Debunking climate and net zero claims

Reflecting on his recent meeting with Robbie Moore, Climate Action Ilkley trustee Steven Webb addresses some popular misconceptions

Recently, along with representatives from several local organisations, I met with Robbie Moore, the MP for Keighley and Ilkley, to ask him for his support for the Climate and Nature Bill (CAN), which was first introduced in the House of Commons back in October 2024.

Unfortunately, he declined to back the bill. He provided several reasons for not supporting CAN, some of which he mentioned during our meeting in September and some of which were subsequently attributed to him in local media.

His comments came ahead of his party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, recently vowing to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act if the Conservatives were to win the next general election, which signals a concerning wider about-face on climate and nature by the party.

Mrs Badenoch also indicated that she would disband the independent Climate Change Committee, mirroring the approach of the Trump administration in the US of shutting down sources of facts and science that highlight the lack of foundation for intended policies.

Given the severity of climate change and the devastating impact it’s already having, equipping more people with facts – not fewer – is more important than ever. In the spirit of open debate, I would like to address some of the points made by Mr Moore in our meeting, as well as others that are often made, erroneously, about net zero or CAN.

Claim 1: we don’t need new targets

CAN doesn’t introduce new targets for the UK. The bill, if passed, would just require the current Labour government and all future governments to stick to the ones the UK has already committed to, both domestically and internationally.

The current target of reaching net zero by 2050 – whereby “total greenhouse gas emissions are equal to the carbon removed from the atmosphere”, as the House of Commons Library has succinctly described it – was set in 2019 under Theresa May’s Conservative government.

Elsewhere, the 2021 Environment Act, which was passed under Boris Johnson’s Conservative government and described by the then environment secretary, George Eustice, as the “most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth”, set more ambitious biodiversity targets, including the creation or restoration of more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitats by 2042.

Incidentally, Mr Moore was a member of the House of Commons committee for this legislation and, speaking on it, said that “protecting the environment and our natural environment is, without doubt, one of the greatest gifts that we can pass on to the next generation”.

He also said that it was a subject exceptionally close to his heart and to many of his constituents, and that he welcomed the fact that the bill would set “long-term, legally binding and joined-up targets”. This is exactly what CAN seeks to do.

Internationally, in 2016, the UK signed the Paris Agreement, “a legally binding international treaty on climate change” that required all signatories to reduce emissions to “hold global temperature increases to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”.

More recently, in 2022, the UK was also one of 196 parties to sign up to the Global Biodiversity Framework (also known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework), which aspires to not only halt biodiversity loss by 2030 but to reverse it altogether. It includes targets such as achieving effective conservation and management of at least 30% of land and sea by the start of the next decade.

However, in its most recent report, the independent Climate Change Committee said that there are “significant risks, or insufficient or unquantified plans” for the UK to meet its interim emissions reduction target for 2030 and the environmental regulator concluded that the government is “largely off track” on obligations to improve the natural environment.

So, while we don’t need new targets, we do need a better and more effective way of holding our government to account so that it delivers on its climate and nature commitments. This is exactly what CAN would do.

Claim 2: achieving net zero will increase the cost of living

Energy bills remain a significant cost for most people in the UK, with the ONS reporting in 2024 that around four in ten people find making electricity and gas payments challenging.

However, high UK energy costs can be directly attributed to fossil fuels, namely the UK’s dependence on gas imports (as Carbon Brief noted earlier this year, the UK’s “power system is far more exposed to gas-fired generation than other countries”). This is further compounded by the fact that under the marginal cost pricing system, “the UK’s electricity market price is set by gas 98% of the time”, as the Guardian observed in an explainer piece back in April.

Commenting on Mrs Badenoch and the Conservative party’s recent announcement to scrap the Climate Change Act and replace it with “cheap energy”, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, said in the Guardian: “The claim that keeping Britain dependent on fossil fuels is good for economic growth is demonstrably false. Our dependence on fossil fuels causes high prices for electricity and heating for businesses and households.”

