Judging by the headlines, Sir Keir Starmer’s predecessor has gone for the jugular.
“Net zero is doomed to fail, warns Tony Blair,” wrote The Times; “Blair blows hole in Labour’s net zero plans,” said The Independent; “Net zero is doomed, Blair tells Starmer,” cheered The Daily Telegraph.
Clearly a direct attack on one of Sir Keir’s central missions for government, and on the eve of local elections, no less.
Yet at the despatch box later – “in full head teacher mode,” according to our politics team – Mr Starmer scolded the house.
“If you look at the details of what Tony Blair said, he’s absolutely aligned with what we’re doing here.”
Just the sort of thing a wounded prime minister might say after being so publicly skewered.
Being the good pupil that I am, I’d read what Tony Blair actually wrote, and Sir Keir kind of has a point.
Nowhere in his so-called “attack” does Blair directly criticise UK policy.
His foreword, and the report itself, are focused instead on the wider, global contradiction around net zero. Namely, how, despite all the climate summits, the expansion of renewable energy and roll-out of electric cars, fossil fuel consumption is still going up.
The paradox identified in the report – and plain to many of us who’ve been following net zero for a while – is that just as the world finally accepts the danger of climate change, there’s growing resistance to do anything about it.
The problem, rightly identified by the report, isn’t with the net zero goal – but the narrative.
To net zero sceptics, the goal is a virtue-signalling act of national self-harm that will hobble the UK while the rest of the world pollutes its way to economic superiority.
To net zero adherents, including many in government, it means an opportunity to replace fossil fuels with something better that will also secure our economic future.
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Following the headlines this morning, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) put out a clarification.
It stated its report was clear in its support for the government’s 2050 net zero targets and that by supporting technologies to replace fossil fuels, the government’s approach “is the right one”.
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Today’s media reaction to the report effectively proves how correct its analysis is.
The policy details around replacing fossil fuels with cheaper and cleaner alternatives don’t sell papers or win votes.
Nor does persuading people that eating slightly less meat might be better for them too, not just animals and the planet.
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But presenting net zero as a morally-charged culture war – a binary choice between fossil-fuelled doom or solar-powered salvation – does.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem.
