There were important by-elections in England in July 2023. They were triggered by the resignation of three Conservative MPs - former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one of Johnson’s staunchest allies, and a former minister mired in drug abuse and sexual harassment scandals. Many thought that the results of these by-elections could be a guide to the likely outcome of a 2024 General Election. What happened to the Conservative vote might clarify whether Rishi Sunak’s unpopular Conservative government could hang on to power, or whether tactical voting could enable Keir Starmer’s Labour Party to overturn the huge majority that the Conservatives achieved in 2019.
The Uxbridge Effect
In two of the by-elections, an opposition party (Labour in one of the constituencies, LibDem in the other) overturned a huge Conservative majority. In the third, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the Outer London constituency that had been Boris Johnson’s seat, Labour narrowly failed to overturn a much smaller Conservative majority. As a guide to how people might vote in a UK-wide election, these results turned out to be inconclusive. But the Uxbridge result signalled a significant shift in the tactics that are likely to be employed, a shift that may be particularly damaging for policies to slow climate change, whichever party forms the next government,..
The Conservative campaign in Uxbridge was revealing. Its campaign leaflets hardly mentioned Rishi Sunak or the Conservative party. Indeed they hardly mentioned any political issue, other than a proposal by the Labour Mayor of London to extend the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) from Inner to Outer London. Uxbridge voters were persuaded that they would be faced with the choice of having to buy a new car or be charged for driving anywhere in London, despite the fact that only the oldest and most polluting vehicles would be subject to the charge. For Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the result seemed to suggest an opportunity to revive Conservative fortunes nationally - it proved, he suggested, that Labour “don’t understand the values and concerns of hard working people”. Within days, Sunak suggested that he was “on the side of the motorist”, and announced that he was opposed to “anti-motorist” policies such as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs, schemes to reduce through traffic in residential areas).
Just as revealing was Labour’s reaction. Half way through the Uxbridge campaign its candidate, who had supported ULEZ extension, said he now opposed it. Labour accepted Conservative framing of the issue as being about increasing the cost of living rather than improving health and the quality of life, and it failed to tap into widespread concern, particularly among parents of young children, about poor air quality in London. Labour could have stressed the benefits of ULEZ as a public health measure, or argued the need for improved public transport, but it chose to do neither. After the result was declared, Keir Starmer urged Sadiq Khan, London’s Labour Mayor, to think again about ULEZ extension - “ULEZ was the reason we didn’t win there. We’ve all got to reflect on that, including the mayor.” Khan resisted the pressure and announced that ULEZ extension would go ahead, albeit with an enhanced scrappage scheme that rewarded all Londoners who had a non-ULEZ compliant vehicle (not just those on low incomes, with disabilities, or receiving child benefit, as in the original proposal.j
“We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour Party end up on each and every Tory leaflet. We’ve got to face up to that and learn the lessons.”
(Keir Starmer, speech to Labour Party National Policy Forum, 22 July 2023)
The Conservatives soon realised that there would not be much to gain from opposing ULEZ and LTNs in a general election - only a few constituencies would be affected, and experience where these measures had been introduced suggested that alarms at the consultation stage tended to disappear once the schemes had bedded in. Many Conservative MPs, however, argued that votes could be gained by focusing on the possible cost and inconvenience of decarbonisation plans that would affect everyone. They took their cue from campaigns orchestrated by the right wing press, and from a remark that Sunak had made in the aftermath of the by-elections:
“We’re going to make progress to Net Zero but we’re going to do that in a proportionate and pragmatic way that doesn’t unnecessarily give people more hassle and more costs in their lives - that’s not what I’m interested in and prepared to do.”
(Rishi Sunak, pooled interview, 24 July 2023)
Suggestions from Conservative MPs followed thick and fast. Delays to the phase-out of new petrol and diesel cars (scheduled for 2030), and to the phase out of new gas boilers (scheduled for 2035) featured particularly often. Sunak resisted these suggestions, but proposed a more radical departure from the government’s own Net Zero policies, interpreting ‘proportionate and pragmatic’ in a way that exposed the hollowness of the Net Zero commitment.
The energy security distraction
At the end of July, Sunak announced that he would “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves, by issuing new licenses for drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. This, he said, would “be good for our energy security” - the country would still be needing some oil and gas, even in 2050, and it was better to supply that at home, rather than having to import it. It would be better for the climate too, he claimed, as it would avoid the carbon emissions from having to ship in supplies “from half way round the world.”
Sunak’s announcement was notable not only for exposing as hypocritical his government’s claim to be a global leader in cutting carbon emissions, but for his total misunderstanding of how oil and gas markets operate. His announcement made no sense, even in its own terms. Oil and gas from the North Sea is extracted by global corporations, and sold on the global market to the highest bidder. 80% of the UK’s North Sea Oil is exported, because the ageing UK refineries were designed to refine low-sulphur oil, and most North Sea Oil has to be shipped overseas, to refineries that are designed to cope with its high-sulphur content.
Keir Starmer could have pointed out that licensing more drilling from the North Sea would do nothing for energy security, and would add to carbon emissions. He could, too, have drawn attention to the fact that July 2023 was the hottest month on record globally, and that the heat had exacerbated the unusually severe and extensive wildfires raging in many different parts of the world. But he did neither. Instead Starmer said that, although a Labour government would issue no new licenses, it would not revoke licenses issued before it came to power. It was important, he suggested, “to take investor certainty and legal obligations seriously” . More important for him, clearly, than taking the climate crisis seriously.
