Britain’s move to a Net Zero economy will cost taxpayers more than £800 billion over the next two decades, the OBR – the UK’s fiscal watchdog – has said. But even this is based on implausibly generous assumptions, say critics. The Telegraph has the story.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said Government plans to limit climate change will cost the public purse £30 billion every year until at least 2051, as tax revenue from the sale of petrol and diesel fuel dries up.
This includes nearly £9.9 billion of spending every year on tech investments – for example updating the electricity grid – as well as £20.5 billion in revenue losses from declining fuel duty from petrol cars, as electric vehicles (EV) become more common.
Investments in green technology will initially make up most of the Net Zero cost before lost tax receipts become the bigger factor, the OBR said.
“In the next decade, expenditure accounts for the bulk of the fiscal cost, particularly public investment in residential buildings, removals and surface transport, which start to decline from 2036 to 2037,” it said.
While the sums are significant, the fiscal cost of Net Zero has been revised down from £1.1 trillion since the OBR last reviewed it in 2021. The watchdog said this was because of fuel duty freezes leading to lower lost receipts and a higher-than-expected uptake of EVs.
It also assumes the Government will spend less on the transition after the Climate Change Committee revised down the costs across the whole of the economy.
David Turver criticises the OBR for taking the Climate Change Committee’s figures at face value, pointing out that the CCC makes numerous implausible assumptions that lower the apparent cost of Net Zero.
From the numbers they have published, we know the CCC made some highly implausible assumptions about the shifting the costs of renewables on to gas bills as well as the cost and take-up rates of heat pumps. However, the most obvious egregious errors are in the CCC’s erroneous estimates of the cost of renewables.
The CCC assumes that offshore wind in 2030 will cost less than half the value of contracts awarded for fixed bottom offshore wind in last year’s Allocation Round 6. It totally ignores the need for floating offshore wind that costs six times more than its 2030 estimate. The CCC estimates for the cost of solar for 2030 delivery were less than half the prices awarded in AR6 too. It did not even bother to estimate the cost of onshore wind, despite needing to more than double the installed capacity by 2050.
That is going to cost an awful lot of money before we think about anything else; like where to put them all. France has been paid over £800 million thus far – not to stop the boats.
So it is with all Labour policies, money up front and hope, and there is a complicating factor in the shape of the AG – two-tier’s friend and fellow lawyer who was made a peer after the election…
“documents seen by The Telegraph reveal just how far that control extends. Hermer has personally rewritten official guidance originally issued by former Attorney General Suella Braverman. Effectively handing himself a veto over policies and boosting powers of the lawyer class in Whitehall…
Lawyers are told to assume every ministerial decision could face legal challenge. A new “snitch clause” forces civil servants to report directly to Hermer if they suspect ministers might be about to act unlawfully. He also instructs lawyers and civil servants to treat international law on the same footing as national law:
“The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law, even though they operate on different planes.”
It now includes 23 references to international law. Hermer has also blocked the Government from using Parliament to override international agreements, effectively shutting down any route around the ECHR. Ministers are bound regardless of manifesto promises or parliamentary will…
Across government, patience is wearing thin. As Guido reported, senior figures – including McFadden, Thomas-Symonds and Mahmood – are fuming over Hermer’s habit of strangling policy with sweeping, maximalist legal advice. How much longer can Starmer protect Blocker Hermer?
The OBR is no better than National Statistics (under investigation)
“The OBR said: “We will take stock of the lessons that we have learned from our approach to capturing the impact of government policy measures on our forecast for potential output.” This glaring inaccuracy threatens to force a downgrade in productivity and potential growth estimates come the Autumn Budget “
They got it horribly wrong. I see no reason to believe their numbers on climate, they are bound to be a gross underestimation; a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
The appointment of Hermer was dubious from the start. But he’s very much Starmer’s man. When Starmer finally gets the boot Hermer will follow him out the door.
So, 260 Londoners died as a result of last week’s heatwave, of which 170 can be attributed to climate change. So claims Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
There’s just the one problem with this: the researchers haven’t actually counted any deaths at all. The study rushed out this week is nothing more than a piece of modelling, which estimates the number of deaths which might be expected to have been caused by the hot weather, as well as trying to guess how much hotter last week’s weather was than it would have been without man-made climate change.
We won’t know whether there really were any excess deaths during the hot weather until the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes its figures in a few weeks’ time. Why rush out a piece of modelling when we will shortly have some real-world data?
