Australia has been warned to abandon the so-called ‘green dream’ of net zero, after Britain’s climate change policies pushed up household power bills by more than $3000 a year.
Britain’s energy regulator recently announced a four per cent increase to the energy price cap from next month, which will hike bills from £60 per year (A$113) to £1723 (A$3235) annually.
The UK’s Institute of Economic Affairs energy analyst Andy Mayer said there are serious dangers in legislating net zero targets in both the UK and Australia.
“There is delusion that you can control what is fundamentally a global problem from one country,” he said.
“On the culture wars side of it, what every centre-left leadership is thinking is: ‘What are the consequences further down the line?’ because if they are not looking at the UK and thinking ‘that could happen here’, they are very much mistaken.”
“At some point you have to … make hard choices and one of those hard choices is that we can’t afford a transition to net zero to a fixed timeline.”
He noted that the UK uses oil and gas for about 75 per cent of required energy, and half of this is imported.
In contrast, Australian government figures show in 2023-24 fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) accounted for 91 per cent of energy consumption in 2023-24, while renewables was just 9 per cent.
The UK’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Mattia Fahnbulleh blamed the recent energy price announcements on the war in Iran and said Britain is “very dependent on global fossil fuel markets that we have no control over”.
She said Britain must move “towards homegrown clean energy that we can control so that we can drive bills down for good”.
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has previously urged the British government to rethink its policy of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 over his concerns it’s hurting households and failing to reduce energy bills.
This masthead visited the small community of Graveney in Kent to investigate Britain’s largest solar park — the Cleve Hill Solar Farm.
Nearly 334 hectares are covered by more than 567,000 solar panels that was previously arable farmland, with a 373-megawatt capacity.
Graveney retiree Alan Stewart, 70, showed the proximity of the home he shares with his wife to the panels, which cover the equivalent of 500 football fields.
He said it’s been a David and Goliath battle which the residents ultimately lost.
“It’s been pretty significant for the village and we wish it had never happened,” Mr Stewart said.
“But unfortunately our voice is fairly insignificant when you look at the net zero targets that they are trying to achieve”.
Mr Stewart’s wife, Lut, 67, is more forthright in her dislike of the giant solar farms which ruined the “lovely agricultural land” in Graveney, which has a population of about 500.
“Now we’ve got mud, clay, flooding, solar rays,” she said.
“We’re collateral damage.”
A Cleve Hill Solar Park spokeswoman told this masthead that a “community benefit fund to support local initiatives” was established and measures were taken to “mitigate impacts where possible”.
At Romney Marshes in Kent, locals face the likely construction of four solar power plants in the area which includes a total installed capacity of 1216 megawatts of renewable energy from solar panels and 1400 megawatts of battery storage.
Amanda Farrant, 58, from Newchurch, lives in the middle of the proposed Shepway Energy Park which will spread across six sites of agricultural land.
Despite having solar panels on her roof and battery storage, she said her own power bills have failed to decrease.
Now Mrs Farrant faces having “three monster-sized solar panels” built within metres of her dream home which she purchased in 2019 when it was nestled among agricultural land.
“Where we are here, we are going to be like a small tiny island in the middle of a sea of solar panels, completely surrounded,” Mrs Farrant said.
She said wind energy is better for the UK and not solar which is “not the right energy solution as a priority for the UK”.
Reaching the target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is being increasingly being questioned by right-wing political leaders in Australia and the UK.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson are on a unity ticket — Mr Farage says it should be “scrapped” while Senator Hanson says “it’s not producing, reliable, affordable energy”.
The UK’s Conservative Party has also conceded that it is “impossible” for Britain to meet the 2050 target without extracting oil and gas from the North Sea.
Conservative MP Andrew Bowie, the party’s spokesman on energy, described the UK’s move to net zero by 2050 as a “mad dash to unachievable targets” and said it is making Britain poorer.
He argued the UK must move to a “quicker, cheaper, electrified network and that means building more gas, more nuclear and keeping the renewables we have”.
“Let’s call a halt to this mad dash and take a step back, we 100 per cent believe in climate change,” he told this masthead.
“Net zero 2050, clean power 2030, all these targets, taxes, levies and mandates are having a really negative impact and depressing the British economy and making the British people poorer”.
The Institute of Public Affairs’ deputy executive director Daniel Wild said “the penny has finally started to drop” on net zero, which he labelled “a hoax”.
“Public sentiment has clearly turned against it as people start to see the consequences, it’s not really supported in the way it used to be,” he said.
“What’s really changed public sentiment has been with fuel – that we import 80 per cent of our fuel.”