The carbon capture distraction
Both Sunak and Starmer have insisted that they are still committed to the goal of achieving Net Zero by 2050. Sunak made a point of announcing his determination to maximise oil and gas extraction during a PR visit to Scotland, where he also announced public funding for a project to store carbon in an exhausted well under the North Sea. Don’t worry about the increased carbon emissions from new wells under the North Sea was the unspoken implication, they can be captured and returned to old wells under the North Sea.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has long been a key component of plans to achieve Net Zero by 2050. Intended as a way of offsetting industrial processes that are difficult to decarbonise, like cement and steel, the technology has so far proved to be both costly and energy-intensive to operate. The danger has always been that, if CCS could become commercially viable, it could enable continued fossil fuel production, beyond what would be needed for hard-to-decarbonise processes.
Sunak’s PR stunt, linking carbon capture and storage with expanded oil and gas production, gives the game away. He asks us to believe that future generations will develop a cost effective way of storing carbon at scale, and that this justifies slowing down the decarbonisation that is actually needed at present. Net Zero by 2050 becomes an excuse for doing too little, too late.
“Using CCS for reducing (but far from eliminating) the greenhouse gases from energy is little more than a dangerous distraction. Yes, CCS likely has an important role in stopping emissions from some industrial processes, particularly cement and possibly steel. But that is very different from using it to support an oil and gas industry that needs to be phased out within 10 to 15 years at the latest, if we are to meet our Paris (COP21) commitments.”
(Kevin Anderson & Dan Calverley, PM’s CCS announcement indicates a government disinterested in addressing climate change, Climate Uncensored 31 July 2023
Scrutinising net zero
Much of the impetus from within the Conservative party to delay action on climate change comes from a small group of around 30 MPs and Lords called the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG). It is perhaps a sign of the times that the Group feels compelled to claim that it “accepts the fundamental facts of the climate emergency and the need to reduce emissions.” However, it suggests that the UK government’s pursuit of its Net Zero target is “too bold’, and that this will make working people “colder and poorer.” The NZSG’s main policy proposals call for “cuts to green taxes and an increase in fossil fuel production’”, to ease the cost of living crisis.
The NZSG claim that it accepts the fundamental facts of the climate emergency is undermined by the close links many of its members have with the climate change denying Global Warming Policy Foundation. A cursory glance at the MPs’ voting records suggests that their concern for the living standards of those they call ‘working people’ is hollow, and that they are all staunch supporters of the austerity policies that are at the root of the current cost of living crisis.
The NZSG gives scrutiny of Net Zero a bad name. But there is much in the UK government’s implementation of Net Zero that needs careful scrutiny. Why, for example, is there no strategic plan to co-ordinate the new offshore wind farms, the new transmission lines that are needed to transfer their electricity to consumers, and the short term and long term energy storage that is needed to balance their variability of supply? Why are there no plans for decentralised local energy networks? Why has so little been done to rectify the draughty housing stock that is so wasteful of energy? Why is the electricity market still structured a way that consumers don’t benefit financially from the much lower costs of renewable supply? And where decarbonisation requires sacrifices to be made, why is it that policy implementation does not ensure that the rich, who are both the highest emitters and the most able to pay, bear most of the cost?
The Net Zero 2050 target also needs scrutiny, but for reasons that are the opposite of those espoused by the NZSG. Because no limits are drawn around what can be accepted as ‘negative emissions’ (carbon extracted from the atmosphere or prevented from entering it), there is no limit on the actual emissions that are allowed. Actual emissions that take place are certain and ongoing, but the ‘negative emissions’ that are supposed to offset them are uncertain, and don’t occur until some time in the future. Net Zero, as climate scientist Kevin Anderson remarks, is “Latin for kicking the can down the road.”. Since the Uxbridge by-election, the inherent ambiguity in the Net Zero target has allowed both Sunak and Starmer to use it as another delaying device.
There is an even more fundamental objection to the Net Zero target when it is linked, as it is for both Conservatives and Labour, with targets to grow GDP. Decarbonised economic growth throughout the world, at the scale and pace that would be needed to avoid runaway climate change, would need a massive expansion in the extraction and processing of rare metals and minerals. Neither the reserves nor the mining capacity that are available come anywhere near what would be required. Conflict over access to increasingly scarce resources would intensify, prices would shoot through the roof, and nature would be trashed.
“To believe that manufacturing 1.5 billion EVs and many more billions of grid storage batteries will somehow ‘save the planet’ requires magical thinking at its finest. Corporate PR departments are expert at hiding the dirty details of mining and manufacturing, and great at throwing out big numbers like ‘enough lithium for one million EV batteries’ and claiming this will somehow solve climate change. If you believe them, then you’ve successfully ignored reality in favour of your delusion.”
(Elisabeth Robson, A guide to being delusional, RadFemBiophilia Substack 9 Aug 2023)
A monumental distraction
Net Zero is a monumental distraction. It deludes us that we have plenty of time, and reassures us that technological advances will enable us to avoid runaway climate change without our being required to change our behaviour.
Rapid decarbonisation is essential if we are to have any chance of avoiding runaway and irreversible climate change. But it has to respect natural limits, which is impossible if we continue to pursue economic growth. Economic system change that guarantees basic needs rather than promotes GDP growth may not be sufficient to ensure a liveable future, but it will certainly be necessary.