The researchers will have to explain their reasoning, but it is as well to note that both the participants in this study have a bit of previous when it comes to modelling alarming numbers of deaths. Both were heavily involved in modelling during the Covid pandemic. Many of their predictions were not able to be tested against real data… https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/did-260-londoners-really-die-in-the-heatwave/
Fredi et al were at it again in yesterday’s Grauniad saying the June heatwave killed 2300 across Europe of which 1500 were attributed to “climate breakdown”
How they came to this conclusion is difficult to know since they also said that most victims die out of public view in homes and hospitals and with little media coverage!
A researcher named Bruce Lanphear had a medical paper accepted and published a couple of years ago. He claimed that the element Lead, Pb, could be causing 240,000 US deaths per year, when death certificates average about 20 per year, many from drinking moonshine from stills with Lead solder in pipes. Lanphear used similar sweeping model logic seemingly similar to this economic study.
Geoff S
bobpjones
July 10, 2025 3:35 am
These figures are pure propaganda. To start with, we all know how UK gov’ts seriously undervalue projects. The HS started at somewhere around £30Bn, now it’s over £100Bn. Dr Michael Kelly, on the back of a discarded fag packet, envisages a sum starting north of £2Tn. I reckon even that is an underestimate.
Ah, a lovely quote I heard yesterday. Fanny Cradock had a cooking show, and her husband was often in it, often somewhat the worse for wear. He said (apparently), although it may have been Frank Bough who said it:
I hope that all your doughnuts turn out like like Fanny’s
Although that’s much funnier (fannyer?) in English English.
You can probably add at least 5 times as much for what consumers and households would pay. The consequent economic destruction would mean that it can’t be afforded, so it won’t happen. But the economic destruction will take a long time to repair, and us already proceeding apace.
But, looking at the chart in the head post0, to describe this as Net Zero costing the tax payer £800 billion doesn’t make any sense. Lost tax receipts are not costs.
For instance, suppose we are assessing the costs and benefits of reducing smoking or some other destructive habit. In the costs we include the advertising campaigns to change awareness of health issues. We also have costs associated with any enforcement of a ban – anti smuggling costs for instance. In the benefits we have reduced healthcare costs and the economic value of years of life increases.
These are either cash flows or are actions for which we can reasonably assess cash flows. We can then put these cash flows, positive and negative, into a spreadsheet, apply an interest rate, and get the NPV of the proposal.
What we do not count, because its not a cash out, is the loss of the taxes paid by cigarette buyers. Its not a cost of the proposal to the country.
When we look at it from a government perspective there is a different story, but not one having to do with the costs of the proposal in any usual accounting sense. Not one that is relevant to the investment merits of the proposal.
The government may be receiving income from taxation of cigarettes, and when smoking is abolished, this income will disappear. This has no bearing on the investment case for the proposal. It is something that has to be taken account of in government tax policy – either reduce expenditure proportionally, raise taxes somewhere else, or borrow.
How to explain this clearly? Take the case of road safety. We are considering implementing speed reduction measures by traffic calming road layouts. We do not get to add the reduction in speeding fines to the costs item of the proposal. Yes, we have less speeding, yes this means less fines. But that is not a cost of the proposal from an investment and return on investment point of view. That’s just a consideration regarding the Council budget. The merits of reducing speeding through traffic calming have to do with reduction in accidents and perhaps any other less tangible benefits we can quantify. The costs are road layout works, some overhead for planning and consultations. Loss of speeding fine income is not a cost.
You would really have thought that an organization called the OBR would be familiar with tax policy and investment appraisal, would know the difference between them, and not mix them together in the way they look to have.
If the chart is representative of the study, the thing must be a complete dog’s dinner.
I have read that the UK government has consistently refused to do a proper analysis of the full costs of Net Zero to the economy and society. This, if the stories about it are correct, is not it, either.
I suppose we have to make time to read the whole study. Don’t know if I can face it.
Michel,
Thank you for this comment. It expresses precisely the same objection that hit me on first reading. Geoff S
Petey Bird
July 10, 2025 8:45 am
The increasing and continued adoption of ineffective technologies will eventually lead to a utopia.
Have patience.
Bob
July 10, 2025 5:32 pm
The CCC and OBR are both worthless and it doesn’t matter what they say. The only thing that matters is that the west has spent trillions of dollars in an effort to lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere. CO2 levels haven’t lowered they haven’t even leveled off. The whole scheme is a lie and a complete waste of money, time and resources. It is madness.
Net Zero: A bottomless hole one must constantly fill.
