Net Zero

The Net Zero policy suite and its societal impacts

View the full report and some key climate messages.

1. THE CONTEXT:

Net Zero was enacted without genuine public or electoral scrutiny of its feasibility, advisability, societal impact – or indeed any objective, detailed cost benefit analysis of its consequences

The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) has long been concerned that the national media does little to adequately inform the public regarding the vast gulf between government’s borderline hysterical political pronouncements on climate (e.g., “crisis”, “emergency” etc.) and validated empirical measurements and their accompanying, underlying science.

In mid-2019, the provisions of the 2008 Climate Change Act were further strengthened by the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, to encompass Net Zero. This committed the UK IN LAW to a reduction to zero in its Man-made carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 2050: the so-called “Net Zero” strategy.

This was effected without any genuine public or electoral involvement in scrutinising its feasibility and its societal impact. It further lacked – and to this day still lacks – any objective, detailed cost benefit analysis of this policy suite; and any assessment of its real consequences and hence advisability.

Using government’s own figures and assumptions, the ban of the sale of all internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 will cost five times more than its theoretical benefits

A 2022 Report¹ by the world-renowned Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), jointly funded by the ABD, MAG & FairfuelUK, concluded – entirely using government’s own methodology and impact assumptions – that a central plank of the Net Zero strategy – the withdrawal from sale of all internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035, will cost five times more than its entirely theoretical benefits.

The McKinsey consultancy has estimated that the UK’s Net Zero strategy will entail a cost to UK taxpayers of £500 billion per annum for three decades: £15 trillion².

Using IPCC/ NASA’s own ‘MAGGIC’ (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-Gas Induced Climate Change) computer simulation, a global adoption of the Net Zero approach is estimated to deliver a maximum temperature abatement of 0.2°C by 2100. The UK’s contribution would be less than 1%³ of this: 0.002°C.

¹£15 trillion for a 0.002°C abatement. Is this really a wise allocation of finances and resources?

Using IPCC/ NASA’s own ‘MAGGIC’ (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-Gas Induced Climate Change) computer simulation, a global adoption of the Net Zero approach is estimated to deliver a maximum temperature abatement of 0.2°C by 2100⁴. The UK’s contribution would be less than 1%⁵ of this: 0.002°C.

2. Climate computer modelling-, but no climate-, “crisis”:

Climate policy is being dictated by computer-model projections³ that are totally divorced from the reality of empirical (satellite and balloon) measurements (see Fig.1 below):

Real-world measurements (Fig.2)⁴ show Earth is currently 0.38°C above the 1990-2020 average:

On a “human experience” scale of temperatures over a typical UK year: -6°C to 30°C; 12°C average, the “crisis”-inducing temperature change is barely discernible:

validating Dr. Lennart Bengtsson’s comments:

“The warming we have had over the last 100 years is so small, that if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it, we wouldn’t have noticed it at all”

3. History is “settled”, but climate science certainly isn’t

The reconstructed climate record of even only the last 10,000 years (Fig.4 above) shows that for over 80% of that period, Earth’s temperatures were above current levels. We have been emerging from the Little Ice Age, and are c.1°C above the lowest-, and 2°C-3°C below the highest, temperatures in that epoch.

Only a small minority of scientists (on whose remuneration this stance likely depends?) maintain there is any kind of climate “crisis” for which humankind is primarily responsible

Contrary to what some politicians and the mainstream media have been reporting, only a small minority (Fig.5) of scientists (on whose remuneration package this stance likely depends?) maintain there is any kind of climate “crisis” for which humankind is primarily responsible.

4. Confusion over primary climate influences?

CO₂ (Fig.6 above) is a secondary global warming gas (GWG). Atmospheric water vapour is the most potent abundant GWG: there is some sixty times more of it than CO₂, and it’s some seven times more potent, molecule-for-molecule, than CO₂.

The influence of atmospheric CO₂ on climate is a logarithmically-declining one: each 0.5° to 1.0°C incremental rise in temperature it induces requires a doubling of its concentration

What’s more (Fig. 7 above), the influence of atmospheric CO₂ on climate at its present concentration (and at all levels above current) is a logarthmically-declining one: a doubling of its concentration is required for each 0.5° to 1.0°C incremental rise in temperature it induces. It’s arguable whether there is sufficient carbon in the chemically-accessible biosphere and geosphere to permit the rise to even 800ppmv atmospheric concentration.

5. What the politicians have planned for ‘plebs’ like us:

Climate legislation is about the desire to control humanity, not the climate.

Climate legislation is about the desire to control humanity, not the climate

The preceding slide (Fig. 8 above)⁵ comes from a report⁶ commissioned by government (with £5m of taxpayers’ money) seeking guidance from ivory-tower academia on how to implement Net Zero.