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Renewably powered energy offers a way out. For instance, as the House of Commons Library reported in 2023, between 2010 and 2021, the average cost of electricity generation for a renewable generator (including building and operating costs) decreased by 88% for solar and around 60% for wind.

It added that even before the huge rise in gas prices after the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine respectively, new renewable schemes were able to generate electricity more cheaply than the cheapest fossil fuel sources – 11% lower for solar and 39% lower for onshore wind.

Increasing the amount of renewable energy produced domestically in the UK, combined with accelerating the move to electrification and setting the prices for renewable energy independently from gas, will all lead to lower energy bills. It will also improve our energy security, insulating the UK from price shocks arising from external international events (like pandemics, wars and tariffs).

Ilkley Chat recently quoted Mr Moore as saying that “we must take care that policy doesn’t come at the expense of the people who can least afford it”. He’s right in this – and the bill specifically addresses this concern. It states, for instance, that any strategy implemented to achieve climate and nature targets “must include financial support and retraining for people whose livelihoods and jobs will be affected by the proposed measures, including those measures that require transitioning out of industries characterised by high emissions and high impacts on ecosystems”.

The costs of climate change and loss of nature currently fall on everyone, regardless of how much (or little) they have contributed to the causes. This “social justice” element of CAN is therefore one that should be supported.

Claim 3: solar farms are taking up lots of land needed for food production

This is far from the case. Recent data from researchers at Lancaster University showed that solar farms currently occupy between 0.06% and 0.07% of the total UK land area.

And, moreover, to meet the most ambitious solar PV (photovoltaic) targets, only 0.72% would be needed by 2050. In fact, to make one comparison, golf courses currently take up a significantly larger area of land than solar installations.

The mistaken concern about solar farms reducing the amount of land available to food production also neglects to take into account how much food is wasted in the UK. It’s significant. For example, in 2022, UK households threw away around six million tonnes of food (about 15% by weight of everything that was bought) and it was estimated that around 4.4 million tonnes of that was still edible.

Addressing the challenge of how to waste less would have a much greater positive impact on the availability of food than putting the relatively small area needed for solar panels off limits.

Claim 4: the UK’s emissions are comparatively small – what we do won’t have much impact

Adding up all the countries in the world with relatively low emissions (less than 2%) accounts for approximately 40% of the world’s total emissions. If the UK uses this as an argument not to make more progress on getting to net zero and decarbonising the economy, we can’t expect those other countries to do so themselves. Nor are we in a strong position to argue that the “major” polluters should do more to reduce their carbon footprints.

Speaking ahead of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, Mr Moore said: “As a result of the leadership shown by our prime minister at the G7, we have managed to get a commitment to limiting the global rise in temperature to 1.5C, achieving net zero and supporting developing countries to be greener. At COP26, the government needs to take a tougher stance on ensuring that other countries play their part in achieving those objectives.”

I agree with him, but we will not have any ability to influence others as a global leader in the fight against climate change if we are seen to be failing to uphold our own commitments, something that CAN would prevent.

Claim 5: we just can’t afford the changes that are needed

The evidence on this is exactly the opposite – we can’t afford not to make them. Earlier this year, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (the professional body for the people who assess and manage financial risks, particularly for insurance and pensions) published a report saying that climate change and nature-related risks had been hugely underestimated.

It added that if left unchecked, “then mass mortality, involuntary mass migration, severe economic contraction and conflict become more likely”. They warned that a worst-case scenario could see the global economy decline by 50% between 2070 and 2090, with four billion deaths by 2050.

Another report, from Oxford University, which was published last year, found that damage to the natural environment is contributing to the slowing down of the UK economy and could result in a 12% reduction to GDP in the years ahead (which would represent a bigger impact than either the global financial crisis of 2008 or the more recent Covid-19 global pandemic).

Other studies have found that an active approach to mitigating the economic impacts of climate change are needed, with a 2024 report by Boston Consulting Group and the University of Cambridge suggesting that an “upfront investment of less than 2% of global GDP in additional efforts to prevent global warming” would avoid much higher losses to the economy and help limit temperature increases to under 2°C.

