In the face of frenzied right-wing attacks, this government has successfully executed one of the most ambitious climate change projects in the world. It's time to give credit where it's due.
Continuing this progress relies on keeping Farage, Tice and his petrophile friends away from the levers of power. Part of this relies on demonstrating the benefits of a renewables based energy system to Joe Public. The average cost of generating electricity continues to fall, but while the price of buying electricity is tied to the price of gas, this isn’t going to happen. The benefits need to be shared with businesses and consumers by treating gas generation as a balancing cost outside the marginal cost pricing mechanism. Countries such as Spain manage to feed through the cost benefits into electricity pricing, and so should we. There are implications, though, which the government is no doubt nervous about. It probably implies an increase in standing charges in exchange for lowering of energy prices in the electricity market to benefit properly from which smart meters become essential. And the smart meter fiasco created by making retailers instead of the grid operators responsible for installing them is taking far too long to untangle. It should also mean a rebalancing of the environmental levies away from electricity and on to gas, which would increase domestic gas prices. But without that, Net Zero will continue to be branded as the culprit for the UK’s outlier electricity prices, and a particularly drag on business who are not protected by price caps. And that could lead to the loss of the entire project should a Reform government come to power. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
It’s interesting to read that climate change is the biggest technological, economic, and political issue of the 21st century when AI seems to be peeking its head around the corner and saying “you’re so passé“
Not to turn this into an AI discussion, but I think the intersection between green tech and AI’s frankly insane energy requirements is a real interesting one. I heard that ONE of Meta’s new data centres is 400x the size of the first Facebook one, and requires the power use of LONDON (yes, the whole damn city).
If we can’t provide that energy with renewables then I fear the AI beast undo all the progress that’s been made
It’s even more depressing that Tony Blair chooses to attack the most visionary part of Labour’s programme and also say they lack vision. With friends like these….
The pricing of electricity needs now to be based on these new green technologies, and not the price of gas. UK electricity is still more expensive than most European countries
No matter how you set the wholesale price you still have to pay the renewables strike price/subsidy and for all the grid upgrades, maintenance and backup poor for when intermittent renewables aren't available.
It's maddening that this stuff isn't promoted. In large part down to the right wing media I guess but 10% growth, higher wages, not London-centric....surely these are non partisan sources of pride!
Ed Miliband is doing a fabulous job; I just hope he's allowed to continue to do it
I find little enough to be proud of in this country these days so this gives me something to cheer for!
I think that it's important to talk about the consequences of not reducing carbon emissions and the risks that we run if the transition to renewables is not accelerated. After all, we've recently seen May record temperature beaten by 2 degrees! This is crazy for us here in the UK. Wet bulb temperatures have already been recorded in other parts of the world.
Another important initiative that's also worth commenting on is the relatively small group of countries who gathered at Santa Marta in Colombia who have bitten the bullet and agreed that Net Zero may not cut it any more and that what's really needed is the complete phaseout of fossil fuels. something that's always been off the table at the COPs.
As Greta Thunberg says in her Climate Book, when your bath is overflowing the first thing you do is turn the tap off, not run around looking for towels and mops.
The recent formal retirement of the IPCC's worse case scenario (RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5) should not be interpreted to mean that we're now in a good place. Recent reports on the AMOC
I am all for giving credit where credit is due, and it certainly is due in this case especially bearing mind the political alternatives available, one should also point out that there remains much to do as the recent ominous report from the UK's Climate Change Committee has indicated.
It’s good as far as it goes, but electricity generation is only 10% of total UK carbon emissions, and in reality the government is not doing anything like enough to achieve zero emissions ASAP.
We are solving one problem, and moving faster than any other developed nation and on track (amazingly). And all you can do is criticise that the plan isnt fast enough (and I agree we should move quicker if we can, and we have done the easier things first).
No wonder politicians dont focus on it. Your comments (as you know) are going to be used by right wing commentators as proof that what we are doing isnt worth it and should be abandoned.
You are shouting at your own side and not the people opposing the change.
You are promoting the interests of those who want to abandon this approach.
Merely phrasing your comments differently would avoid that and make the same point.
I’m an elected politician. I focus on achieving zero emissions ASAP locally, as a part of delivering a socially just and environmentally sustainable world.
Labour isn’t delivering the rapid, radical change we desperately need, and I’m working to replace them.
I thank you for your service to our country by standing for and being an elected representative. Of course this might have been relevant to your earlier comments, as it is, on the face of it, political point scoring. (Full disclosure - I am a candidate in the local elections myself, as I maybe should have said. Apologies - I am new to this).
Perfectly legitimate for you to strive to replace one political party with your own. I would just hope you could do that without giving ammunition to the parties who oppose the agenda entirely. We need to do better and faster (and my party would - and here is how) is a message that still meets your needs without sending the message that what is being done is insignificant and pointless.
