Rees-Mogg slams net zero target as ‘idiotic tokenism’

Jacob Rees-Mogg has slammed the government’s 2050 net zero emissions target as “idiotic” and “pure tokenism”.

The former energy secretary’s comments come following Rishi Sunak’s recent speech in which he recommitted to the 2050 target, despite rowing back on several interim milestones.

In a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference, the former business and energy secretary also criticised the rushed way that the climate change target had been introduced by Theresa May’s government.

Rees-Mogg, who returned to the Tory backbenches last year after a brief spell as business secretary in Liz Truss’ short lived government, dismissed the 2050 target as a “hope”.

“Legally binding targets are idiotic and a very bad form of legislation, it’s pure tokenism,” he said.

“False targets are merely a means of getting bossy governments to tell you what to do.

“The closer you get to the target, the more focused people are on the reality of the cost.”

Instead, he called for an “intelligent net zero”, which would be driven by consumer-friendly technologies rather than government targets.

“It needs the technology to come through first, rather than doing it by regulation or diktat or by bossiness, because voters won’t ultimately put up with it and nor should they.”

Rees-Mogg also criticised the House of Commons 2019 vote, which had approved net zero “on the nod in 90 minutes”.

“The statutory instrument that was passed was one of the worst tokenistic piece of legislation passed recently,” he added.

The MP for North East Somerset also responded to concerns, like those expressed by his fellow MP and ex-energy minister Chris Skidmore, that Rishi Sunak’s recent rowing back on some net zero commitments risks fracturing a valuable cross-party consensus on the issue.

Such consensus is “almost always wrong” and “dangerous”, Rees-Mogg said: “You want to give the electorate a choice.

“We will only get there (net zero) if people will vote for it and people will only vote for it if they can afford it.

“That is the political reality: my voters will not vote to be cold and poor.”

Rees-Mogg also questioned the mooted economic benefits of net zero, pointing out that these had mainly accrued so far to overseas countries, like China.

But he said there were potential benefits such as potentially abundant wind power creating a “free source” of excess electricity that could be used to produce green hydrogen.

Networks and nuclear minister Andrew Bowie told the same event that Sunak’s Downing Street speech had kickstarted a more “honest” debate about reaching net zero.

“We do need to have that conversation. It was a mistake that we didn’t have it when we brought in the legislation in 2019.”

But defending net zero as an “overwhelmingly popular” policy amongst the British public, he said: “We’re not rowing back on anything: net zero remains on the statute book and we are going to smash the target.”

To read Utility Week’s analysis of Sunak’s recent net zero speech, click here.