Net Zero Watch ridicules ‘fantasy’ Carbon Budget

Net Zero Watch has ridiculed the Seventh Carbon Budget, which was published today, saying that ‘it doesn’t rise much above the level of fantasy’. The campaigning organisation says that the spending estimates are unaffordable, and are lowballed, because they are based on figures that bear no resemblance to anything seen in the real world.

The Climate Change Committee, which prepares the budget, says that capital expenditure on Net Zero projects will have to rise from around £18 billion today to over £40 billion by 2029, a level of expenditure that will then have to be sustained for a decade.

Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford says this is unaffordable:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is already running out of spending headroom. For the Climate Change Committee to commit the country by law to a financial excess on this scale shows that the whole Net Zero project is not grounded in reality.

And Mr Montford has discovered that even these figures are gross underestimates, because the Climate Change Committee is assuming dramatic reductions in the cost of renewable energy, despite the fact that the ongoing trend is upwards.

Andrew Montford said:

The Climate Change Committee are telling us that Net Zero is going to save us money, but it’s clear that they have simply invented numbers that will lead to that conclusion. This report is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Notes for editors

1. Real-world estimates of the cost of offshore wind (levelised costs) have been prepared by Net Zero Watch from audited financial accounts of windfarms.

2. Strike prices may be slightly lower than levelised costs because they are index linked and because windfarms can earn prices above their strike prices in various ways.

3. Ed Miliband is currently consulting on the possibility of extending windfarm subsidies to 20 years (from the current 15 years). This comes after the introduction of extra subsidies for windfarms in the shape of the Clean Industry Bonus scheme. These two factors are further indications that windfarm costs are rising, not falling.