It recommends:

Enforcing a 40% reduction in UK road traffic between now and 2050
Ending all commercial air travel (bang goes your foreign holiday package!)
Ending all commercial sea travel (bang goes your foreign cruise!)
Ending all commercial sea freight (bang go almost all goods imported into UK!)
Enforcing the phaseout of domestic and commercial gas heating and cooking
Enforcing adoption of expensive inefficient heat pumps
Enforcing a 40% reduction in energy consumption of commercial and domestic heating systems and appliances generally
Enforcing a 50% reduction in meat consumption and adoption of insect-based foods
Dramatic reductions in energy consumption by the steel, mining and cement industries
Mandating a fourfold increase in use of erratic, unreliable, environment-destroying renewables; with no corresponding essential increase in reliable, despatchable CCGT gas- and/ or nuclear-, generating capacity
The total phaseout of fossil fuel extraction and use; meaning 6,000 products essential for day-to-day life – including antibiotics and many other life-saving drugs and appliances – will no longer be available

Did anyone ask YOU if that’s what YOU want? Didn’t think so. And don’t think voting for any other mainstream opposition parties will change things: they’ve all signed on to this legally-mandated insanity.

6. A Net Zero World is a Medieval World

Net Zero is going to dramatically curtail your wealth, and freedom of both movement and choice

As already covered under “The Context”, Net Zero is going to cost UK taxpayers, i.e., you and I, £500 billion per annum, equivalent to £18,000 per annum per household, for three decades. In return, this will theoretically achieve (at the very most) two-thousandths of a degree of temperature abatement, at a cost of £15 trillion. This represents £7,500 TRILLION per °C reduction.

The slide below (Fig.11) shows just a few of the essential modern, fossil fuel-derived, products that would disappear if their extraction were to be ceased. The total number of products affected is some 6,000.

The adaptation-only approach to climate change will ‘only’ cost 170 Billion$. The UK’s Net Zero approach will cost over 90 times that

The resultant manufacturing base collapse will be accompanied by the telephone number-scale expenditure figures already outlined above. The cumulative effect on the climate will be both undetectable and negligible.

The economic effects will be catastrophic: destroying any remaining UK manufacturing base, and sinking our economy without trace; while contemporaneously consigning almost the entire UK population to fiscal-, energy-, and subsistence-only level food supply poverty.

Meanwhile the World Bank has estimated an adaptation-only climate strategy would cost 0.17% of global GDP (the latter currently standing at 100 trillion$). So the adaptation-only approach will ‘only’ cost 170 Billion$. The UK’s approach will cost over 90 times that of rational, cost-effective global-scale adaptation.

If it was YOUR money, which would you choose? Then again, IT IS YOUR MONEY!!

7. Climate Legislation is not scientifically-, but ideologically-based

Below are some enlightening quotes by accredited IPCC officials, regarding the aims of climate change legislation and policy:

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2010-16:

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

continuing:

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”⁷

Ottmar Edenhoffer, UN co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,”…..

continuing:

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”⁸

What business is it of individuals supposedly tasked with framing a coherent response to changes in the global climate, to seek to interfere in the socio-economic policies adopted by independent, sovereign nations? No-one gave them the responsibility, the authority, or the right to behave in such cavalier fashion.

8. Conclusions

Climate policy is being driven by unreliable computer model projections instead of empirical measurements.
Real-world data provide no evidence whatsoever of any “climate crisis”.
Historical data indicate that the Earth has warmed about 1°C or so, as a result of emerging from the Little Ice Age – thanks entirely to natural climate variations.
Only a very small minority of scientists (likely with vested interests) maintain that there is any kind of climate “crisis” for which humankind is primarily responsible.
Atmospheric (actually tropospheric) water vapour concentration is the primary determinant of any “greenhouse” (transitory infrared radiation absorption) effect.
CO₂ is a secondary Greenhouse Warming Gas (GWG); whose effect at current atmospheric concentrations is: (1) practically saturated & (2) logarthmically-declining.
To achieve an atmospheric CO₂-induced temperature increase of 0.5°C-1.0°C would require a doubling of the current atmospheric concentration, to c.800ppmv.
It is arguable whether there is sufficient carbon in the chemically-accessible biosphere and geosphere to even permit the rise to 800ppmv atmospheric concentration.
Climate change legislation is actually directed towards controlling human activities and degrading freedom of movement and choice, not controlling the climate.
The abandonment of the benefits associated with fossil fuel exploitation for both power generation-, and its over 6,000 downstream products essential to modern life, would be verging on economically suicidal.
Climate change legislation and policy has an entirely ideological, wealth redistribution basis, not a scientific one.
The costs associated with the implementation of a UK Net Zero strategy are astronomical; while the benefits are negligible. Net Zero should be abandoned in favour of the much more cost-effective climate adaptation-based approach.