But, of course, the £trillions in fossil fuel subsidies will be saved!
/sarc (for the sarcastically challenged)
Keir Starmer in action….
Ah! The late, great Dave Allen.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=dave+allen&atb=v411-1&ia=web
The empty suit has surpassed himself in negotiations with the French…
“Le Monde reports that the UK will send back 50 migrants per week in a pilot one in, one out deal with France. That is 2,600 per year…
At the current rate 39,964 would cross in small boats this year. This pilot deal would take 15 years and 5 months to clear that number…
https://order-order.com/2025/07/09/migrant-deal-pilot-scheme-to-return-6-5-of-small-boat-crossers/
That is going to cost an awful lot of money before we think about anything else; like where to put them all. France has been paid over £800 million thus far – not to stop the boats.
So it is with all Labour policies, money up front and hope, and there is a complicating factor in the shape of the AG – two-tier’s friend and fellow lawyer who was made a peer after the election…
“documents seen by The Telegraph reveal just how far that control extends. Hermer has personally rewritten official guidance originally issued by former Attorney General Suella Braverman. Effectively handing himself a veto over policies and boosting powers of the lawyer class in Whitehall…
Lawyers are told to assume every ministerial decision could face legal challenge. A new “snitch clause” forces civil servants to report directly to Hermer if they suspect ministers might be about to act unlawfully. He also instructs lawyers and civil servants to treat international law on the same footing as national law:
“The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law, even though they operate on different planes.”
It now includes 23 references to international law. Hermer has also blocked the Government from using Parliament to override international agreements, effectively shutting down any route around the ECHR. Ministers are bound regardless of manifesto promises or parliamentary will…
Across government, patience is wearing thin. As Guido reported, senior figures – including McFadden, Thomas-Symonds and Mahmood – are fuming over Hermer’s habit of strangling policy with sweeping, maximalist legal advice. How much longer can Starmer protect Blocker Hermer?
https://order-order.com/2025/07/10/blocker-hermer-instructs-civil-servants-to-report-ministers-to-him/
The OBR is no better than National Statistics (under investigation)
“The OBR said: “We will take stock of the lessons that we have learned from our approach to capturing the impact of government policy measures on our forecast for potential output.” This glaring inaccuracy threatens to force a downgrade in productivity and potential growth estimates come the Autumn Budget “
They got it horribly wrong. I see no reason to believe their numbers on climate, they are bound to be a gross underestimation; a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
A nice little dictatorship developing. Before long, it will be dodgy salutes and singing praise to the Red Flag flying here.
“A nice little dictatorship developing…”
They’re working on it.
“The public has been asked not to lay floral tributes to “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”, a year after a flower memorial at the scene of the Southport child killings became a flashpoint for discontent.
…
to prevent any spontaneous memorials not coordinated by the government”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/07/10/public-told-not-to-lay-memorials-for-southport-attack-anniversary/
How very Venezuela.
Just as some extremely harrowing accounts from some of the survivors and their families are emerging from the enquiry.
The catch phrase is: “Don’t look back in anger” a la Oasis.
The play and the film were called “Look back in anger“… and we should.
The appointment of Hermer was dubious from the start. But he’s very much Starmer’s man. When Starmer finally gets the boot Hermer will follow him out the door.
It’s a triumvirate:
Keir Starmer
Richard Hermer
Phillipe Sands
O/T: Scientific rigour
So, 260 Londoners died as a result of last week’s heatwave, of which 170 can be attributed to climate change. So claims Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
There’s just the one problem with this: the researchers haven’t actually counted any deaths at all. The study rushed out this week is nothing more than a piece of modelling, which estimates the number of deaths which might be expected to have been caused by the hot weather, as well as trying to guess how much hotter last week’s weather was than it would have been without man-made climate change.
We won’t know whether there really were any excess deaths during the hot weather until the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes its figures in a few weeks’ time. Why rush out a piece of modelling when we will shortly have some real-world data?
The researchers will have to explain their reasoning, but it is as well to note that both the participants in this study have a bit of previous when it comes to modelling alarming numbers of deaths. Both were heavily involved in modelling during the Covid pandemic. Many of their predictions were not able to be tested against real data…
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/did-260-londoners-really-die-in-the-heatwave/
Merchants of doom.
Imperial used to be the bee’s knees but not any more. They got it wrong with covid and they’ve got it wrong about climate.
And they are blazing the trail by recently renaming Human Resources as People Function….
