Earlier this week, the European Union abandoned plans to reduce nitrogen, methane, and other emissions, along with schemes to cut pesticide use in half and public demands that Europeans eat less meat.
Now, Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition British Labour Party, is dropping his party’s 2021 plan to spend £28 million ($35 billion) on making Britain’s national electric grid carbon-free should he win elections this year.
Starmer claimed the move was necessary due to economic uncertainty caused by the ruling Conservative government. I guess that’s more PR savvy than saying the quiet part out loud: Labour does not want to endanger its odds of winning the next election.
But in reality, the consensus behind net zero is fracturing amid the evidence that it could ruin entire economies.
“One by one they crumble,” says British columnist Ross Clark in the Daily Telegraph. “The Net Zero targets that were dreamed up without any regard to their cost and practicality. The latest to go in the U.K. is the ‘boiler tax’, hot on the heels of the delay on the ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035. Over the next few years we are going to see many more of these targets having to be relaxed, delayed or abandoned.”