective savings in industrial and household costs of £1 trillion leaves the net cost at £400bn – still huge, but manageable.

Getting to next zero means investing in it, and the question that is often, and fairly, asked is “Who pays?” Many hard-pressed families cannot afford their existing fuel bills, even before the increases predicted come the autumn. Is it the rich or the poor, the polluter or the green household (or company), the state or the private sector that should invest the billions? And who will reap the rewards?

Questions remain, then. It would be reassuring to think that the prime minister and his colleagues will face up to them and answer them, but the experience of recent years suggests that we will get much boosterish talk about tech, and some dire warnings, but nothing resembling a plan. In fact, we’re unlikely to see a single onshore wind turbine installed as a result.