Personally, I am interested in what you are doing in your area to achieve Net zero locally (obvs zero emissions is impossible in a world with breathing creatures in it), and how you are managing the inevitable tradeoffs.
Following the science is not "political point scoring" nor is it "giving ammunition to the parties who oppose the agenda entirely".
In 2019, the Labour administration in Southwark declared a Climate Emergency and set a target for the borough to achieve net zero by 2030. By 2026, they were so off track that they had no route to achieving that, having not even fundamentally addressed emissions they directly control.
As we only took over last week, we have only just started planning out an approach that will get the borough to zero emissions.
Is it the government that isn’t doing enough or is it us?
The electricity grid is something that the government has a lot of control over and it has done an excellent job of moving it from a fossil fuel powered system to one where the majority of power comes from low emissions sources.
A big chunk of the rest of UK emissions is down to us. The cars that we drive and the way we heat our homes. The government has been telling us for years what they want us to do and showering us with financial incentives to buy EV instead of ICE and to install heat pumps instead of replacing a gas boiler with another one. But most people seem stubbornly resistant.
While I do what I can personally, the Green analysis is that the key reasons that we have not seen much faster change are
- market externalities (i.e. prices do not reflect the true cost of climate change)
- inequality, as those most affected globally are both least responsible and least able to influence those countries that are most responsible
- lobbying, political donations and misinformation campaigns from fossil fuel companies (including the campaigns to make people believe it is their personal responsibility rather than needing systemic change).
More of this is required - full, fact-based analysis and reporting on what Net Zero means and what is being achieved at such pace. Proves that Britain CAN DO if the will is there, and the policies are solid. Labour has built effectively and ambitiously on what has already been done (some kudos to Tories pre 2024) and is now in expansion mode. Kudos for Ed and his team. Probably the single most important policy area in government today, and yet perhaps the least reported in the mainstream media. Surely the BBC can use what muscle it has left to present a few programmes on this, to ram home the truth: that Net Zero is vital to all of us.
Really well argued - the economic case for the transition is stronger than the political coverage suggests. One tension worth adding: the Iran war is doing double duty right now. It's accelerating the clean energy case exactly as Murray argues, but it's also the inflationary channel currently keeping gilt yields elevated. The fiscal cost of the transition will land on a balance sheet that's already under pressure from energy price pass-through. The long-term logic of this is sound but, the near-term sequencing will be the hard part.
Pleasing article about British Labour implementing a crucial component in its manifesto, so why can't the Party focus on selling this to the voters rather than indulging in the Starmer/Burnham psychodrama?
Nice to read positive UK news for once. I was particularly pleased to read this:
"The Future Homes Standard was confirmed, meaning almost all new homes will feature solar panels and heat pumps or district heating systems as standard."
This was one of the clearest recommendations of the 2019 Oxford City Citizens Assembly that I was involved in organising - but at the time the city could not act on it unilaterally. The main city councillor behind the Citizens Assembly is now a Labour MP.
Marvellous, marvellous, Ian. But we need some footnotes. Where, for example, can we find out about the new £115 billion water infrastructure upgrade programme, or the next clean power auction, moved forward to this summer?
Cameron etc al weren't completely helpful to renewable. They did crash the solar market in 2013/14 and the energy efficiency market. All onshore wind was developed under labour planning policy.
Good article and reminder that net zero is achievable and is the future, despite the plethora of obstacles thrown at policy makers, net zero and anything non fossil fueled (see US fossil fueled Tufton St).
Other writers including US/French Sam Matey-Coste eg. highlight how rapid transition is happening, but not being reported by RW MSM & ecosystem, hence most people are equivocal on renewable energy (ditto and related on immigration, yet stagnant population).
In fact as The Guardian and DeSmog reported recently, there has been a global fossil fuel PR campaign led by a global ad agency, but this merely adds to the 24/7/365 anti-net zero PR and dog whistling in RW MSM and public talking points.
How ironic that the fossil fuel 'free market' think tanks around Tufton, White House and the Anglosphere, are demanding to be catered to, by tax payers and state support versus fast transition to renewables, following the 'free market'?
One wonders what those fossil fuel donors to Trump are gaining, when like Putin, with help of Netanyahu, are pushing faster transition to renewables; don't think that was their intention?