People Function (Human Resources)
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/human-resources/
Fredi et al were at it again in yesterday’s Grauniad saying the June heatwave killed 2300 across Europe of which 1500 were attributed to “climate breakdown”
How they came to this conclusion is difficult to know since they also said that most victims die out of public view in homes and hospitals and with little media coverage!
A researcher named Bruce Lanphear had a medical paper accepted and published a couple of years ago. He claimed that the element Lead, Pb, could be causing 240,000 US deaths per year, when death certificates average about 20 per year, many from drinking moonshine from stills with Lead solder in pipes. Lanphear used similar sweeping model logic seemingly similar to this economic study.
Geoff S
These figures are pure propaganda. To start with, we all know how UK gov’ts seriously undervalue projects. The HS started at somewhere around £30Bn, now it’s over £100Bn. Dr Michael Kelly, on the back of a discarded fag packet, envisages a sum starting north of £2Tn. I reckon even that is an underestimate.
Such a phrase could be hilariously misunderstood by Americans.
English expressions you can’t safely use in America:
1. “I’m just going out to smoke a fag.”
Two cultures separated by a common language.
Ah, a lovely quote I heard yesterday. Fanny Cradock had a cooking show, and her husband was often in it, often somewhat the worse for wear. He said (apparently), although it may have been Frank Bough who said it:
Although that’s much funnier (fannyer?) in English English.
Kelly’s number only covers the cost of insulating buildings
No, you missed it, he covered rewiring the distribution system, electrifying the transport system, installing heat pumps.
When he talked about home insulation, he also said that only a few actually achieved the insulation target.
One thing for sure: nothing that spews forth from the Climate Change Committee has any credibility.
You can probably add at least 5 times as much for what consumers and households would pay. The consequent economic destruction would mean that it can’t be afforded, so it won’t happen. But the economic destruction will take a long time to repair, and us already proceeding apace.
I haven’t read the report.
But, looking at the chart in the head post0, to describe this as Net Zero costing the tax payer £800 billion doesn’t make any sense. Lost tax receipts are not costs.
For instance, suppose we are assessing the costs and benefits of reducing smoking or some other destructive habit. In the costs we include the advertising campaigns to change awareness of health issues. We also have costs associated with any enforcement of a ban – anti smuggling costs for instance. In the benefits we have reduced healthcare costs and the economic value of years of life increases.
These are either cash flows or are actions for which we can reasonably assess cash flows. We can then put these cash flows, positive and negative, into a spreadsheet, apply an interest rate, and get the NPV of the proposal.
What we do not count, because its not a cash out, is the loss of the taxes paid by cigarette buyers. Its not a cost of the proposal to the country.
When we look at it from a government perspective there is a different story, but not one having to do with the costs of the proposal in any usual accounting sense. Not one that is relevant to the investment merits of the proposal.
The government may be receiving income from taxation of cigarettes, and when smoking is abolished, this income will disappear. This has no bearing on the investment case for the proposal. It is something that has to be taken account of in government tax policy – either reduce expenditure proportionally, raise taxes somewhere else, or borrow.
How to explain this clearly? Take the case of road safety. We are considering implementing speed reduction measures by traffic calming road layouts. We do not get to add the reduction in speeding fines to the costs item of the proposal. Yes, we have less speeding, yes this means less fines. But that is not a cost of the proposal from an investment and return on investment point of view. That’s just a consideration regarding the Council budget. The merits of reducing speeding through traffic calming have to do with reduction in accidents and perhaps any other less tangible benefits we can quantify. The costs are road layout works, some overhead for planning and consultations. Loss of speeding fine income is not a cost.
You would really have thought that an organization called the OBR would be familiar with tax policy and investment appraisal, would know the difference between them, and not mix them together in the way they look to have.
If the chart is representative of the study, the thing must be a complete dog’s dinner.
I have read that the UK government has consistently refused to do a proper analysis of the full costs of Net Zero to the economy and society. This, if the stories about it are correct, is not it, either.
I suppose we have to make time to read the whole study. Don’t know if I can face it.
Michel,
Thank you for this comment. It expresses precisely the same objection that hit me on first reading. Geoff S
The increasing and continued adoption of ineffective technologies will eventually lead to a utopia.
Have patience.
The CCC and OBR are both worthless and it doesn’t matter what they say. The only thing that matters is that the west has spent trillions of dollars in an effort to lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere. CO2 levels haven’t lowered they haven’t even leveled off. The whole scheme is a lie and a complete waste of money, time and resources. It is madness.