We are not doing enough in the UK to safe guard our future and our children’s future. We are getting great headlines for being world leading, but we are not delivering on those headlines. We have made really good promises. The promise to get to net zero is central to protecting ourselves from the damage that a changing climate is doing. If we are going to actually deliver, then we need to do a lot more to actually decarbonize our economy.
Net zero by 2050 is certainly possible. What it is going to cost us depends on whether we do really sensible things or really stupid things. If we do really stupid things, like building nuclear power stations, it will cost us a lot more. If we do sensible things, like help people to insulate their houses, then it will cost a lot less. If we want to strip out gas boilers we can do that. If we do it stupidly, without helping people with the cost, then it will cost a lot. But we don’t necessarily have to strip out gas boilers, there are lots of options.
Heat pumps won’t cost ten thousand pounds, as the prime minister is saying. You can buy one now for five thousand pounds, and if we buy a lot of them then they will cost a lot less. As we have see with renewables if we buy a lot of them, the costs come down very fast. The cost of installing them is a question of how sensible government is policy is. Right now we have got a government that gets blown around by the winds from cabals within he conservative and chops and changes its mind all the time. That is going to cost a lot.
These are excerpts from an interview for LBC, the full interview can be heard here: