Sir Keir Starmer to tell Cop30 summit that UK is ‘all in’ on net zero - "Ed Miliband, the Net Zero Secretary, has vowed to press on with his green agenda despite Treasury concerns that it could hamper growth... The Prime Minister will also challenge sceptics calling for a slowdown on climate action, telling the summit: “Can energy security wait too? “Can billpayers wait? Can we win the race for green jobs and investment by going slow? Of course not.”"
Doubling down is the only thing they can do. Time to blame "capitalism" again
Our net-zero crusade profits competitors - "Confidence in the future has been shattered and yet we continue to import gas from Norway which taps into adjacent fields. Norway has seen 30 new exploration wells drilled so far in 2025, with up to nine more expected before year end. Ministers continue to justify this patent insanity in the name of net zero, on the grounds that if we are not extracting the oil and gas ourselves we are somehow more virtuous than countries that are – even if we then burn it. The COP process is not just about climate change. It also seeks to extract money from advanced economies blamed for decades of carbon emissions to transfer to poorer nations to prevent natural depredation. As this newspaper has disclosed, UK taxpayers have forked out £136m to fund a complex scheme in the Brazilian state of Para under which carbon offsets are provided to compensate companies for the environmental harm they create. Billions of pounds have been allocated to programmes aimed at protecting and restoring nature and biodiversity yet the process is so opaque that it is impossible to see how any of this largesse is helping. Perhaps Sir Keir can enlighten us on his return from Brazil."
Questioning net zero cannot remain taboo - "Mr Topping said the alternative to moving to renewables like wind and solar was that we would still need to rely on volatile overseas carbon energy sources. But that would not be the case if we used the oil and gas under our own feet and yet the Government refuses to grant new exploration licences in new fields in the North Sea. We will need gas for the foreseeable future to back up renewables. Mr Topping wants to hear from politicians opposed to net zero to discover “what it is they don’t understand” suggesting he has already decided that they are misguided and wrong. But this is not an honest conversation because no-one is ever allowed to question the assumptions underlying the policies. Yet the story we carry today about how taxpayers are footing the bill for a £200m “greenwashing” aid finance scheme to help companies like Amazon achieve net zero is indicative of the problem. If there is to be an “honest” debate about net zero, as Mr Topping hopes, then the Government needs to be far more open about how our money is being spent in its pursuit."
The NHS is even wasting money on green dogma - "The pursuit of net zero and the perpetual inefficiency of the NHS constitute perhaps the two greatest money pits in British politics. It is unsurprising then that their confluence should appear to have resulted in spectacular waste."
Inside the NHS’s ‘insane’ £1.4bn push for net zero - "The NHS has spent £1.4bn of taxpayers’ money on net zero schemes without reducing its carbon footprint at all... The service has now unveiled a series of new schemes it claims will reduce emissions, including making its plates and bowls blue, hiring net zero managers, and reducing the 63 million pieces of paper it prints each year. Hundreds of millions of pounds will be spent on making the health service’s fleet of vehicles electric, while Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is ploughing more than a quarter of a billion pounds into installing solar panels at 260 NHS sites, as well as schools and military sites. This week, Sir Keir Starmer attended the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, flying more than 9,000 miles to “restore the UK as a global leader on climate action”. Meanwhile, the NHS backlog has risen three months in a row to 7.41 million, A&E leaders are prepared for the worst winter on record, and junior doctors will stage yet another five-day walkout this month, with other staff threatening to follow suit. Critics have questioned the priorities of NHS leaders and labelled some of the initiatives as “insane”... The pledge to become the first health service in the world to reach net zero was made while Boris Johnson was prime minister. Last month, he admitted he had gone “far too fast” on net zero and got “carried away”. Critics say the NHS is wasting money on green schemes when reducing the need for people to be in hospital would reduce carbon emissions in itself. Steve Barclay, the former Conservative health secretary, said the funding should be used to help patients first and foremost, rather than on “specific ideological preferences”... The NHS will roll out blue plates and bowls as part of a net zero drive to trick patients into eating more hospital food. One of the initiatives to reduce the amount of food the NHS wastes each year is “improving crockery”... the Conservatives’ cheap power plan “would cut the electricity bills of the public sector by 20 per cent instantly”. It is not clear whether the NHS plate studies accounted for variables as simple as different patients being fed or considering other colours, raising questions about the quality of results. The NHS has the power to bulk buy plates and other crockery, but even at costs estimated to be around 75p per plate, replacing them all would likely cost millions... The health service will also push ahead with a plan for most new vehicles to be electric by 2027, and all new ambulances to be electric by 2030. The latter alone is set to cost more than half a billion pounds, despite waning demand for electric vehicles in the face of high costs, poor charging infrastructure, and fears about the distance they can travel... A pilot at one trust found the ambulances took up to four hours to charge and travelled an average of 70 miles between charging, which would not be enough outside of major cities... “Rather than wasting £1.4bn on net zero policies that aren’t even lowering the NHS’s carbon footprint, they should focus on urgently improving local and community treatment – as Policy Exchange called for on the back of public polling,” he said. “This would help reduce carbon emissions associated with avoidable hospital visits and, more importantly, improve services for taxpayers at the same time.”"
Surge in rooftop blazes sparks concern over Miliband’s solar panel boom - "A surge in house fires caused by solar panels and their batteries is sparking safety concerns over Ed Miliband’s plan for millions more rooftop installations. UK fire services faced a blaze involving a solar panel once every two days in 2024, according to data gathered by insurance company QBE, marking a 60pc increase in the past two years... fires were rising faster than the rate of installations, suggesting a rise in the number of solar panels could not explain the increase in incidents alone."
The huge sums energy firms get to not provide power - "The electricity grid was built to deliver power generated by coal and gas plants near the country's major cities and towns, and doesn't always have sufficient capacity in the wires that carry electricity around the country to get the new renewable electricity generated way out in the wild seas and rural areas. And this has major consequences. The way the system currently works means a company like Ocean Winds gets what are effectively compensation payments if the system can't take the power its wind turbines are generating and it has to turn down its output. It means Ocean winds was paid £72,000 not to generate power from its wind farms in the Moray Firth during a half-hour period on 3 June because the system was overloaded - one of a number of occasions output was restricted that day. At the same time, 44 miles (70km) east of London, the Grain gas-fired power station on the Thames Estuary was paid £43,000 to provide more electricity. Payments like that happen virtually every day. Seagreen, Scotland's largest wind farm, was paid £65 million last year to restrict its output 71% of the time, according to analysis by Octopus Energy. Balancing the grid in this way has already cost the country more than £500 million this year alone, the company's analysis shows. The total could reach almost £8bn a year by 2030, warns the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), the body in charge of the electricity network. It's pushing up all our energy bills and calling into question the government's promise that net zero would end up delivering cheaper electricity. Now, the government is considering a radical solution: instead of one big, national electricity market, there'll be a number of smaller regional markets, with the government gambling that this could make the system more efficient and deliver cheaper bills. But in reality, it's not guaranteed that anyone will get cheaper bills. And even if some people do, many others elsewhere in the country could end up paying more... Reform UK has identified the policy as a major Achilles heel for the Labour government. "The next election will be fought on two issues, immigration and net stupid zero," says Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice. "And we are going to win." Poll after poll says cost of living is a much more important for most people, and people often specifically cite concerns about rising energy prices. Miliband sold his aggressive clean energy policies in part on cutting costs. He said that ensuring 95% of the country's electricity comes from low-carbon sources by 2030 would slash the average electricity bill by £300. But the potential for renewables to deliver lower costs just isn't coming through to consumers. Renewables now generate more than half the country's electricity, but because of the limits to how much electricity can be moved around the system, even on windy days some gas generation is almost always needed to top the system up. And because gas tends to be more expensive, it frequently sets the wholesale price... Glover says even a very small change in interest rates could have dramatic effects on how much renewable infrastructure is built and how much the power from it costs. "Those additional costs could quickly overwhelm any of the benefits of regional pricing," says Stephen Woodhouse, an economist with the consultancy firm AFRY, which has studied the impact of regional pricing for the power companies."
Time to blame "capitalism" or fossil fuels for unreliable power
Britain must spend £30bn to strip CO2 from atmosphere and hit net zero, experts warn - "System that would remove up to 48m tonnes of carbon a year is touted as ‘essential’"
James Melville 🚜 on X - "£30bn of our tax money pumped out on something that won’t make a blind bit of difference."
The best part is that it won't stop climate change hystericists from looking for new nonsense demands. They'll probably pivot to going on about historic emissions or even historic per capita emissions means the only moral thing to do is to be not just net zero, but net negative
Starmer bottled the sacking that would have made a real difference - "Here is a man who stabbed his brother in the front to become Labour leader, only to then lose the next election. He’s the genius who wrote his pledges on a gravestone and thought it a good idea to cosy up to Russell Brand to secure the Yoof vote. He once advocated a universal basic income of £10,000 per head. In a strange foreshadowing of Rayner’s property woes, Ed Miliband once faced accusations he avoided inheritance tax by using a deed of variation to his father’s will. And he imagines we can power a nation of nearly 70 million people on renewable energy that can completely disappear for days at a time. Since slipping into the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Red Ed has extended the North Sea windfall tax – despite clear evidence the original Tory version prompted investment to collapse – which in time will mean less supply and higher bills. Already, his promise these would be cut by £300 lies in tatters: in August Ofgem said “policy costs” imposed by the Energy Secretary have contributed to the price cap rising at double the rate forecast by industry analysts. He announced Labour would decarbonise the entire power grid by 2030, later rowing back to an equally implausible 95 per cent. It’s not just households that are suffering: Miliband is pressing ahead with an agenda that will finish off what little remains of our manufacturing base, and guarantee we lose strategic advantage to more clear-eyed nations. The fantasy Milibrain continues to peddle – that we can have security, affordability and net zero all at once, with known technologies – is detached from reality. No major economy has shown this to be possible. Yet here we are, building more wind farms, deluding ourselves that renewables can provide a constant, reliable source of energy – when the reality is that we need alternative power sources to fill intermittency gaps. This means we pay twice: first for the renewables, then for the back-up. Britain may have been the first to halve its carbon emissions since the 1970s – a fact about which the hectoring eco-lobby remain oddly quiet – yet no one is following. New Zealand recently, sensibly, watered down its own targets. The US is the world’s largest oil producer. China is belching out emissions at industrial scale while exporting the solar panels and electric cars we are guilt-tripped into buying. America has energy prices that are 60 per cent lower than ours. Nearly two years ago the OECD warned that the shift will leave our economy £60bn smaller. Not even this was enough to convince our leaders to change course. Worse still, as Matt Ridley has pointed out, Miliband has been an inverse Robin Hood: net zero surely amounts to the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. Lower-income families, the ones Labour purport to represent, are subsidising the eco-vanity of Britain’s middle classes. And the idea that the green economy will lead to a jobs boom ignores the redundancies in those sectors that can never ride the net-zero wave. Many new jobs are simply compliance, while thousands of existing ones are being lost. It’s no wonder the pledge to convert the UK to fossil-free power has been roundly attacked by the GMB Union, many of whose 500,000-plus members are in the oil and gas sector. Of course, their members will not be the only ones to flinch when the implications of net zero really begin to hit home. This mad project doesn’t just mean higher energy costs, but plastering our countryside and our roofs with baking trays, carving up our fields with pylons, and the prospect of paying more for electricity if you have the temerity to live in the South. The best that can be said is that, however dangerous Miliband may be, there’s always the possibility someone worse lurks on the Labour benches. A better communicator, perhaps, who is no less zealous than Miliband and will simply drive through the same agenda – when what’s really needed is an energy secretary who grasps why we must terminate this self-inflicted sabotage."
North Sea energy would help Reeves fill her black hole - "cutting domestic production of UK oil and gas simply raises imports. The UK has some of the strongest environmental protection in the world on its production, not just in terms of carbon dioxide emissions but also more widely. So when we import, we lose all control over production standards – and we incur additional carbon dioxide emissions as much of the oil and gas we use arrives by ship."
‘Eco-hypocrite’ Ed Miliband refuses to reveal how many domestic flights he takes - "Claire Coutinho, shadow energy secretary, said the refusal represented “one rule for him and another for everyone else” given that the Left-wing frontbencher has been a vociferous opponent of domestic air travel. Labour has also forced through significant increases to air passenger duty that have added hundreds of pounds to some family holidays... Mr Miliband, who is in charge of net zero policies, has previously said Britons should cut down on such flights “as much as we possibly can”. But he was embarrassed earlier this year when it emerged his department is spending more on internal flights under his watch than the Tories... Mr Miliband has previously suggested that the Government should encourage ordinary voters to take trains and buses rather than flying... Labour repeatedly criticised the Conservatives for taking flights and pledged before the election to clamp down on ministers’ use of jets. But since taking office, Mr Miliband has been heavily criticised for jet-setting, which has seen him spend 10 times more on foreign trips than Ms Coutinho. The Energy Secretary spent £62,712 on overseas travel in his first six months in office, according to Taxpayers’ Alliance analysis, In contrast, his Tory predecessor spent just £6,155 during her first half-year in the role."
Ed Miliband in hypocrisy row over gas boiler at his constituency home
Ed Miliband’s heat pump rollout costs taxpayers £700m a year - "Ed Miliband blew almost £700m of taxpayers’ cash on grants for heat pumps during his first year in office, new industry analysis reveals. The Energy Secretary has overseen a gargantuan increase in spending on support to install heat pumps, which has more than tripled in the space of just 24 months. Last year he spent more on pushing families to take up heat pumps than ministers will save by restricting the winter fuel payment for pensioners. Annual grants now also outstrip the projected income from the family farm tax, which Rachel Reeves has said is necessary to stabilise the economy. The grants are required because it costs on average just over £13,000 to install an air-source heat pump, compared to just £3,000 to put in a gas boiler. Critics accused the Energy Secretary of forcing up the bills of ordinary households to pay for the grants and achieve his net zero targets... Unlike gas boilers, heat pumps are exempt from VAT, an effective subsidy that cost the Exchequer an estimated £156m in uncollected tax last year. A senior energy industry source said “simply throwing more money” at heat pump subsidies was not the answer given the lack of public appetite for them. “Heat pumps have been subsidised by various governments for 14 years and the fundamental issue remains,” they told The Telegraph. “They are too expensive to fit and too costly to run compared to what UK households are used to, in most cases that’s a gas boiler. “If they were better than a boiler, heat pumps would be flying off the shelves without the need for these huge subsidies. “What stinks is that the vast majority of households are subsidising heat pumps through their taxes and their bills while not knowing how they can afford to pay for their own heating.” Mr Miliband is trying to railroad through a wholesale switch to heat pumps, which run on electricity, at the expense of other types of technology. In particular the Energy Secretary has been accused of trying to sideline hydrogen as a fuel source, even though it can be used to run more conventional boilers... The source said: “Industry has worked up options that can do this but the zealots running policy simply won’t engage as it does not fit their view of the world. “The irony is, if the taxpayer keeps being fleeced like this, these zealots will find themselves out of office and replaced by those who care little for the net zero agenda.”"
‘Not clear if heat pumps will save people money’, government adviser admits - "A meeting chaired by Professor Dame Angela McLean found it was “not currently clear” if heat pumps were cheaper to run than a traditional gas boiler... Heat pumps, which can cost up to £13,000 to install, are the backbone of the Government’s green agenda, despite concerns they can negatively impact a property’s EPC score, which can make mortgages more expensive... A separate government report published last week found that public acceptance of heat pumps has slumped this year... Mike Foster, of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, said: “Apart from the high initial cost of fitting a heat pump, consumers using a standard tariff face higher running bills than a gas boiler too. “It should not be a surprise to find that asking consumers to pay more for the same service, heating a home, is not a popular option. Something needs to change.”"
