Is Net Zero dead? In this Sceptic Short, host Laurie Wastell is joined by Dr Tilak Doshi, economist, former contributor to Forbes and now the Daily Sceptic’s Energy Editor, to discuss how Donald Trump’s “Drill, baby, drill!” energy revolution is upending the global green agenda, why the climate censorship regime is collapsing and whether the writing is on the wall for Ed Miliband.
NOTE: Premium subscribers will notice that this is an extract from the premium section of Episode 30. We’re sorry that there is no new episode today. This is due to circumstances beyond our control. The Sceptic will return next week as usual.
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Net Zero has always been on life support – the huge, humungous subsidies without which it withers and dies in double quick time. This is, after all, a post truth/fact world and how you feel is at the apex of consideration.
The Europeans cannot fill in the gap in Ukraine left by the US’ change of strategic tack, as for filling in for the erstwhile US’ global climate financing commitments; that are no longer… hold up, I just fell off my chair…
Here’s another reason to get out of the UNhinged…
“earlier this year, the UN’s special rapporteur on cultural rights, Alexandra Xanthaki, proposed that the very convention designed to protect women from sex-based discrimination ought to be updated to include men who identify as women.
Even by today’s gender-deranged standards, Xanthaki’s speech made for uncomfortable listening. In it, she urged the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to reject what she called ‘the stereotype of women only being determined by biology’ – something that might once have been referred to as a fact. “
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/09/why-cant-the-un-define-what-a-woman-is/
And where does that lead?
“The all-male women’s pool final”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/07/the-all-male-womens-pool-final/
To be original nowadays, you really have to be right out there. Who could have made that up?
Yes, that’s the way I would describe it: Net Zero is on life support.
The gulf between the ruling global elites (yes, they do exist, otherwise why is the same nonsense repeated across the Western world?) and normal people has never been greater. As George Orwell said: “Some ideas are so ridiculous that only the intelligentsia could possibly believe them.”
If a previous era was known as “The Age of Enlightenment”, then the early 21st Century will be remembered as “The Age of Crackpot Ideas”.
Yes, no doubt about it, it’s definitely on its last legs
Not quite dead yet because some will not let go easily for various personal and financial reasons
I don’t think it will be dropped by western governments as such
They will let it wither away over the coming years by removing subsidies, cutting off funding to universities (not that they have developed anything of note in the past 3 decades), and geverally going quiet on the whole issue
The US will find it impossible in the future to reverse what Trump will do
Europe is preparing the new scam, defense. Nothing will come of it, but some will get rich or richer
The rest of the world doesn’t care, especially the major players
All you’ll have left is a few pacific island nation opportunists demanding “reparations” while the rest of the world tells them to whistle dixie
You forgot about Canada and Australia who are still very much hooked up to the Net Zero scam.
Unfortunately, in Australia both major parties support NZ to some level because they were strong armed by the US and EU on trade deals, that they will not get preference or banking credits if they didn’t toe the climate/energy party line. Given the amount of economic strife clearly evident by the public caused by these stupid policies, they cannot have a long life anywhere, but politicians are usually slow to act. However, with Trump’s current zeal and speed to dismantle these policies, the rest of the developed world tied to them will have to follow his lead or be crushed by the burdens placed on themselves. It is to be hoped that the Australian’s and Canadians rid themselves of these policies soon, by changing governments in coming elections. They would be mad if they don’t.
The UK too.
But I doubt very much these 3 can go it alone, it would be utterly pointless
In the future, this will be a non issue in elections, if anything it will be detrimental for a party to tie itself to these policies
I imagine all the parties will eventually turn against it or be agnostic
This is happening already with the tories in the UK
Good riddance! The entire renewable energy nonsense never made any rational sense from the get go. The waste and the misapplication of precious taxpayer funds could gave been invested in far better projects that would have had an actual return on investment. Hence, letting people do with their labor as they see fit to improve their lives; rather than it being siphoned off as a subsidy for these private entities who cannot succeed on their own ought to die. Despise government interference, “we know best” attitude toward the people.
Or the monies could just have not been spent at all.
