Last week, we hosted a roundtable with Bill Esterson MP—Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee—alongside some of the leading players in the UK energy sector, from power generators and distributors to unions, renewables, and retrofitters.
The commitment and ambition in the room were clear.
But so were the challenges.
Across every sector, major and often competing obstacles make achieving our 2050 Net Zero targets feel daunting—let alone meeting the Government’s ambition for a fully clean power system by 2030.
So how do we get there?
The Government’s answer lies in its ‘missions’—the idea that multiple actors can be united behind a single, overarching, and inspiring goal. In this case, its mission is to ‘Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower.’
Political leadership is crucial for giving businesses and investors the confidence to make long-term decisions. But political power is granted by the people, and while Labour secured a landslide victory just seven months ago, the political battle over Net Zero is far from settled.
What does ‘being a clean energy superpower’ mean to the average person on the street? They might like the word ‘superpower,’ but it’s hardly going to get them out on the barricades.
At the same time, the hard-won consensus on Net Zero looks increasingly fragile. The return of Donald Trump in the US, with his ‘drill, baby, drill’ mantra, has already led to the immediate suspension of subsidies for renewables and EVs, casting a long shadow over the global climate movement.
In the UK, Reform continues to surge in the polls. A recent YouGov voting intention poll (to be taken with a large pinch of salt, given we are four years out from the next election) even placed them ahead of Labour as the largest party for the first time. Reform’s platform includes scrapping all Net Zero targets, removing renewables subsidies, and repealing the 2008 Climate Change Act.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives—still finding their footing after their crushing defeat in July—have yet to define their position. However, Kemi Badenoch has previously expressed scepticism about Net Zero, arguing that past Conservative governments adopted targets without credible plans to achieve them.
The populist argument is simple: Net Zero costs money, and scrapping it will lower household bills. As with all populism, there is a kernel of truth—UK energy bills are high. In fact, they are the fourth highest in Europe, according to research by the House of Commons Library.
But these high prices aren’t driven by the costs of Net Zero. As is so often the case, the truth is more complicated—and, admittedly, more boring.
Rather than bore you with marginal pricing (in short: it’s mostly gas’s fault) and network charges (you can read about that here), let’s set out four simple truths that should frame how we think about Net Zero in the UK:
- Despite what charlatans (political and otherwise) will tell you for easy sound bites, 97% of scientists believe that climate change is real, and we are heading for a global catastrophe
- Renewable energy is already the cheapest form of electricity in the UK and our best bet to lowering bills
- The green economy is forecast to grow to 5% of the world’s economy by 2050, worth more than $10 trillion
- The UK’s energy security is ranked behind countries like Latvia, Hungary and the Czech Republic by the World Energy Council
With this in mind, it would be madness for the UK not to pursue the Net Zero agenda. But if we want to succeed, we must give people confidence that this is the right path.
That means winning the communications battle—not just about the science, but about the economic opportunities for the country and what it means for ordinary people: better jobs, lower bills, and national security.
People don’t care how the grid works. They care about their monthly bills. They care about job prospects and whether their children will grow up in an economy that creates opportunities. They care about the UK being safe and protected from threats posed by Russia and other hostile states.
Much like the communications failure around HS2—where the focus was on train speeds rather than improved connectivity and capacity—we risk making the same mistake with Net Zero. Yes, the climate emergency may have been its origin story, but it is not the future. The future is about maintaining the UK’s position as a country that punches above its weight economically and on the global stage, creating opportunity, and ensuring strong public services.
Getting that message across won’t be easy. It will take consistent, relentless communication from all of us who know that while the path ahead is difficult, it is also essential and unavoidable.
That is our mission.Find out more about our work on net zero