Time to ban gas boilers
The wind farm exposing Ed Miliband’s ‘dishonesty’ - "A British wind farm owned by France’s state energy company is being paid to throw away half the power it generates. The Dorenell onshore wind farm in Scotland, owned by EDF, had 50pc of its output “curtailed” in 2024 because the UK’s national grid was too congested to accept it. But the project was still paid for the electricity that wasn’t used, leading to revenues of nearly £68m in the year, newly published accounts show. Around £40m of this came from payments to constrain its output, according to separate disclosures made by EDF in a court dispute. The payments, which are ultimately funded by households and businesses, are an example of the grid balancing costs that were blamed this week for driving up domestic energy bills... Constraint payments occur because most of Britain’s wind farms are located in Scotland and often generate far more electricity than can be used locally. At the same time, the power network lacks capacity to store all the excess power or to transport it south, where most demand is located. This means grid operators often resort to curtailing the output of wind farms to keep the system balanced. Renewable subsidies also incentivise wind farms to try to export power even when supplies are already plentiful, because they are guaranteed a fixed price under the Government’s contracts for difference (CfD) scheme... the huge amount of curtailment meant Dorenell was effectively paid £227 per MWh for the electricity it actually supplied to the grid last year. This compares to an average price of £77 per MWh paid to gas-fired power plants during the same period, according to energy consultancy Ember. Mr Taylor said the figures underscored the “dishonesty” of claims by Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, and other politicians that renewables would cut consumer energy bills. He said: “I am not a net zero sceptic, but I do wish politicians would tell the truth about these issues. “If you believe energy security is important, and that we have a responsibility to cut our carbon emissions, then you can make a good argument for renewable energy. “But I don’t think it is right to say it will bring bills down and that is the dishonest part.”... Mr Miliband and other ministers have blamed persistently high energy bills on the price of gas, which they called the “fossil fuel penalty”... critics have also accused the Government of driving up electricity prices with green levies added to electricity bills. They have also warned that constraint payments to wind farms are ballooning and will place an increasing burden on households. By 2030, the National Energy System Operator (Neso), which manages the day-to-day operation of the grid, has predicted curtailment payments could reach nearly £4bn a year. If vital grid upgrades are not finished on time, that figure could surge further to £8bn."
Damn misinformation! Everyone knows that renewables are cheaper!
Time to blame "capitalism" for the need to prevent grid collapse
Ed Miliband’s net zero crusade is adding billions to Britons’ energy bills - "But if accelerating the drive to net zero meant more levies and higher bills, why did Labour and Ed Miliband target 2030 for decarbonising the grid? Prof Helm believes it was a deliberate political ploy. “What the Government has done, and it seems to me, to be a deliberate policy, is to try to use net zero as a wedge between Labour and the Conservatives and everybody else, apart from perhaps the Liberal Democrats,” he said. “It’s been deliberately designed to be divisive, to divide lines. That’s what the spin is all about. Well, that’s really bad news for investors and for the continuity of climate change policy in the UK. “Energy and climate policy is long-term. If you decide to set a new deadline of 2030 for net zero electricity because the Conservatives had 2035 as their target, then you have to pay whatever it costs to achieve that target.” If he is right, then the levies already buried in our bills are partly the product of short-term politicking rather than long-sighted investment policies. And it’s Britain’s consumers and businesses that will pay the price. The politicking has, however, worked up to a point. The Conservatives, only just out of a government that was firmly committed to net zero, have done a complete about-turn. Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Opposition, has pronounced that net zero is now unachievable by 2050 and insists that cheap energy must come first. Claire Coutinho, the former energy secretary, said: “We committed to no new green levies in the Conservative manifesto. The temptation for a Labour Government trying to hide the costs of net zero is to pile all the hidden costs on to people’s energy bills. “This is completely self-defeating, as it will just cripple British industry and slash household incomes. It’s the exact opposite of the £300 off bills that Ed Miliband promised voters at the general election. That’s why we’ve said that cheap energy must come first. And lots of it.” But what Miliband may not have expected when announcing his net zero plan less than a year ago was the rise of Reform. Nigel Farage and his deputy, Richard Tice, see energy prices and the rollout of pylons, cables, turbines and giant solar farms on England’s green shires as a key campaigning issue. Tice, energy spokesman for Reform, said its success in the recent county council elections stemmed from opposition to net zero, suggesting that Miliband may have badly miscalculated... Even so, Miliband has so far indicated he will stick with his green levies... Matthew Chadwick, at Cornwall Insight, says: “The current structure is now increasingly out of step with our net zero ambitions. “As we move to decarbonise the energy system, we’re asking people to switch to electricity, yet the current system means those who do so often face higher bills because they’re paying policy costs on both their heating and everyday electricity use. “This penalises those who don’t have access to the gas grid and discourages the uptake of low-carbon technologies like heat pumps and electric vehicles.” Constable, of REF, is more blunt: “The net zero undertaking is without doubt the single largest intervention in the British economy since the Second World War, and yet no one has even a glimmering of its total costs and opportunity costs. “We are flying blind.”"
