Essay by Eric Worrall
Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses.
Weakening UK net zero policy would damage economy, chief climate adviser says
Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses.
Fiona Harvey Environment editorWed 24 Jun 2026 09.01 AEST
Weakening the UK’s net zero policy would disrupt business and damage the economy, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.
Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said: “The U-turns are really damaging to inward investor confidence. If we really want to grow the economy, then investing and getting good at building stuff is essential.”
His intervention comes as the CCC published its latest report to parliament on Wednesday, on progress towards the target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The report found that although the push towards renewable energy has gone well, and more people are switching to electric cars, the take-up of heat pumps has lagged behind severely.
Topping pointed to a recent CBI report finding the net zero economy was worth about £100bn a year to the UK, growing faster than the rest of the economy and producing higher paid jobs. “We’ve got the institutional infrastructure in place since the [2008] Climate Change Act, and real consistency of direction and progress, and we know that consistency is super important for industry in making investment decisions,” he said.
In the wake of Keir Starmer’s resignation, the stance of his likely successor, Andy Burnham, on green issues has come under renewed scrutiny. Burnham has previously supported offshore wind and renewable energy, but some of his advisers have appeared to contrast his bid for “reindustrialisation” with the push for net zero, despite evidence from economists that the two are complementary, rather than opposed.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/24/weakening-net-zero-policy-damage-economy-climate-change-committee
I never cease to be astounded by the profound ignorance of claims that renewables somehow benefit the economy of states which support them. State support for renewables only benefits the recipients of the subsidies. Everyone else has to suffer the cost.
There is a book I read a long time ago, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad“, which should be required secondary school reading.
The book provides a very simple but powerful definition of an asset: “An asset puts money in your pocket. A liability takes money out of your pocket“.
Oil and gas generate revenue for the government, and help fund government services. Renewables cost subsidy cash, and take money away from other services such as schools, hospitals and pensioners.
There is no point governments supporting commercial ventures which drain money from the public purse.
This isn’t the first time the British Government drove the economy into the wall by attempting to subsidise economic failure. Last time it ended in tears. Continuing to support a catastrophic drain on the public purse and the real economy like renewables will lead to a replay of the 1976 Sterling crisis.
Whinger…
Britain really cannot have an election soon enough as a means of dumping all the useless politicians like this idiot.
But sadly, much of this nonsense was put in place by the previous useless lot
yep May & Johnson we’re fully supportive of the net zero agenda as we’re most of the Tory party , same with immigration they let it rip
Their position is simple, “We are now dependent on wasting trillions of dollars.”
Well, jobs losses in outmoded fossil fuel dependent industries & commerce just have to be absorbed, say the architects and executors of ‘Net Zero’ schemes.
“But wait a minute, now you’re talking about US losing OUR jobs too?”
OUTRAGEOUS! The country will collapse without us!!
The only thing worse than doing something disastrous, is stopping doing something disastrous.
Now that’s a well reasoned argument if I ever saw one. /sarc
We can’t stop strangling you.
If we do so we would harm your breathing.
Such reasoning is easier than admitting to self-serving deceit.
Every single member of the Climate Change Committee has been a useless science denying moron. I see that Nigel Topping is continuing that tradition.
Arguing that black is white can only go on for a short while until people suddenly notice their loss of funds.
Let’s see how currency devaluation, inflation, structural budget deficits, and uncompetitive industry works out. Team advocacy is willing to drive all the way to that obvious point.
A bureaucrat’s wet dream!
You obviously haven’t heard about the Cloward-Piven strategy to bring UBI.
So … should the UK have just surrendered to the Socialist back in 1940?
Hitler created lots of jobs. Some were slave labor, but, hey, they were jobs!
(Just like building solar panels today.)
I’m wondering what jobs this guy is talking about? How many jobs does Net Zero supply?
As far as I can see, any Net Zero jobs are all being created in China.
Well lots of jobs in Quango’s and NGO’s seem to be the majority, hence they are so well paid. No productivity however but thats a small issue, sarc off.
A classic piece from the Guardian:
“As MP for Makerfield, he knows the importance of ensuring communities are prepared for proliferating climate impacts such as flooding. As future leader of the Labour party he has the responsibility to bring to life the most ambitious climate and clean energy programme that any British government has been elected on.”
This week’s record heatwave, the year’s second so far, has given a foretaste of the threat the climate crisis poses to the UK. Schools have been forced to close, transport has been in chaos and productivity has been damaged, not counting the likely loss of life. European economies, including the UK, stand to lose $600bn from extreme heat by 2030, according to one estimate.
The required response should be clear, says Angharad Hopkinson, a political campaigner at Greenpeace UK. “The only way off this hellish treadmill is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Our next prime minister needs to act on the evidence outside their window, and the advice of their scientific advisers, and stay the course on climate policies. The alternative is parched reservoirs, unaffordable food, shuttered hospitals and schools and wildly fluctuating bills each time a new oil war is kindled.”
These lunatics actually seem to think that UK Net Zero will in some undefined way affect UJK weather!
They think there is a threat posed by the climate crisis to the UK, and doing Net Zero is in some way going to avert or minimize it. Let’s recall for a moment what UK Net Zero will do (if it actually works, which it of course will not). It will eliminate the UK’s CO2 emissions, which are currently a bit over 1% of global annual emissions. How is this supposed to have any effect at all on the global or UK climate or weather? Especially when China, India, Indonesia etc will make up the UK reductions in a couple of months.