Possible story tip?
Just how ‘green’ is the push for net zero anyway? Nickel mining in Indonesia:
Net Zero, unfortunately, will continue thrashing and twitching until its final death throes somewhere in the future.
Other than educating the public, there is no way to push the accelerator.
Still, these are hopeful signs.
It’s not dead yet, Jim, but soon will be.
The trump administration is making a mess of many things, but the drive to eradicate the green blob will have global repercussions.
No one on ‘renewables’ policies will be able to compete in terms of energy prices. Even with massive tariff barriers everywhere…
….we watch, with interest
With a pencil and a single sheet of paper, it can be proven that net zero with wind and solar cannot be achieved with present technology. There aren’t enough acres of energy producing land for the turbines and panels, batteries don’t last forever, hydrogen can’t be transported in sufficient quantities, costs and losses are too great to connect dark to light, wind to doldrums and warm to cold, and more. The hurdles at some point become overwhelming before running out of paper.
Had nuclear not been written off at the start, we could have nearly been there by now. Remember that the first nuclear powerplant in Elk River Minnesota went online a just over a decade after the first atomic bomb was dropped. The fears of nuclear power are mostly irrational and can easily be overcome with proper education. There were people in Minnesota that didn’t want that “nuclear electricity” coming into their bedroom wall outlets. Remember that more people have proven to have died from sitting in the front seat of Ted Kennedy’s Oldsmobile than from nuclear powerplant radiation in the US.
Only when the wind and solar delusion ends, and rational acceptance of scientific reality is achieved will appropriate energy policy be achieved.
I had to use a spreadsheet, but it’s easy enough to download actual generation data for the UK, and then use that to the model storage requirement for a 100% renewable grid.
Result: ~ 25,000 GWh at a cost of $7.5 trillion or more, and that’s if we don’t prepare for the 1 in 50 years scenario where we get multiple “low wind” years in a row.
I used to drive by that plant every so often. It had a very art deco look to it. Just off the side of HWY 10.
G’day tom,
“…the first nuclear powerplant in Elk River Minnesota went online a just over a decade after the first atomic bomb was dropped.”
Date?
From Wikipedia: Later in 1955, another nuclear milestone was reached when an experimental boiling water reactor plant called BORAX-III (also designed, built, and operated by Argonne National Laboratory) was connected to external loads, powering the nearby city of Arco, Idaho, the first time a city had been powered solely by nuclear power.
Drove past Arco in 1972 going from Yellowstone National Park to Craters Of The Moon National Monument. Signs: “First town powered by nuclear power”. My comment to my wife at the time, “I didn’t know that.”
I see the usual suspects want to shore up their support with the groomed Gretaheads-
Keir Starmer repeats pledge to give 16-year-olds the vote
I think that if you’re old enough to go out to work, if you’re old enough to pay your taxes, then you’re entitled to have a say on how your taxes are spent.
…and off to the Big House as an adult if they break the law with the knives and machetes etc too you reckon lefties?
No chance, they’re already full with people who’ve said nasty things on the internet.
Who’s that knocking on the door?
The next question – and it’s a big one – is how we get compensation for what the nett zero fascists have done to us.
Just imagine the wailing and moaning by those who have bought into the “green energy” scam, and put solar on their roofs, thinking that the grid would pay them top dollar for their mostly-useless, or even damaging to the grid excess solar electricity feeding back into the grid, and being told, “No, we no longer will pay for your excess electricity. Sorry about that. Maybe you can charge up some batteries with it. No more free lunch for you, Charlie”. .
The change will come from the bottom up.
Apropos to this article is the fact that in the upcoming Canadian election climate and environmental policies have become strictly back-burner issues as the climate alarmists are lamenting. Except they’re overlooking the fact that in previous ones it never was a particularly big deal either, just a little bigger than now when more pressing matters are dominating the campaigning debates. In fact, those demanding more climate action conveniently keep ignoring the fact that international surveys have consistently shown that climate and the environment have been low-priority items on citizens’ minds for several decades now since they inevitably tend to raise living costs with few effects on a supposedly warming climate.