The Climate and Nature Bill
Several members have approached us with questions on the Climate and Nature bill. This is a private members bill going through parliament due for its second reading this week (Friday 24th Jan):
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3776
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-04/0192/230192.pdf
It is described as:
A Bill to require the United Kingdom to achieve climate and nature targets; to give the Secretary of State a duty to implement a strategy to achieve those targets; to establish a Climate and Nature Assembly to advise the Secretary of State in creating that strategy; to give duties to the Committee on Climate Change and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee regarding the strategy and targets; and for connected purposes.
The group behind the bill is called Zero Hour which has unfortunate connotations of “Year Zero”, which is appropriate given that the bill is demanding nothing less than a complete reset of society. If this is what you are looking for, their site provides information on how you can ask your MP to support the bill. However, we will explain what the bill is asking for in detail and why you might want to write to your MP and ask them to vote against it.
Attack on Democracy
First and foremost for Politics in Pubs, the bill represents a further attack on our democratic process. As a private member’s bill it was never part of the Labour Party’s manifesto and was initially proposed by Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. It was adopted by a Labour backbencher and now by the Liberal Democrats. Therefore, no-one in the electorate has any say on this bill (other than to write to your MP), despite the far reaching ramifications of it passing into law.
And it gets worse. Section 3 talks about public involvement. Paragraph (1) states:
The Secretary of State must, within three months of the passing of this Act, procure, by open tender, an expert independent body to establish a Climate and Nature Assembly (‘the Assembly’) comprising a representative sample of the United Kingdom population.
You don’t have to be very cynical to suspect that this ‘assembly’ won’t include those that are totally opposed to NetZero. For example, recent polls put support for the Reform UK party at 25% and most Reform UK voters are strongly opposed to NetZero. Politics in Pubs has members from across the political spectrum and in the main they are opposed to NetZero. Even those that believe there is a climate emergency appreciate the economic hardship arising from NetZero policy.
Several of us have already written to our MPs and are getting back a standard party response, completely oblivious to the damage that the bill would do. It seems that many MPs either haven’t read the bill, are not bright enough to understand the implications as outlined in this article, or simply are towing the party line putting career before integrity.
One of the key aspects of the bill is that it deliberately confuses emissions reductions with protecting the environment, for example policies to reduce pollution in our water supplies and the standard response relies on and amplifies that confusion.
Unrealistic Emissions Targets
Turning to the economic impacts, many of the points we cover here are taken from Paul Homewood’s recent article Can the CAN, who explains the top level goal as follows:
Its objective is to reduce UK emissions, including imported ones, to close to zero during the 2030s. Currently those emissions are around 800 Mt a year, and the implication is that they will have to be cut to around 100 Mt by 2035 at the latest, dropping to near zero soon after.
This will be the first time that the UK would include non-territorial emissions in its targets, effectively doubling existing targets. The implications for what we would be able to import in future should be obvious.
The red “business as usual” line shows where we are currently heading assuming presumably no major policy interventions. What immediately jumps out is how unrealistic are the existing UK Carbon Budget Targets shown in blue.
Then look at the green line, the targets to enable us to stay within a 1.5oC trajectory, i.e. raising temperatures no more than 1.5oC since pre-industrial times (1850-1900). It’s worth noting that according to the likes of the BBC we already hit this figure in 2024! I.e. the trillions spent on climate action to date have already failed. Worse, the UK’s measly share of around 1% of global emissions cannot have any impact, we are just a rounding error – and for what cost?!
However, discounting the nonsense physics implied by the new targets, we will look at the implications of them being implemented. Paul Homewood provides a great summary in his article, referencing UK FIRES report, Absolute Zero which implies the following changes will be required:
- Cars – all new vehicles will need to be electric, with the average weight being 1000kg. For perspective, the Nissan Leaf weighs double that. Given the weight of an EV battery, a one tonne car would be so tiny as to be useless. Absolute Zero also calls for a 40% cut in road use, but does not say how this could be enforced.
