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Net Zero by 2050 Is 'Impossible,' UK Tory Leader Badenoch Says
- bamboozled 2y agoIf we give up we're wrecked, should still aim for it.
- glitchc 2y agoProve it. What you are asking for is certain economic ruin at the expense of a nebulous climate goal. Can you guarantee that humans will be better off? Because I can guarantee setious, perhaps permanent, economic hardship in trying.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThe UK has a Carbon Budget that goes into this in detail and just released their 7th budget. https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/the-seventh-carbon-budget/ https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/the-seventh-carbon-bud... > We estimate that the net costs of Net Zero will be around 0.2% of UK GDP per year on average in our pathway, with investment upfront leading to net savings during the Seventh Carbon Budget period. Much of this investment is expected to come from the private sector.
- pfdietz 2y agoYou should look at the Permian-Triassic mass extinction to see the effect of prolonged unrestricted CO2 emission. The equatorial ocean was so hot no vertebrate life could exist there.
- wtcactus 2y agoI’m pretty sure UK contribution to the CO2 emissions is negligible. Europe should aim for net Zero as soon as China also gets there.
- pfdietz 2y agoWell you stopped claiming the goal was "nebulous", at least. UK emission is about 1% of global emissions. China is rapidly expanding its renewable capacity, much faster even than they are expanding nuclear.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoChina has a Net Zero goal since 2020 targetting 2060 with an interim target of peaking emissions by 2030 but they'll probably hit them early given their recent momentum. They are supposed to be releasing new NDC targets about now as well.
- pfdietz 2y agoNet Zero includes CO2 being absorbed by the oceans, right? This means in the longer term CO2 emission has to drop even lower, as this reservoir (the ocean surface waters) saturates and CO2 absorption decreases.
- Hnrobert42 2y agoHow will you guarantee this? What do I get if you are wrong? A snorkle?
- fuddle 2y ago> Because I can guarantee setious, perhaps permanent, economic hardship in trying. Prove it.
- avmich 2y agoNo, no, no, we're asking a certain economic benefit at the expense of reasonable steps towards it - not even too hard steps, the COVID shock has shown the possibilities. Of course I can guarantee the humans will be better off - as in, for example, better air is better - but your guarantee (as in, proof it can't be done without it) of serious, perhaps permanent hardship is pure illusion with no justification at all.
- gottorf 2y ago> not even too hard steps, the COVID shock has shown the possibilities What? There's a good argument to be made that the current geopolitical instabilities would never have happened without the collective shock of Covid to everyone's psyches. No event was more disruptive in the past few decades than Covid. It's unimaginable to call that "not even too hard".
- tm-infringement 2y agoRead. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/SR15_Chapter_3_LR.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/SR15...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Cypher 2y agoI wanna know who said it was possible to begin with... also I don't remember signing myself up for this yet here I am triple paying for energy as we stagnate ourselves into ww3... wtf is going on!
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe price of electricity in the UK is because of the price of LNG due to the war in Ukraine. Without North Sea wind power reducing the demand for LNG electricity would be even more expensive.
- Cypher 2y agoOh it's Putin fault? and not decades of short sighed policies to decommission nuclear plants and then decide we need them again.
- tm-infringement 2y agoPlease don't make strawmen.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoTypical price of Solar and Wind power is about £0.05-0.07 a KWh, storage is similar means means a stored KWh costs about £0.15 if it bought from renewables. LNG tends to be more like £0.60-1.00 a KWh, we have seen £1.5 a KWh a few times this year which is a lot cheaper than prior years but still really quite expensive wholesale prices. The base price when renewables are doing a reasonable job comes out to about £0.08 a KWh currently. The UK doesn't have enough renewable energy and storage yet. Its always worth playing with iamkate and looking at what the current power mix is and what it has averaged over the last year and how prices correlate with green energy. https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/
- gottorf 2y ago> The UK doesn't have enough renewable energy and storage yet. As with everything else, the marginal cost of additional renewable energy and storage will rise. At some point, all the low-hanging fruit is picked; there are only so many locations suitable for wind farms and pumped hydro. It's fallacious to think that the £0.15/kWh price will hold as it gets scaled up to meet more of the demand.
- ffhhj 2y agoThat's the idea of annexing Canada and Greenland, everything in between the poles will be a wasteland in a few decades.
- vr46 2y agoNot at the rate she is reputed to work. “Kemi Badenoch sounds like she's the reverse Tucci. Disgruntled aides are gossiping round the Westminster watering holes that she really doesn't like being asked to do much before lunch.”
- rob74 2y agoThat's efficiency! I mean, Trump is so efficient that, besides dismantling the federal government, imposing creative tariffs and bringing Putin's peace to Ukraine, he has still found time to fly to Mar-a-Lago on Air Force One for a round of golf on 7 of the first 8 weekends of his presidency...