“Our work estimates the cost of inaction in the short-term will be 10% to 15% of lost global GDP by the end of the century – wiping out many trillions of dollars of wealth,” Dr Kamiar Mohaddes, an associate professor at Cambridge Judge Business School, said at the time. “Hesitating to incur the upfront costs of climate mitigation has truly enormous economic implications down the line.”

Earlier this year, analysis by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) confirmed that net zero is delivering the growth that the UK aspires to “in sectors that will play an ever more important role in the global economy in years to come – sectors that have a bright future”.

It pointed out that between 2023 and 2024, the net zero sector of the UK economy grew three times faster than the economy as a whole, both in terms of value and jobs created.

“The impact of this growth is evident,” the CBI stated in its report. “The net zero economy is advancing environmental goals while also generating significant economic and social benefits throughout the UK.”

The CBI also responded to the announcement from the Conservatives that it would get rid of the Climate Change Act by describing it as a “backwards step” to achieving economic growth, increasing energy security, protecting the planet and “making life healthier for future generations”.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of the CBI, said: “The Climate Act has been the bedrock for investment flowing into the UK and shows that decarbonisation and economic growth are not a zero-sum game. Businesses delivering the energy transition added £83 billion to the economy last year alone, providing high-paying jobs to almost a million people across the UK.”

Claim 6: the ordinary person doesn’t get a say in what happens

Mr Moore was quoted as saying that we need to develop policy in “a way that builds consensus and doesn’t leave working people behind …” – once again, I agree with him and, once again, CAN has this covered.

The bill would introduce a climate and nature assembly – described by the Institute of Government as a “broadly representative group of around 50–150 members of the public who are chosen by lottery” – to provide advice to the secretary of state in drafting an effective strategy to deliver on climate change and nature targets.

The House of Commons briefing paper on CAN explained that “governments and parliaments around the world are increasingly using citizens’ assemblies in their work” and that they “enable decision-makers to understand people’s informed and considered preferences on issues that are complex, controversial, moral or constitutional”.

We’ve had them before (mainly at a local level). One relatively recent and relevant example to this discussion was Climate Assembly UK. Set up in 2019, it published a report in 2020 that set out “how a representative sample of the population believes the UK should meet its net zero emissions commitment”. It made key recommendations across areas like travel, food, land and energy.

Claim 7: I care about this, but I am in the minority

You are actually part of a significant majority that wants stronger climate action by governments – 80% of people worldwide, in fact, according to what was described as the biggest ever standalone survey carried out about climate change in 2024 by the UNDP and the University of Oxford (covering more than 73,000 people across 77 countries).

The very same survey also found that 72% are keen to see a swifter transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, with over half (56%) saying that they thought about climate change daily or weekly.

“The survey results – unprecedented in their coverage – reveal a level of consensus that is truly astonishing,” Achim Steiner, the UNDP administrator, said last year. “We urge leaders and policymakers to take note, especially as countries develop their next round of climate action pledges – or ‘nationally determined contributions’ under the Paris Agreement. This is an issue that almost everyone, everywhere, can agree on.”

Homing in on the UK, the survey found that 84% of Brits would like to see the UK strengthen its commitments to address climate change and 71% in favour of schools doing more to educate youngsters about climate change. Meanwhile, the most recent annual survey of British social attitudes revealed that 70% support the construction of more green infrastructure in the shape of wind farms on land.

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If you want your voice to be heard, consider joining a local environmental or nature group. It’s also worthwhile writing to your MP to say what you would like to be done. For example, if you live within the boundaries of the Keighley and Ilkley constituency and would like your MP, Robbie Moore, to support CAN, you can easily let him know using this link.

If you think he should attend the expert briefing on climate and nature that has been arranged for MPs, which is taking place in November, you can say that here. According to the website, Mr Moore’s status is listed as “not yet responded”.