(Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sir Tony Blair has called for a reset of “irrational” Net Zero plans, with an extended critique of the current state of the climate debate that has been seen as a direct rebuke to the energy secretary Ed Miliband.
Blair, the last Labour leader to win an election before Sir Keir Starmer, cautioned in a report for his Tony Blair Institute that any “short term” push to wind down fossil fuel consumption is “a strategy doomed to fail”.
The intervention comes just a day before voters go to the polls in the local elections, amid mounting frustrations from business leaders about the heavy burden on Net Zero. INEOS founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe said on Tuesday that carbon taxes are “killing manufacturing”.
The former Prime Minister suggested politicians broadly know that the debate has become “irrational” but are afraid to say so for fear of being labelled as “climate deniers”.
He adds: “This reaches its apogee in the COP summits. Political leaders argue for days in public about wording like “ending”, “phasing out”, “reducing” fossil fuels.
“Because – agree with it or not – most political leaders are decent people who do want to do the right thing, in recent times the COPs have become uncomfortable for many leaders.”
Blair adds that initial “momentum” surrounding the Paris Agreement in 2015 has been followed by a succession of crises – from the Covid-19 pandemic to the war in Ukraine – which has caused “a backlash against such action, which threatens to derail the whole agenda”.
Going nuclear
Blair added that despite an “explosion in renewable energy”, the demand for fossil fuels continues to rise.
His comments cut a strong contrast with the Labour government, of which Blair is thought to remain a key informal adviser.
“Production of fossil fuels and demand for them has risen, not fallen, and is set to rise further up to 2030.”
As an alternative to “the purist solution of stopping fossil-fuel production”, Blair suggests carbon capture and nuclear power.
Ed Miliband has been steadfast in his support of the government’s Net Zero targets – first pledged by Theresa May’s government in 2017 – promising earlier in April to “double down” on these commitments, and slamming his opponents as “making up nonsense and lies”.
In a piece for The Observer, Miliband warned that “there are siren voices that want to knock us off course”, who would “make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda”.
Read more: Tony Blair is right to call for ‘reset’ of ludicrous Net Zero debate
