Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won't Even Save the Planet)

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This is a situation we have sleep-walked into. It was Theresa May who, on her way out of the door as prime minister in 2019, planted the very large bomb that was the Climate Change Act (2050 Target Amendment). Coming amid the drama and chaos of Brexit, it was hardly noticed by the British public. Yet it had far greater implications and potentially far more disruptive power.

Net zero. It sounded a noble objective, making Britain the first major economy in the world to give a legally binding commitment to eliminate greenhouse emissions. But what did it really mean, what was it going to cost, and did any of the MPs who idly nodded it through understand the implications? Clark arguedthat politicians are “pathetically in thrall” to Extinction Rebellion and expressed his frustration that the group and its demands have been “indulged”. He also wrote that if MPs were to follow the demands of the protest group, they would “ruin the economy while simply exporting Britain’s carbon emissions to countries which have not burdened themselves with legally-binding targets”. 69 Ross Clark. “ Why are our MPs so pathetically in thrall to Extinction Rebellion?” Spectator, June 20, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.He has also cast doubt on the link between climate change and extreme weather events and saidthe public should hear more about the “beneficial side of climate change”. 7 Ross Clark. “ Why don’t we hear about the beneficial side of climate change?” Spectator, November 28, 2014. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Clark claimedthat the then hottest July day on recordregistered at Heathrow was deliberately obtained at an international airport, where there are “huge concrete aprons and planes spewing out large quantities of hot air” giving airports their own “microclimate”. 83 Ross Clark. “ Yes, this is England’s hottest July day ever. But this tells us nothing about global warming,” Spectator, July 1, 2015. Archived April 4, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. 84 “ Hottest July day ever recorded in UK,” BBC News, July 1, 2015. Archived April 4, 2020. Archive URL: http://archive.fo/iAXN8 He concluded the article by suggesting that blaming oil and gas companies for climate change is an attempt to “palm off responsibility”: 27 Ross Clark. “ Don’t blame oil and coal companies for climate change,” Spectator, October 10, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Our Boeing 777 isn’t going to be taking off – indeed, it won’t even get on to the runway. It will have collapsed at the airport stand. This was later resharedby the Global Warming Policy Foundation. 86 Ross Clark. “ Why don’t we hear about the beneficial side of Climate Change?” Global Warming Policy Foundation, November 29, 2014. Archived April 4, 2020. Archive URL: http://archive.fo/eRwDl

He wrote: “Homeowners face being thrown to the wolves to meet these ill-thought-out targets — spending hard-earned savings on refurbishments that may or may not cut carbon emissions,” adding: “Indeed, the only certainty is these new rules will make a lot of Britain’s homeowners much poorer.” Clark wrote an article for The Telegraph criticising the Climate Change Committee ( CCC)’s advice to the government to ban gas boilers by 2033, referring to it as “yet another pointless eco-catastrophe.” 51 Ross Clark. “ A ban on gas boilers would be yet another pointless eco catastrophe,” The Telegraph, December 9, 2020. Archived December 14, 2020. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/ SXHl1 Clark added: In an article for The Spectator titled “What BP’s soaring profits tell us about our dependence on oil”, Clark criticised former Bank of England governor Mark Carney’s prediction that “once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late”. 36 Ross Clark. “ What BP’s soaring profits tell us about our dependence on oil”, The Spectator, November 1, 2022. Archived November 1, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/SKClx

Describing such claims as “hysteria” and “scaremongering,” Clark wrote: “much of the claims about us succumbing to ever wilder and more extreme weather is just hyperbole – lazy and contradictory assertion fed by our failure to remember that the weather always has been and always will be prettyextreme.”

Climate change is a world that has come to be controlled by activists and campaigners who claim to be on the side of science and reason but who are really spinning narratives which suit ulterior motives […] We have somehow developed an atmosphere in which anyone who expresses scepticism is denounced as a ‘denier’, yet baseless narratives of doom are promoted as fact. To have succeeded in creating this atmosphere is an astonishing achievement on the part of climate activists. Their manipulation of public emotion is truly remarkable.” He argued that efforts to decarbonise the economy had contributed to such events, stating: “We invest in more and more intermittent forms of energy such as wind and solar while the provision of energy storage lags well behind, resulting in several close shaves recently as the wind dropped and the sun went down.” Clark has been strongly critical of climate activist Greta Thunberg, calling hera “well-crafted piece of PR”, 4 Ross Clark. “ The trouble with Greta Thunberg,” Spectator, April 23, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. and the activist group Extinction Rebellion, which he has describedas a “wannabe Marxist revolution in disguise”. 5 Ross Clark. “ Extinction Rebellion is a wannabe Marxist revolution in disguise,” Spectator, November 21, 2018. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. He has describeda David Attenborough documentary on climate change as “propaganda”. 6 Ross Clark. “ What David Attenborough’s climate change show didn’t tell you,” Spectator, April 20, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Network Rail even promoted the six million trees that line railways in Britain as having a role in ‘much-needed carbon capture’. But details like this contravene the accepted narrative, and so they get lost in the hyperbole and the hysteria about the world heating up.

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It is little wonder that terrified kids are skipping school to protest against climate change. Never mind climate change denial, a worse problem is the constant exaggeration of the subject. I had thought David Attenborough would be above resorting to the subtle propaganda which others have been propagating, linking every adverse weather event to climate change. But apparently not.” Ross Clark argues that it is a terrible mistake, an impractical hostage to fortune which will have massive downsides. Achieving the target is predicated on the rapid development of technologies that are either non-existent, highly speculative or untested. Clark shows that efforts to achieve the target will inevitably result in a huge hit to living standards, which will clobber the poorest hardest, and gift a massive geopolitical advantage to hostile superpowers such as China and Russia. The unrealistic and rigid timetable it imposes could also result in our committing to technologies which turn out to be ineffective, all while distracting ourselves from the far more important objective of adaptation. The article concludedthat, “we are still a long way from efficient CCS, but there is nothing to say that it can’t outflank technologies such as hydrogen and battery storage, to become a large part of a transition to zero carbon. So, no, it is not a foregone conclusion that oil companies will be brought down and their assets stranded – even if Greenpeace would very much like them tobe.” Clark was born in Worcester and brought up in East Kent, where he attended the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys. He studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. [4] Career [ edit ]