Net Zero Assault - Don’t Ignore It

It began as a demand from former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage on his Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) show. A demand for another referendum. On Net Zero. But now we can see that Mr Thirsty is not alone, and that the increasingly wayward Mail on Sunday is marching in lockstep with him.

Not only that, but the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph has joined the nascent bandwagon, accompanied by the increasingly alt-right Spectator. GB News claims to have an “expert” who has concluded that Net Zero is “not politically feasible”. As with that other referendum - the Brexit one - we have the spectacle of rich pundits, and a succession of variously useful idiots, trying to tell the less well-off how to think.

This gaslighting has come to the attention of The Guardian’s John Harris, who has observed “Something is happening, we all know what it is”. He is clearly concerned at the campaign; Torsten Bell is not. “Trying to turn the crisis in Ukraine into an internal UK debate on Net Zero is 1) bonkers on the substance 2) mad politics for any party aiming for more than about 5% of the vote”. Harris was not sufficiently persuaded.

“Is that it though? It will scare Johnson enough to abandon/fatally dilute it. In fact that's happening already”. Bell was unmoved. “Not mad for those who are anti-net zero to try and scare Johnson into diluting progress, but mad for any major party to significantly change tack on the issue. I really don't think the govt will do more than showing a bit of leg to placate the vocal minority”. He may be right, given the lameness of the campaign.

Here’s the latest attempt by the MoS to light that gas: “British shale firm could extract natural gas to heat 125,000 homes this year if ministers lift ban on fracking … A British energy explorer believes it can heat homes in Britain with natural gas … IGas said it could prepare an application to extract shale gas in Nottinghamshire … The company has said it could be used to heat up to 125,000 homes in the UK”. All very conditional.

“Could extract … believes it can heat homes [especially lame] … could prepare an application … could be used to heat”. But do go on. “[iGas] had been developing a shale site at Springs Road in Misson near Doncaster before the 2019 moratorium … It is estimated that if the site were fully developed, it could create ten wells that would produce between 60 billion and 80 billion cubic feet of shale gas”. Ah, but then comes reality.

“Planning permission for the site ran out in 2020 and an application to extend it was refused. IGas plans to close the site formally at the end of the year”. Add this to Cuadrilla beginning the decommissioning process for its two test wells in Lancashire, the lack of real action from alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, and the result?

The result is that all that has been achieved is a lot of hot air from Farage and his pals at GB News, and a few articles in the Sun and MoS. And the advocacy of the usual right-leaning backbench Tory MP subjects. Right now, as Jennie King has pointed out (thread HERE), despite the pundits’ exhortations, there is little actual public interest.

Yet the pockets of climate change denial run deep, and the queue of willing propagandists grows ever longer. It’s not a serious problem yet. But you can see it from there.

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