Continuing this progress relies on keeping Farage, Tice and his petrophile friends away from the levers of power. Part of this relies on demonstrating the benefits of a renewables based energy system to Joe Public. The average cost of generating electricity continues to fall, but while the price of buying electricity is tied to the price of gas, this isn’t going to happen. The benefits need to be shared with businesses and consumers by treating gas generation as a balancing cost outside the marginal cost pricing mechanism. Countries such as Spain manage to feed through the cost benefits into electricity pricing, and so should we. There are implications, though, which the government is no doubt nervous about. It probably implies an increase in standing charges in exchange for lowering of energy prices in the electricity market to benefit properly from which smart meters become essential. And the smart meter fiasco created by making retailers instead of the grid operators responsible for installing them is taking far too long to untangle. It should also mean a rebalancing of the environmental levies away from electricity and on to gas, which would increase domestic gas prices. But without that, Net Zero will continue to be branded as the culprit for the UK’s outlier electricity prices, and a particularly drag on business who are not protected by price caps. And that could lead to the loss of the entire project should a Reform government come to power. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
It’s interesting to read that climate change is the biggest technological, economic, and political issue of the 21st century when AI seems to be peeking its head around the corner and saying “you’re so passé“
Not to turn this into an AI discussion, but I think the intersection between green tech and AI’s frankly insane energy requirements is a real interesting one. I heard that ONE of Meta’s new data centres is 400x the size of the first Facebook one, and requires the power use of LONDON (yes, the whole damn city).
If we can’t provide that energy with renewables then I fear the AI beast undo all the progress that’s been made
What about this whopper?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/13/utah-approves-datacenter-backlash
The building of so many data centres has become a cause celebre in many US states and may influence the outcome of the next general election there.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/liberals-conservatives-data-centers.html
It’s even more depressing that Tony Blair chooses to attack the most visionary part of Labour’s programme and also say they lack vision. With friends like these….
Just like it’s depressing Andy Burnham is standing in a by election the consequences of which threaten to let Farage in by the back door
So true.
The pricing of electricity needs now to be based on these new green technologies, and not the price of gas. UK electricity is still more expensive than most European countries
No matter how you set the wholesale price you still have to pay the renewables strike price/subsidy and for all the grid upgrades, maintenance and backup poor for when intermittent renewables aren't available.
It's maddening that this stuff isn't promoted. In large part down to the right wing media I guess but 10% growth, higher wages, not London-centric....surely these are non partisan sources of pride!
Ed Miliband is doing a fabulous job; I just hope he's allowed to continue to do it
I find little enough to be proud of in this country these days so this gives me something to cheer for!
I think that it's important to talk about the consequences of not reducing carbon emissions and the risks that we run if the transition to renewables is not accelerated. After all, we've recently seen May record temperature beaten by 2 degrees! This is crazy for us here in the UK. Wet bulb temperatures have already been recorded in other parts of the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/08/extreme-weather-heatwaves-breaching-human-survival-limits-study-finds
Another important initiative that's also worth commenting on is the relatively small group of countries who gathered at Santa Marta in Colombia who have bitten the bullet and agreed that Net Zero may not cut it any more and that what's really needed is the complete phaseout of fossil fuels. something that's always been off the table at the COPs.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/30/colombia-climate-talks-end-fossil-fuel-phaseout
As Greta Thunberg says in her Climate Book, when your bath is overflowing the first thing you do is turn the tap off, not run around looking for towels and mops.
The recent formal retirement of the IPCC's worse case scenario (RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5) should not be interpreted to mean that we're now in a good place. Recent reports on the AMOC
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/critical-atlantic-current-significantly-more-likely-to-collapse-than-thought
and the Antarctic ice sheet
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/17/climate-antarctica-ice-sheets-glaciers-melting-research-affect-sea-levels
suggest that this is far from the case.
I am all for giving credit where credit is due, and it certainly is due in this case especially bearing mind the political alternatives available, one should also point out that there remains much to do as the recent ominous report from the UK's Climate Change Committee has indicated.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/20/uk-built-for-climate-that-no-longer-exists-and-needs-urgent-changes-to-survive-global-heating-report-warns
Being up shit creek with a paddle is not a huge improvement in one's situation unless you use the paddle.
It’s good as far as it goes, but electricity generation is only 10% of total UK carbon emissions, and in reality the government is not doing anything like enough to achieve zero emissions ASAP.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/provisional-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-statistics-2025/2025-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-provisional-figures-statistical-release
And this is why we cant have nice things...
We are solving one problem, and moving faster than any other developed nation and on track (amazingly). And all you can do is criticise that the plan isnt fast enough (and I agree we should move quicker if we can, and we have done the easier things first).
No wonder politicians dont focus on it. Your comments (as you know) are going to be used by right wing commentators as proof that what we are doing isnt worth it and should be abandoned.
You are shouting at your own side and not the people opposing the change.
You are promoting the interests of those who want to abandon this approach.
Merely phrasing your comments differently would avoid that and make the same point.
I’m an elected politician. I focus on achieving zero emissions ASAP locally, as a part of delivering a socially just and environmentally sustainable world.
Labour isn’t delivering the rapid, radical change we desperately need, and I’m working to replace them.
I thank you for your service to our country by standing for and being an elected representative. Of course this might have been relevant to your earlier comments, as it is, on the face of it, political point scoring. (Full disclosure - I am a candidate in the local elections myself, as I maybe should have said. Apologies - I am new to this).