These people are complete lunatics. And they are not stopping.
“will eliminate the UK’s CO2 emissions”
No, that is not possible.
It might cut them by say 20% or so.
When it comes to CO2 emissions, (of which nature provides some 95%+)…
… and China India and other Asian country, with USA, account for most of the rest…
… It is smaller than a flea bite on an elephant’s posterior.
Still using fossil fuels but no longer drilling for them, but hey lets buy them from Norway who drill the same fields.
The first heat wave was so mild I have already forgotten it happened. Something like the warmest April day in 60 years.
“The U-turns are really damaging to inward investor confidence…..” Confidence that their ROI won’t be guaranteed? Or confidence that the subsidies won’t disappear?
“If we really want to grow the economy, then investing and getting good at building stuff is essential.” Talk about hypocrisy. Who’s economy do they mean? Replacing national industry with foreign industry is their goal.
He acts like the UK economy is doing great.
He is seeing what he wants to see, not what is really there.
Oh come on were doing fine! 🙂
With amongst the highest electricity prices in the developed world for industry and domestic consumers the consequences are dire. These high prices contributed to the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery, the Exxon refinery in Scotland, one of the Hull refineries, most of the steel industry, closure of fertiliser and fibre glass industries and severe problems for pottery and glass making. Car manufacturing is now back at 1950s levels
On the domestic front customer energy debts in June 2025 totalled £4bn.
And with our net zero policies we are on track to require 120GW of capacity and a much larger grid to meet 45GW of peak demand.
As I said everything is fine isn’t it?
“But a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest…”
— The Boxer (Simon and Garfnnkel)
”Topping pointed to a CBI report finding the net zero economy was worth about £100bn a year to the UK, growing faster than the rest of the economy”
UK’s debt is also rising at the fastest rate in the world, second only to Botswana…
“was worth about £100bn a year to the UK”
And a heck of a lot more to China’s economy. !
The CBI report is utter fantasy written by climate propagandists. It reclassifies normal jobs as Net Zero jobs. In reality, the Net Zero lunacy increases energy costs throughout the economy destroying enormous numbers of jobs in Britain. Net Zero has had the overall effect of reducing the number of jobs in Britain and it is costing us billions every year so that climate alarmists can virtue signal. Ed Miliband claims that Britain is a climate leader. The only thing that Britain is leading is the charge towards the edge of the cliff as the leading lemming.
Not just virtue signal.
Stuffing their pockets with cash, also.
He forgot to subtract the state subsidies from that figure.
This is the result of government forcing us to accept lies. Like men can have babies, men can become women, women can become men, CO2 will cause catastrophic runaway global warming, renewables are cheaper than fossil fuel and nuclear, renewables can replace fossil fuels, the covid mess and on and on. We need to control what government can do and what it can’t.
“…renewables can replace fossil fuels, the covid mess and on and on”, as in there is no such thing as ANTIFA.
I was raised on the principle that the highest priority of a government was to protect its citizens from the government.
Andy Burnham has (will have) the opportunity to be the UK’s best prime minister for many decades. I hope he takes it. There are signs that he is not rusted on to Net Zero like many in his party, but even more importantly to my mind his supporters voted for Brexit (check needed) and won’t accept rubbish from him. Is there now a glimmer of light at the end of the UK’s tunnel? I sincerely hope so; since Brexit they have been atrociously let down by their PMs (Liz Truss excepted).
The great moral imperative of our time-
EU countries are bailing out fossil fuels instead of funding the green transition, Greenpeace warns
Sounds like they are waking up to the REALITY that wind and solar just CANNOT PROVIDE.
“Greenpeace argues the energy transition cannot simply mean replacing one energy source with another. It must also involve structural market reform, support for self-consumption, the promotion of local energy communities, and a sustained reduction in demand.”
Not the last phrase. Going to EVs and heat pumps is a sustained reduction in demand?
Wow. I never took that math course.
“Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses.”
Weakening UK net zero policy would damage economy, chief climate adviser says”
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Wow, talk about taking your cues from Orwell’s 1984! Big Brother has nothing on the CCC in the UK.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Orwell missed on a couple:
Good is bad.
Men are women.
I suppose if I sip my coffee, I can come up with a few more.
The only business being disrupted by changes and reduction of Nett Zero policies is the climate change industry, all the traditional businesses are closing down.
I’d love to sit Topping down with Andy May while Andy patiently takes him through the earth’s ice ages and explains the latest scientific thinking on ice age formation. But of course none of that would make a difference because it’s all actually about the global redistribution of wealth. Ottmar Edenhoffer’s memorable admission merely confirmed what we already knew. Even if the science is as plain as the nose on your face politics will always trump science truth. All we can do as individuals is to keep educating our fellow human beings and voting the Left out of office whenever we get the opportunity.
Nigel Topping is an utter fool.
He has a point. Stupid environmental and industrial policy has gone on so long that the system is no longer built anywhere close to efficient production and energy delivery and entirely on chasing policies build on sand and contorted thinking.
Correcting it will have some sort of additional short term damage, but certainly much less in the medium to long term of basing an economy on lies, while handicapping the country against all international competitors.
I say that as someone whose next 18 months career prospects and job security are entirely based on keeping going with a carbon capture project.
“Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses.”
Paraphrase: Change changes things and we can’t have that. He’s got nothing.
Certainly if you have sound consistent knowledge that the government aims to defeat your production and take whatever profit you make, you can make sound investment decisions.
Like going elsewhere or not working.