Kemi Badenoch: Net Zero by 2050 is “impossible”
Kemi Badenoch is set to launch a party “policy renewal” process starting with net zero and energy as she is expected to claim net zero by 2050 is “impossible”.
The Conservative leader will say her party would “confront the real problems” but that she is not making a “moral judgement” on net zero or debating whether climate change exists.
However, the target to reach net zero emissions by 2050, she will argue, cannot be achieved without a drop in living standards – despite “one of the core principles of [being] a Conservative is to be a custodian of the earth”.
She will say: “I’m certainly not debating whether climate change exists. It does. I badly want to leave a much better environmental inheritance for my children and for yours.”
The renewal will see shadow cabinet members set core priority questions in a move towards formulating new policy, which may commission external reports on certain questions.
In a speech on Tuesday, Badenoch is expected to say that cutting energy costs and reducing the impact on the environment are “noble aims” but that the current policies are “largely failing” to improve nature and “driving up the cost of energy”.
“We’re falling between two stools – too high costs and too little progress,” she will say.
Net zero shift
She will also argue that net zero by 2050 is “impossible”, but insist: “I don’t say that with pleasure or because I have some ideological desire to dismantle it.
“In fact, we must do what we can to improve our natural world. I say it because anyone who has done any serious analysis knows it can’t be achieved without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us.
“And responsible leaders don’t indulge in fictions which are going to make families poorer.”
The Tories are going to “deal with the reality”, she will say, arguing: “As part of our policy renewal, we are going to do something that Labour failed to do when in opposition – and explains why they are floundering so badly now.
“We are going to deal with the reality. Answer the real questions. Confront the real problems.”
Badenoch is expected to stress: “It doesn’t look like the West is going to get remotely close to Net Zero by 2050. And neither will any autocracy – not that they are really trying to anyway. This is what happens when politics turns into fantasy.”
Policy renewal
It comes after Badenoch unveiled her policy renewal approach at the Centre for Policy Studies’ Margaret Thatcher conference at the Guildhall on Monday – which saw her briefly interrupted by two climate protesters with signs reading ‘Abolish Billionaires’.
She told the audience she would be launching “the Conservative Party’s biggest policy renewal programme in 50 years”.
Badenoch added: “We’re not announcing detailed policies tomorrow, but we know where we need to get to.
“We know that we will cut taxes and scrap burdensome regulations so businesses can grow, jobs can be created and hard work is rewarded.
“We know we will fight for secure borders and law and order because a country that cannot defend itself at home or abroad is a country in decline.
“We know we must shrink the size of the state and end government waste and dependency because people should decide how to spend their money, not politicians.
“And we know we must stand up for Britain’s values and history because we should never apologise for our success.”
Badenoch ‘jumped the gun’
The party will continue announcing policies in the interim, Conservative sources said, while ongoing external engagement is expected to include members, supporters, think tanks, experts, businesses and frontline workers.
But Sam Hall, Director of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), called it “a mistake for Kemi Badenoch to have jumped the gun and decided net zero isn’t possible by 2050”.
He said: “This undermines the significant environmental legacy of successive Conservative governments who provided the outline of a credible plan for tackling climate change.
“The important question now is how to build out this plan in a way that supports growth, strengthens security, and follows conservative, free market principles.”
And he stressed: “However, the net zero target is driven not by optimism but by scientific reality; without it climate change impacts and costs will continue to worsen.
“Abandon the science and voters will start to doubt the Conservative Party’s seriousness on the clean energy transition, damaging both growth and the fight against climate change.”