Net Zero is entering a new phase. After giving Britain the highest industrial energy prices in the developed world, the same policy machine is now coming for food. The Seventh Carbon Budget means lower meat and dairy consumption, fewer livestock and changes to land use.

.@AlistairCarns is 100% right to say we need to stop treating energy as an environmental issue and start prioritising security. That is clearly an implicit rebuke of the Milibandist approach that has dominated SW1 thinking for decades. Good! But he needs to be REALLY careful with the “Abundance” and Obama era “all of the above” language. Not all energy sources contribute to national security and prosperity in the same way. Hydrocarbons, firm generation and weather dependent renewables perform different functions in the system. But the test is not whether an energy source is domestic. It is whether it delivers reliable and affordable power at acceptable system cost. For now, his formulation is sufficiently vague enough to be interpreted as a challenge to the status quo rather than an endorsement of it. So I am fine with what he has said so far... But if it becomes a softer rebranding of Miliband’s clean power mission then he will fail his own test. Britain’s problem is not simply that it imports too much energy (we do). It is - as Sir Tony Blair, Dieter Helm, the boss of EDF have all said - that it has built a low density, weather-dependent power system that is remote from where the demand is located. That is a very expensive way to run a grid. Indeed, renewables have totally screwed the productivity of the UK grid. Between 2009 and 2024, total generating capacity rose by 20.7% but the enlarged capacity, with nearly 50% renewables, produced 24.2% less electricity. We are getting less for more and it is feeding through our entire economy. See @RupertDarwall for the Prosperity Institute. As energy chiefs told Parliament in September last year: gas prices could fall to zero in 2030 and we would be paying the same today for electricity because of the system costs inherent in a renewables-heavy grid.

Reform winning on Net Stupid Zero: Starmer overrules Miliband on job destroying, industry killing electric car sales targets Reform will scrap all the EV mandates thetimes.com/article/d9c422b…

.@RishiSunak vindicated again. And he was right about meat and dairy too. Bloomberg: “Labour Party leader Keir Starmer told automakers last week [July 2023] that his party would hold firm on a clean-car policy that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing calls to back down from.” From the BBC in 2023: @StarkClimate Chris Stark, chief executive of the UK's independent Climate Change Committee [now head of Ed Miliband’s Clean Power 2030 Mission Control!], said the changes would make it harder for the government to meet legally binding climate goals.

.@KemiBadenoch I hope this also includes the Net Zero corporate welfare bill? If not, why not?

"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer."

Just about everyone with more than one brain cell is calling for this

Come on, don't be shy. You're going to have to name the main culprits. Start with Ed Miliband and Net Zero.

He's right. But it is Ed Miliband and his Big Wind mission standing in the way. The AI revolution and reindustrialisation demands lots of FIRM power. Scrap Net Zero.

‘Net Zero is hideously expensive…we could put that towards defence. Global warming isn’t going to matter if we are being nuked!’ @DawnNeesom questions why the government is prioritising investment in Net Zero over defence.

Me talking earlier today with @ThatAlexWoman on @TalkTV about Ed Miliband's mad scheme to get rid of heating appliances. DESNZ -- who are unmitigated idiots -- claim that it will help people save a whopping £10 per year. But that forgets the cost of installing replacements.

I live in a country where the energy secretary and his climate committee commissars are promising to ban or severely restrict: Petrol and diesel cars Oil and gas drilling Gas heating Underfloor heating Tumble driers Fertiliser Air travel and Cattle They plan to forbid their way to prosperity. Please somebody explain to them why that won't work.

If this (god forbid) happens, I expect Miliband to start championing Thomas Piketty’s global “justice” proposals, which aim to enforce degrowth and redistribute resources. He will justify all of this in the language of climate justice / equality and call it Climate Justice Leadership. This is why Net Zero matters so much to him politically. It does not just describe an emissions problem to be solved. He believes it provides the moral authority for a much wider remaking of social and economic relations. That is what Margaret Thatcher was getting at when she warned that the global climate agenda “provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.” There is an irony here. The left often blames Callaghan and Healey after 1976 for preparing the ground for Thatcherism / neo-liberalism by accepting the logic of monetarism. Yet in the 2000s and 2010s it was David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson who helped unwind Thatcher’s legacy by laying the foundations for Milibandism by accepting the logic of the climate agenda.

The best way to understand Net Zero is as an all-out assault on modernity. The things we value about the modern world, convenience, speed, comfort and affordability, all depend on dense, reliable and cheap energy. Miliband’s renewables-led Net Zero attacks that foundation. In his book, he is pretty clear about wanting to abandon our 300-year economic model. He means what he says, we just need to believe him.

Now Miliband comes for your underfloor heating, your towel rails, after targeting your tumble dryer, in his net stupid zero drive This miserable little man can do one Reform will scrap all his potty plans telegraph.co.uk/money/net-ze…

Two years ago I said: Either we continue to let Net Zero dictate products and prices or we embrace choice. Now Ed Miliband is putting costs up on: Underfloor heating Boilers Electricity Cars Food Tumble Dryers Fertilizer Towel Rails Shipping The consumer is being shafted.

For most businesses it’s the electricity price that matters and by 2014 your energy policy was already resulting in some of the highest prices among advanced economies.

Maurice is right of course. This illustrates the problem with enshrining carbon targets in law. Everything else must be subordinated to the Net Zero cult.

If Miliband wants us to give up towel rails and underfloor heating, will he give up one of his kitchens?

Liz, we are trapped by low growth and low levels of productivity. Net Zero is, in part, responsible for this. It has increased energy system costs and blocked hydrocarbon production. You support Net Zero. I remain confused as to why. The Seventh Carbon Budget has livestock farming in its crosshairs. But maybe you would feel better being paid to restore nature and manage carbon sinks instead of feeding the country? Personally, as an Englishman, I want to see a thriving British beef, lamb and dairy sector.

They’ve gone completely mad. Labour want to ban you from putting in a gas fireplace or a heated towel rail. It’s Miliband’s insane energy policy that’s pushing up energy prices. He should pay the price, not ordinary Britons.