- Flying – All airports bar Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast to shut by 2029, and those three must also close soon after!
- All shipping to be phased out.
- Heating – full rollout of unaffordable heat pumps, with the natural gas network shut down by 2040 at the latest, meaning existing gas boilers would be unusable and to be retrofit with heat pumps.
- Food – all beef, lamb and presumably dairy gone, along with most imported food. Fertiliser use “greatly reduced”, a double whammy given that there would no longer be any manure.
- Materials – no blast furnace steel, no cement, no plastics
- Construction – reduced to renovation
- And no fossil fuels at all.
And as Paul highlights, all this would have to happen in the next 10 years or so!
Incidentally, it would also be impossible to import large scale components to support the renewables industry. This would particularly apply to large wind farms which would require turbine blades and the use of thousands of tonnes of cement which is a very energy intensive process.
Raising the prospect of blackouts and threats to energy security
The National Grid is already struggling to supply sufficient energy to meet demands, as the Electricity Margin Notice issued on the 8th January demonstrated. The implication of dramatically increasing electricity usage and further reliance on intermittent renewables, against a background of an already struggling grid cannot be ignored.
Back on the political front, it is impossible to ignore how this bill would further undermine our reliance on foreign powers for energy. On the 8th January, we only kept our lights on because of imports from Norway (produced from natural gas) and France (mainly nuclear).
Another step towards a surveillance state
Achieving the targets will require a sophisticated level of monitoring capturing a wide range of data from manufacturers, suppliers and consumers. This issue was covered brilliantly by Bev Turner in a GB News Original on YouTube.
Time to Take Action
If you found this post convincing, please consider writing to your MP by first finding out if your MP already supports the bill and pitch your approach appropriately. You can find their email here and send them your email but remember to add your address to confirm that you are in their constituency.
The Together Declaration has put together a couple of useful templates, depending on whether your MP supports the bill. However, modify/add a personal message, using any of our information above.
Option A: Use if your MP is NOT listed as supporting CAN Bill
Are you aware of the frighteningly out of touch Climate and Nature Bill that is due a second reading in Parliament on 24 Jan?
The Bill is Net Zero ‘on steroids.’ Consider only one of the proposals, ‘ensuring the end of the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels by the United Kingdom as rapidly as possible’.
At the risk of stating the obvious, oil, coal and gas provide nearly three-quarters of our primary energy, and just about everything in our modern world and UK industry depends utterly on oil and gas and the byproducts thereof.
This Bill, if ever fully enacted, threatens to take the UK back to pre-industrial times, with all the suffering that will entail.
Will you use your influence to ensure this frightening Bill is never allowed to become a reality? And will you publicly oppose it?
Option B: Use if your MP IS listed as supporting the CAN Bill
I was extremely concerned to see you listed as one of the MPs supporting the frighteningly out of touch Climate and Nature Bill.
Among other things, the Bill calls for ‘ensuring the end of the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels by the United Kingdom as rapidly as possible’. You are aware I hope that oil, coal and gas provide nearly three-quarters of our primary energy? Furthermore, you do understand that just about everything in our modern world, and almost the entirety of UK industry, depends on oil and gas and the byproducts thereof?
These fuels are not killing us. They are keeping us alive on an otherwise hostile planet.
This Bill, if ever fully enacted, threatens to take the UK back to pre-industrial times. Are your constituents aware of this reality?
The people of the UK already face huge challenges and hardships – many of them, like skyrocketing energy bills, directly traceable to Net Zero. That MPs should be advancing even more extreme and ill-thought-through proposals is worrying.
To vote in support of this Bill at the second reading due 24 Jan would be to vote in favour a catastrophic de-developing of Britain with all the suffering that will entail. Surely you wouldn’t wish to be associated with something so unmoored from reality?
Please Share
If you agree with us, please do share with family and friends.