Dear Editor,

The article by Jayne Kirkham, my local MP, in talking about climate change policies concludes that 'we cannot afford any more delay' in ramping up ‘climate investment’. By this one has to assume that she means plastering the country in yet more (foreign produced) ugly wind turbines and solar farms - something which Cornwall seems to have suffered from much more than many areas of the country.

These Net Zero policies, which are ruling (and undermining) the UKs economy, originate from the Brown Government in 2009, but were of course signed up to as legally binding by the May Government in 2019 . This was done with virtually no Parliamentary debate, and no backing financial (or environmental) strategic appraisal of the implications.

I think there is a lot of truth in the axiom ‘the Best is the enemy of the Good’, and sadly over history, UK governments normally always go for the ‘best’ (think HS2!) In the case of ‘Net Zero’ policies have it seems to me been led by ‘virtue signalling’ politics, then spurred on by eco zealots like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.

At one time I tended to think that these policies were just too ambitious, too fast and too much designed to sound good. But what if pursuing the current policies is totally wrong ie ending up with the world’s highest electricity prices, destroying our industry and investment , and risking simply adding to the world's global emissions by importing nearly everything we use mainly from the other side of the world- and from countries which aren't crippling themselves by adhering to net zero by 2050.

I am sure that Ms Kirkham, like her Labour leaders, re-assure themselves that anyone who fears the country’s economy (and its environment) are being wrecked, can be branded 'climate change deniers' and written off. But what about very significant critics like Oxford's Professor Dieter Helm (a longstanding climate change believer) who, whilst very worried the impact of climate change, believes the UK’s policies are all wrong. His YouTube Video 'The Net Zero lie' articulates the malign impacts  of very high energy prices and  high unreliability. Instead he suggests  that a radically more rational strategic choice would be to identify or load every import with its associated 'carbon costs', and provide every encouragement to UK -based industrial and food production to ensure that home production came first. This whilst perhaps increasing the one per cent carbon emissions that UK Governments currently claim credit for, would actually help reduce global emissions (ie the one per cent UK figure always used does of course exclude all the global emission costs of goods and food produced abroad and shipped or flown here).

One of Dieter Helm's most recent papers has made the point that to make a difference re climate change, policies need to be practical, affordable and effective - and he believes that the UK fails on all three counts. No other country thinks that relying on wind and solar power plus a bit of nuclear is going to power a 'modern’ economy.

At a strategic level he makes a significant point that across Europe 80 per cent of total energy used comes from fossil fuel sources, and 70 per cent in the UK . That due to the intermittency of renewable supply, this situation will inevitably continue for a long time. Also, the logic of Net Zero plans fail because this intermittency places a huge cost load on system infrastructure.  In the dash to renewables UK governments have lost the security of fixed prices from home-based fossil sources, and the very high prices of electricity we have ended up with not only crucify the country and its industry now, but are completely at odds with the very high electricity demands of future electricity-based 'industries' (e.g. gigantic data centres), The policies therefore actively discourage inward investment in the UK.

Obviously we all have to worry re the prospect of an increasingly impoverished country, but I am equally depressed by the degradation of our precious inheritance of the UK's landscape and environment, currently being defiled because of Net Zero policies.

Yours faithfully,

Brian Hooper, via email