Perfectly legitimate for you to strive to replace one political party with your own. I would just hope you could do that without giving ammunition to the parties who oppose the agenda entirely. We need to do better and faster (and my party would - and here is how) is a message that still meets your needs without sending the message that what is being done is insignificant and pointless.
Personally, I am interested in what you are doing in your area to achieve Net zero locally (obvs zero emissions is impossible in a world with breathing creatures in it), and how you are managing the inevitable tradeoffs.
Following the science is not "political point scoring" nor is it "giving ammunition to the parties who oppose the agenda entirely".
In 2019, the Labour administration in Southwark declared a Climate Emergency and set a target for the borough to achieve net zero by 2030. By 2026, they were so off track that they had no route to achieving that, having not even fundamentally addressed emissions they directly control.
As we only took over last week, we have only just started planning out an approach that will get the borough to zero emissions.
Then shout louder!!
Is it the government that isn’t doing enough or is it us?
The electricity grid is something that the government has a lot of control over and it has done an excellent job of moving it from a fossil fuel powered system to one where the majority of power comes from low emissions sources.
A big chunk of the rest of UK emissions is down to us. The cars that we drive and the way we heat our homes. The government has been telling us for years what they want us to do and showering us with financial incentives to buy EV instead of ICE and to install heat pumps instead of replacing a gas boiler with another one. But most people seem stubbornly resistant.
While I do what I can personally, the Green analysis is that the key reasons that we have not seen much faster change are
- market externalities (i.e. prices do not reflect the true cost of climate change)
- inequality, as those most affected globally are both least responsible and least able to influence those countries that are most responsible
- lobbying, political donations and misinformation campaigns from fossil fuel companies (including the campaigns to make people believe it is their personal responsibility rather than needing systemic change).
More of this is required - full, fact-based analysis and reporting on what Net Zero means and what is being achieved at such pace. Proves that Britain CAN DO if the will is there, and the policies are solid. Labour has built effectively and ambitiously on what has already been done (some kudos to Tories pre 2024) and is now in expansion mode. Kudos for Ed and his team. Probably the single most important policy area in government today, and yet perhaps the least reported in the mainstream media. Surely the BBC can use what muscle it has left to present a few programmes on this, to ram home the truth: that Net Zero is vital to all of us.
It’s not reported by MSM because it’s substance, not tittle tattle, which is what BBC in particular specialises in
Really well argued - the economic case for the transition is stronger than the political coverage suggests. One tension worth adding: the Iran war is doing double duty right now. It's accelerating the clean energy case exactly as Murray argues, but it's also the inflationary channel currently keeping gilt yields elevated. The fiscal cost of the transition will land on a balance sheet that's already under pressure from energy price pass-through. The long-term logic of this is sound but, the near-term sequencing will be the hard part.
This needed saying, as does so much of what you write. Thank you!
Pleasing article about British Labour implementing a crucial component in its manifesto, so why can't the Party focus on selling this to the voters rather than indulging in the Starmer/Burnham psychodrama?
Nice to read positive UK news for once. I was particularly pleased to read this:
"The Future Homes Standard was confirmed, meaning almost all new homes will feature solar panels and heat pumps or district heating systems as standard."
This was one of the clearest recommendations of the 2019 Oxford City Citizens Assembly that I was involved in organising - but at the time the city could not act on it unilaterally. The main city councillor behind the Citizens Assembly is now a Labour MP.
Marvellous, marvellous, Ian. But we need some footnotes. Where, for example, can we find out about the new £115 billion water infrastructure upgrade programme, or the next clean power auction, moved forward to this summer?
Cameron etc al weren't completely helpful to renewable. They did crash the solar market in 2013/14 and the energy efficiency market. All onshore wind was developed under labour planning policy.
A heartening and informative tale. Thanks.
Good article and reminder that net zero is achievable and is the future, despite the plethora of obstacles thrown at policy makers, net zero and anything non fossil fueled (see US fossil fueled Tufton St).
Other writers including US/French Sam Matey-Coste eg. highlight how rapid transition is happening, but not being reported by RW MSM & ecosystem, hence most people are equivocal on renewable energy (ditto and related on immigration, yet stagnant population).
In fact as The Guardian and DeSmog reported recently, there has been a global fossil fuel PR campaign led by a global ad agency, but this merely adds to the 24/7/365 anti-net zero PR and dog whistling in RW MSM and public talking points.
How ironic that the fossil fuel 'free market' think tanks around Tufton, White House and the Anglosphere, are demanding to be catered to, by tax payers and state support versus fast transition to renewables, following the 'free market'?
One wonders what those fossil fuel donors to Trump are gaining, when like Putin, with help of Netanyahu, are pushing faster transition to renewables; don't think that was their intention?
Short term profits!!!