Is there any truth to Rishi Sunaks net zero attack on Labour? | 2024 general election

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have faced off for the last time in a televised debate, trading familiar blows on immigration and taxation. Sunak came armed with a new line of attack on the cost of Labour's net zero climate plans, but does it work?

What did Sunak say about the net zero target?

During the debate, Sunak said: We just found a recording [from] Work accepting that theirs [climate] the plans will cost hundreds of billions of pounds.

Recording of Labour's Darren Jones, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, at a public event in March 2024 was published by Daily Telegraph on the evening of the debate.

The article was published in newspapers first page the next morning and was taken by Times, Daily Mail, SUN, Daily Express and even Financial Times.

Joness comment that the UK would need to invest hundreds of billions to achieve net zero is not in dispute. However, the way it was characterized by Sunak was extremely misleading.

It is an example of scary sounding numbers that Sunak, along with other conservative newspapers and politicians, has used to mislead voters about the cost of net zero.

Will Labour's plans really cost hundreds of billions of pounds?

Sunaks statement is misleading on several levels.

While advisory governments Climate Change Committee (KKK) has evaluated Net investment needs of $321 billion for the UK to reach net zero by 2050, it was a Conservative government that set this target in law in 2019. Conservatory election manifesto continues to support the 2050 target.

As such, it was a bit rich for Sunak to describe the 2050 target as Labour's plan.

What climate costs and benefits did Sunak leave out?

Sunak then misled viewers by leaving out the broader economic benefits that would be delivered by taking action on climate change.

Although these benefits were not appreciated from KKK, a 2023 report for the industry group Energy UK found that an accelerated shift to net zero could boost the UK economy by £240 billion in 2050 over current trajectories. He said this accelerated change could boost GDP in every part of the country by 5.4-7.5% in 2050 compared to the UK's current path.

Equally important, Sunak also removed the costs of inaction on climate change, including the impacts of extremes more and more frequent and continued exposure THE unstable fossil fuel prices.

In 2021, while Sunak was chancellor, the Treasury published a REPORT concluding: Global costs [climate] inaction far outweighs the costs of action.

AND Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) END in 2023, continuing to rely on gas could be more than twice as costly to public finances as investing in net zero.

Sunak's Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has also used scary numbers to attack Labour's climate plans.

Earlier this week, she posted on Twitter Labour's clean energy target by 2030 will need an extra £116bn of investment. This characterization is false.

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Coutinho is relying on ANALYSIS BY Aurora Energy Researchwhich found that the Conservatives' clean energy target by 2035 would need investment of $105 billion over 2025-2035, compared with $116 billion over the same period to meet Labor's 2030 target. The additional investment is only 11 billion.

Additionally, Aurora found that household energy bills would be lower under the Labor objective.

What are the top three tactics used to cheat at net zero?

The net zero claims made by Sunak and Coutinho illustrate this neatly three main tactics used to mislead about the costs of climate action.

Specifically, these are: ignoring the costs of business as usual, highlighting the costs but ignoring the benefits, and ignoring the costs of inaction on climate change.

These tactics begin to break down when faced with a simple question posed by former US climate chief Todd Stern: Compared to what?

When climate-skeptic columnist Ross Clark wrote in SUN over the weekend: The ESO National Network estimated that decarbonising Britain's entire energy system would cost between 2.8tn and 3tn, it ignored the Sterns question, although a high-carbon energy system would not be free.

If he had asked the question, then Clark would have been forced to admit that a business-as-usual scenario that did not achieve net zero would generally incur the same costs, according to the National Grid ESO. The obvious conclusion from this analysis is exactly the opposite of what Clark implies.

So do Sunaks net zero claims stack up?

No. Sunak says he supports net zero by 2050, but implies that Labour's plans to get there alone would cost hundreds of billions if his path could be cost-free.

However, the evidence suggests that the UK investing hundreds of billions of pounds to achieve net zero would be money well spent. Compared to what? The wider economic benefits of taking action and the avoided cost of climate inaction.