Australia has been warned to abandon the so-called ‘green dream’ of net zero, after Britain’s climate change policies pushed up household power bills by more than $3000 a year.
Britain’s energy regulator recently announced a four per cent increase to the energy price cap from next month, which will hike bills from £60 per year (A$113) to £1723 (A$3235) annually.
The UK’s Institute of Economic Affairs energy analyst Andy Mayer said there are serious dangers in legislating net zero targets in both the UK and Australia.
“There is delusion that you can control what is fundamentally a global problem from one country,” he said.
“On the culture wars side of it, what every centre-left leadership is thinking is: ‘What are the consequences further down the line?’ because if they are not looking at the UK and thinking ‘that could happen here’, they are very much mistaken.”
“At some point you have to … make hard choices and one of those hard choices is that we can’t afford a transition to net zero to a fixed timeline.”
He noted that the UK uses oil and gas for about 75 per cent of required energy, and half of this is imported.
In contrast, Australian government figures show in 2023-24 fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) accounted for 91 per cent of energy consumption in 2023-24, while renewables was just 9 per cent.
The UK’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Mattia Fahnbulleh blamed the recent energy price announcements on the war in Iran and said Britain is “very dependent on global fossil fuel markets that we have no control over”.
She said Britain must move “towards homegrown clean energy that we can control so that we can drive bills down for good”.
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has previously urged the British government to rethink its policy of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 over his concerns it’s hurting households and failing to reduce energy bills.
This masthead visited the small community of Graveney in Kent to investigate Britain’s largest solar park — the Cleve Hill Solar Farm.
Nearly 334 hectares are covered by more than 567,000 solar panels that was previously arable farmland, with a 373-megawatt capacity.
Graveney retiree Alan Stewart, 70, showed the proximity of the home he shares with his wife to the panels, which cover the equivalent of 500 football fields.
He said it’s been a David and Goliath battle which the residents ultimately lost.
“It’s been pretty significant for the village and we wish it had never happened,” Mr Stewart said.
“But unfortunately our voice is fairly insignificant when you look at the net zero targets that they are trying to achieve”.
Mr Stewart’s wife, Lut, 67, is more forthright in her dislike of the giant solar farms which ruined the “lovely agricultural land” in Graveney, which has a population of about 500.
“Now we’ve got mud, clay, flooding, solar rays,” she said.
“We’re collateral damage.”
A Cleve Hill Solar Park spokeswoman told this masthead that a “community benefit fund to support local initiatives” was established and measures were taken to “mitigate impacts where possible”.
At Romney Marshes in Kent, locals face the likely construction of four solar power plants in the area which includes a total installed capacity of 1216 megawatts of renewable energy from solar panels and 1400 megawatts of battery storage.
Amanda Farrant, 58, from Newchurch, lives in the middle of the proposed Shepway Energy Park which will spread across six sites of agricultural land.
Despite having solar panels on her roof and battery storage, she said her own power bills have failed to decrease.
Now Mrs Farrant faces having “three monster-sized solar panels” built within metres of her dream home which she purchased in 2019 when it was nestled among agricultural land.
“Where we are here, we are going to be like a small tiny island in the middle of a sea of solar panels, completely surrounded,” Mrs Farrant said.
She said wind energy is better for the UK and not solar which is “not the right energy solution as a priority for the UK”.
Reaching the target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is being increasingly being questioned by right-wing political leaders in Australia and the UK.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson are on a unity ticket — Mr Farage says it should be “scrapped” while Senator Hanson says “it’s not producing, reliable, affordable energy”.
The UK’s Conservative Party has also conceded that it is “impossible” for Britain to meet the 2050 target without extracting oil and gas from the North Sea.
Conservative MP Andrew Bowie, the party’s spokesman on energy, described the UK’s move to net zero by 2050 as a “mad dash to unachievable targets” and said it is making Britain poorer.
He argued the UK must move to a “quicker, cheaper, electrified network and that means building more gas, more nuclear and keeping the renewables we have”.
“Let’s call a halt to this mad dash and take a step back, we 100 per cent believe in climate change,” he told this masthead.
“Net zero 2050, clean power 2030, all these targets, taxes, levies and mandates are having a really negative impact and depressing the British economy and making the British people poorer”.
The Institute of Public Affairs’ deputy executive director Daniel Wild said “the penny has finally started to drop” on net zero, which he labelled “a hoax”.
“Public sentiment has clearly turned against it as people start to see the consequences, it’s not really supported in the way it used to be,” he said.
“What’s really changed public sentiment has been with fuel – that we import 80 per cent of our fuel.”