War in Iran. Energy bills set to spike again this summer. Electricity prices that have gone from among the lowest in Europe to among the highest. And a Government that appears to believe the answer is simply to press on.
But Dr Gerard Lyons, research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, isn't arguing for abandoning the green transition. Instead, he says the way Britain is pursuing Net Zero is making the country poorer, less competitive, and more exposed to exactly the kind of international shocks that good energy policy is designed to absorb.
The problem is substitution over addition — replacing fossil fuels before the renewable system is ready to carry the load, and loading the cost of transition directly onto household and business bills. The fix, Lyons argues, requires treating the energy transition as long-term infrastructure, financed through borrowing and repaid over generations. It requires nuclear — urgently, and at scale. It requires a stable tax regime for the North Sea. And it requires fixing a market design that means consumers pay gas prices even when the wind is blowing.
Britain led the world in cutting emissions, and it could yet lead the world in doing so affordably. But Lyons warns that the current path risks making the green transition synonymous with economic pain — and that is a political and economic failure the country cannot afford.
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