- spwa4 2y agoIndeed. Today, YET AGAIN, Trump tanks the stock market (9th week in a row). In addition to private banks, international institutions are outright adjusting their predictions downward because of Trump policy. Trump's reaction to all this? He immediately announced on trump social what he was doing: "I just won the Golf Club Championship, probably my last, at Trump International Golf Club, in Palm Beach County, Florida," he wrote on Sunday afternoon. "Such a great honor! The Awards dinner is tonight, at the Club. I want to thank the wonderful Golf Staff, and all of the many fantastic golfers, that participated in the even [sic]. Such fun!" (needless to say, yes, this is yet another campaign promise that he didn't keep. He would "work for us", and would "not have time to play golf") The only semi-positive is that while the stock market is down 15% from peak, tech 25% ... and "Tesler" is down over 50%.
- fireburning 2y agoall the dogs and strays thank you for all the work you put in to make up for others shortcomings
- rob74 2y agoNon-paywalled: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/17/conservative-party-to-ditch-commitment-to-net-zero-in-uk-by-2050 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/17/conserva... So, the UK conservatives align themselves closer to Trump again - what else is new? Ok, Trump is more in the "climate change is a hoax" camp, while Badenoch seems to favour "climate change is real, but we can't do anything about it (ok, actually we could, but it's to expensive, so nah)", but in the end, it doesn't really make a difference...
- throw0101a 2y agoThings like this remind me of the "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" cartoon: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax_and_we_create_a_better_world_for_nothing%3F.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Pett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Pett
- gottorf 2y ago> for nothing In the actual world we inhabit, everything has a tradeoff. A more accurate description would be "what if we spent an untold sum of resources that have alternative uses, each of which may have resulted in an even better world, in pursuit of this green goal?"
- rat87 2y agoIts a bad argument. The right argument (which still won't do enough convincing) is that global warming is obviously real, already happening and comes with massive future costs
- gottorf 2y ago> comes with massive future costs Again, the investments required in the present day to hopefully and potentially reduce those massive future costs you're speaking of are resources that have alternative uses. One can compare, say, the Germany of today which gave up on nuclear power and built solar panels and wind farms and now is experiencing a decline in its industrial capacity due to expensive and unreliable energy, to an alternate-universe Germany that kept its nuclear reactors and perhaps even built some additional coal and gas powerplants. The former undoubtedly has lower per capita carbon emissions, but the latter perhaps has the advantage in building sea walls, reservoirs, and such infrastructure and heavy machinery that would help manage a changing climate. Can you really say that one approach is sure to be cheaper than the other? Consider this: the WMO estimates that in the 50 years from 1970 to 2019, the number of deaths around the world caused by weather-related disasters dropped threefold[0], even as atmospheric CO2 went from 325ppm to 410ppm and the global population more than doubled. That's not one-third the per capita death rate; it's one-third the absolute number of deaths. Why? Because of improving technology, enabled by increased energy expenditure per capita, that allow people to better master their environments. It takes a lot of resources to allow weak hairless apes to thrive around the globe; we don't all live in the climate of San Diego or Corfu. And insofar as fossil fuels remain the most economical way to allow increased energy expenditure per capita, I see no reason why we must zealously and immediately stop its use. I am all for that increased energy expenditure per capita by any means possible. I hope that one day we will have the technology to do so with minimal environmental side-effects. But we must continue to grow to get to that point. I don't believe that Net Zero will get us there; I believe it will forever chain us to the vagaries of our surroundings. [0]: https://library.wmo.int/records/item/57564-wmo-atlas-of-mortality-and-economic-losses-from-weather-climate-and-water-extremes-1970-2019 https://library.wmo.int/records/item/57564-wmo-atlas-of-mort...
- einpoklum 2y agoIgnoring Badenoch's comments for a second - all of the plans for things to happen "by 2050" are essentially plans to not do anyting for many years. Still, Q: Is "Net Zero" emissions by 2050 possible? A: That doesn't matter at all! Suppose only "net 2%" is possible by 2050, or even "net 5%", or whatever. Fine, let's do that, and stave off most of the effects of global warming. Warming is evident now already, both in average temperatures and in extreme weather event increasing in frequency and severity. So, action needs to be taken now, and never mind what's the exact percentage in 2050. That does not mean everything needs to be fixed in a day, and there will surely be changes along the way; but human society, and world states in particular, need to make short-term plans for significant reductions in emissions. And those plans need to be put into practice almost-immediately. Instead, we have the modified version of climate denialism: From "it's not a problem" to "it's not a serious problem" to "we can no longer do anything about it, it's too late" - with their conclusion always being not to change government policy, not to tax, not to invest public funds in alternatives to what they sell right now, and in short to keep their donors rich and getting richer.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoRight now there are massive efforts to roll out Wind, Solar, batteries and electric vehicles to get a giant amount of the usage replaced. We are still on the early increasing investment phase but once that goal looks like its going to be hit then a lot of attention is going to be turned towards Airplanes and carbon capture. High density fuel scenarios and food production are going to be sticky and hard to solve but with most of the rest solved we have a lot more time to deal with it. I suspect some amount of carbon capture is inevitable, its not the right answer for basic power usage but we are going to overshoot we need a way to capture and store even if its expensive. We need to get to net negative CO2 production to restore 270 ppm. Its just not the priority right now.
- Cypher 2y agoWhy does it sound like I've been signed up to something that makes no sense, anyway to opt out?
- pacifika 2y agoIt’s a good strategy if the aim is to make yourself unelectable for the upcoming generations.