Shadow Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero Andrew Bowie has claimed that the Government is "damaging the economy" by believing that net zero can be achieved by 2050.Speaking to GB News, Bowie criticised the Government's "rigid" belief that achieving net zero carbon emissions by the target year is in the national interest.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00What about Keir Starmer's ability to reset net zero targets?
00:06He laid out his plans yesterday.
00:08Now, as the shadow minister of all of this, this comes under your responsibility,
00:12what do you think about what's happening and what direction we're heading in?
00:17Well, frankly, I mean, he hasn't reset the party or the government's position on net zero.
00:22They remain rigid in their belief that net zero by 2050 isn't just achievable,
00:26but in the national interest, that is wrongheaded.
00:30Which is why Kemi Bidnik just two weeks ago announced that we were ditching our net zero by 2050 commitment
00:35because it is making this country poor, it's driving away investment, and it's killing our heavy industry.
00:40And I think if he was to take a radical approach to the tariffs being imposed by the US,
00:44he might want to think again about sticking to this plan, which is doing such damage to the British economy,
00:50at the same time as the rest of the world is not keeping up.
00:53How do you keep up? How do you do? What would you do?
00:56Well, as I said, we've got rid of our net zero by 2050 commitment,
01:02and as a result of that, we are now looking at what the individual policies on energy and the environment will be,
01:08should we be lucky enough to get back into government.
01:10But what we cannot have is a continued situation which we have right now,
01:14where heavy industry, manufacturing, be that ceramics, be that automotives, be that a whole host steel, for example,
01:20are leaving the United Kingdom because of carbon taxes and rigid arbitrary targets which they are expected to meet,
01:27with no discernible positive impact for the UK or the UK economy.
01:30We're seeing unemployment in Scotland as a result of their position in oil and gas,
01:34and we're going to be seeing more of that across the country as a result of these wrong-headed policies.
01:38So a radical position for the government to take to combat these tariffs might be to look again at whether net zero by 2050 is in the national interest.
01:45Yeah, but, you know, you may say, well, we can't afford to do it.
01:49There'll be a lot of people screaming at you, screaming at this screen this morning and saying,
01:53we cannot afford not to do it.
01:58Well, look, we're not saying we don't believe in decarbonisation,
02:01or that we should do what we can to pass the world on in a better place than in which we found it.
02:06But we just think setting an arbitrary target, a date that was set in legislation with no discussion,
02:11for no reason other than we needed to have a date,
02:13is not the best way to proceed when we're talking about something of this magnitude.
02:17We're very proud of our record on decarbonisation.
02:20We cut our carbon emissions faster than any other G7 nation by half in the period in which it is carried.
02:26So we built the first to fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world.
02:29But we did that while still investing in the UK economy and indeed growing the economy.
02:33So it can be done.
02:35But the direction of travel from this government seems to be net zero by 2050 at the expense of everything else.