Green investment is a moral obligation – and an industrial opportunity

So often chastised for being cautious to the point of timidity, the prime minister has in recent weeks been uncharacteristically bold.

The Budget, for example, represented the biggest package of tax hikes in relation to national income since the Second World War. The planning system is also set for revolution. And now Sir Keir Starmer has chosen to defy his critics and double down on climate change.

In his speech to the Cop29 meeting in Baku, Sir Keir increased the target for reductions in Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions, and he was right to highlight the “huge opportunity” for Britain to move ahead of other countries in the race for green investment – especially given the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House.

Exactly how much of Joe Biden’s green investment plan will be abandoned remains to be seen. But President-elect Trump has made no secret of his desire to withdraw, once again, from the Paris climate accords, because he regards the climate crisis as a “hoax”. “Drill, baby, drill” is the incoming president’s motto, and it is a depressing one for the future of life on Earth.

As the prime minister says, then, there is an industrial opportunity here for the UK, as well as a moral and environmental obligation. With growth at the centre of the government’s plans for raising living standards and improving public services, investment in renewables (particularly onshore wind and solar power), carbon capture and hydrogen promises much for the future. Nuclear power, too, will have to form part of the solution if fossil fuels for energy generation are to be phased out completely.

The critics always complain about the high cost of the initial investment, and that is a fair point, but they too readily ignore the obvious advantages for future generations, who will enjoy clean, zero-emission green energy production, lower bills, higher spending power for households, and radically reduced costs for industry. That is the great longer-term prize that attracts too little attention, and the myth that net zero means higher fuel and energy bills has gained far too much traction in the public debate.

Despite the strenuous efforts of the energetic energy secretary, Ed Miliband, the government is not winning the argument on the practical benefits of green energy, leaving aside the more abstract, transcendent issues. More, then, needs to be done, and that includes some candour with the public about the lifestyle changes that will need to be undertaken.

If fossil fuels are to be phased out, it will mean more people running battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), and air travel will probably become more expensive. Sir Keir, understandably, says that he doesn’t want to “tell people how to run their lives and instruct them how to behave”. “I’m not going to do that,” he said.

Yet this leaves too much uncertainty about what will change, and when, in people’s lives – and in circumstances like these, disinformation is easily drawn into the vacuum.

The mandated deadline to end sales of solely petrol- and diesel-engined new cars was postponed from 2030 to 2035 by the Sunak administration. That was disruptive. Then, the Labour manifesto promised to bring it forward again to 2030 – but there has been no confirmation of this so far.

Meanwhile, the car trade is being ordered to sell an ever-increasing proportion of BEVs, with effective fines of £15,000 per petrol vehicle sold if the BEV quotas are not met. That is not sustainable, either for carmakers or for car users. Similar arguments apply to the installation of heat pumps to replace gas boilers.

Still, at least Sir Keir turned up, both literally and metaphorically. Too many world leaders failed to show their faces at what should be the most crucial international gathering of the year, at a time when catastrophic, irreversible climate change is almost upon us.

Looking at the turnout at Baku, it seems as though everyone from Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, to Xi Jinping of China found something better to do than doing something about the survival of Homo sapiens.

By the sound of things, the new “net-zero-sceptic” Conservative leader is worryingly complacent about the climate crisis – while the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, soon to be installed as Mr Trump’s adviser, thinks mankind should become a “multiplanetary civilisation”.

That is why Sir Keir had to make his brief trip to the Caucasus – and why he has to continue to make the case for climate action.