There are few policy areas in which long-term investments yield results that enable politicians to create good jobs, lower bills for families and businesses, strengthen energy security and tackle climate change, but net zero does all three. For fifteen years there has been a rare, broad political consensus on the need to decarbonise our economy. When the first Climate Change Act was passed by the Labour government in 2008, 99 per cent of MPs voted in favour of it. In 2019, when the Conservatives amended it to make a legally binding commitment to reach net zero by 2050, there were no dissenters in the House of Commons. YouGov’s tracker consistently indicates a strong majority of voters believe in climate change – a view likely to be strengthened by the terrible wildfires in southern Europe recently.
Until recently it seemed net zero was the settled will of the British people. But then came Uxbridge.
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