General election, net zero and climate policy with Simon Evans (Deputy Editor & Senior Policy Editor @ Carbon Brief)

What's interesting, what we've seen over the past few years is the way that the climate conversation has become mainstream. And, you know, for better or worse, that that means it's a political a political football in the way that, you know, other topics are. We're doing quite well compared to a lot of other countries. But, actually, if you look at where we've made progress and where we haven't made progress, where we haven't made progress, things start to look a little bit more shaky.

The UK doesn't have to follow either. There'll be tons of pressure, and Vishen Sunak or next prime minister has got a difficult decision to make, which is you can open your arms to Chinese imports and then really have loads of cheap EVs and decarbonize fast. Or you can put these tariffs on and pay the consequences.

We may see a kind of reappearance of a British industrial strategy, and this will certainly be the sorts of questions they're having to answer as they come into office.

Hello, and welcome back to Transmission.

Today's conversation is with Simon Evans, deputy editor and senior policy editor at Carbon Brief. Carbon Brief is a news website focused on climate change, providing analysis and fact checking related to climate science and energy policy. In the light of the upcoming general election, Simon shares his expertise and insights into what a change in government could mean for renewable build out and net zero goals in the UK. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit subscribe and leave any feedback in the comments section. Let's jump in.

Hello, Simon. Welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Quentin. Nice to be here.

And before we get started, if you're listening to this, Simon, you're gonna blush a little bit here. I'm I'm actually a big fan of you and everything that you guys do at Carbon Brief. Your newsletter is exceptional. So if you're listening to this and you don't already subscribe to the Carbon Brief newsletter, go on the website and do it right now.

It's well worth getting, getting your hands on. But, yeah, Simon, we're really glad to have you on. The timing couldn't be better for this because we're gonna talk a lot about policy, and and everything's about to change. Everything's changing right now in the UK, and everything's changing in Europe.

So we're gonna talk about the election, what that means for carbon, what that means for, electrification, all of that stuff. But before we do, Simon, can you just explain who you are?

Yeah. Thanks, Quentin. And, yeah, very kind introduction. You saved me plugging out our newsletter, although we actually have several.

So there, there's a lot to sign up for. Yeah. So I'm Simon Evans. I'm the deputy editor and senior policy editor at Carbon Brief.

I've actually just very recently passed ten years with Carbon Brief, which is a little bit hard to believe.

And Wow. Congrats. Thank you. Yeah. So so Carbon Brief Carbon Brief's been around a little bit maybe something like thirteen or fourteen years now.

And, basically, what we do is very in-depth, data driven, impartial, policy neutral journalism about climate change and energy. We're grant funded, which is, still relatively unusual form of of funding for journalism. But and so, yeah, Carbon Brief is very lucky and privileged to be completely grant funded. And that means we don't have to worry about, you know, chasing clicks.

We don't have to worry about advertising, you know, trying to kind of bring in subscribers, break the latest news. We, you know, we just focus on the things the stories that we think are most important, where we can, you know, genuinely help our readers to understand better what is actually going on in the world as it pertains to climate energy.

And what one of the things I really love about you guys is that there's lots of long reads. It's not like hundred and fifty, two hundred words done. How do you get adverts into eyeballs? There's some really good long reads.

I think the the one you did recently, I think it was you or one of your colleagues think you were involved in it, was the Greg Jackson interview from Oxfus, which was wicked. There was a particular bit where he's saying hydrogen for heating of homes is a bit like flushing. A bit like cleaning toilets with champagne. It might work, but it's really expensive.

I just thought that was brilliant. And the whole article was awesome.

Yeah. No. Thank you. That was me and my boss, the editor, Leo Hickman. We did that interview together.

And today, we're gonna delve a little bit into politics, which is something that we don't do very often at Moto Energy.

And I suppose we should set some guardrails, which is that we are apolitical. We don't have a particular side. But on the other hand, we are four or five weeks away from one of the most remarkable elections of the last hundred years or so where all the polls are the polling is so extreme that giving all sides of this you know, the it it looks like Labour's gonna win, and so we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about what Labour's policies would mean in the next five or ten years. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we're promoting that side, but we have to be real about what we think is probably likely gonna happen.

And so we're gonna try and tread carefully. That's my that's my go, disclaimer off the cuff. Hopefully, nobody gets too annoyed by this interview. So first question at you, which is apolitical, which is what is the role of media and communications in the whole net zero thing before we even delve into the details?

Yeah. I mean, you know, in a way, I I would say that it's no really no different than any other sphere of politics. I I suppose what's interesting, what we've seen over the past few years is the way that the climate conversation has become mainstream.

And, you know, for better or worse, that that means it's a political football in the way that that, you know, other topics are. You know, Carbon Brief, we're obviously part of the media, but we see ourselves as, I suppose, a little bit without wanting to sound too bouncy about it. We see ourselves as a little bit apart from, you know, from the mainstream newspapers and broadcasters, you know, because of our funding model, because of our audience, and because of the way that we do our journalism.

Well, you know, we know that a key audience for us is actually other journalists. So we're deliberately trying to provide information that that helps other journalists do their jobs.

And yeah. So, I mean, obviously, there's, you know, there's a huge role coming back to your question, the media generally to report accurately and fairly. And, you know, it's that that whole adage about if someone says it's raining as a journalist, it's your job. It's not your job to report that they said it was raining. It's to go and actually look out the window and check.

So I think, you know, we would always approach things from that perspective.

And it's a very tricky you know, there aren't sort of simple solutions to dealing with those misinformation tactics that we see so broadly now is a a very difficult thing to do, particularly when it comes to specialist subjects like, you know, energy, where, you know, generalist reporters, kind of political reporters, lobby journalists, they often aren't equipped with the the technical knowledge to ask the right questions.

Nevertheless, you know, it's important that, that, you know, media do ask the right questions and not simply report things and then say, oh, we reported what the conservatives said and we report what the Labour Party said and therefore it's balanced. That's not really how it works.

All Alright. We're gonna get stuck into the juicy stuff about the election and everything that we're, we're basically a few weeks away from big change, whatever that means. Well, let's get into the specific party pledges, if you like, and the impacts in a second. But can we just take stock? How is the UK doing in, we made lots of promises over the last few years about net zero. So how is UK currently progressing on its net zero goals?

Yeah. So, I mean, the UK's got this net zero target, which basically means cutting emissions by a hundred percent from nineteen ninety levels by two thousand and fifty. I mean, if you're cutting a hundred percent, you cut it a hundred percent from anywhere, really, and it's the same that's the same thing. You get it gonna get to zero.

But yeah, so we're at the moment, the UK is about halfway there. So, you know, depending how you count things, it's twenty twenty four. We've had since nineteen ninety. That's, thirty five years.

And we've got another whatever we are, another twenty five years to get the other half of the way. So, you know, we're doing quite well compared to a lot of other countries. But, actually, if you look at where we've made progress and where we haven't made progress, things start to look a little bit more shaky.

So to date, you know, over the last and particularly recently over the last kind of decade or so, almost all of that progress that we've made, you know, which is genuinely quite significant, it's almost all happened in the power sector because we stopped burning coal to generate electricity more or less. The last coal fired power station is going to close down at the end, you know, this autumn. And, already at this point, we're at kind of below two percent or possibly even below one percent coal fired power. And that's been a really dramatic seismic shift in the electricity sector.

But as soon as you start looking elsewhere, whether it's in transport, heating buildings, farming and agriculture and land use industry and so on, there's been much less progress. There's been structural shifts, if you like, that have had the effect of cutting emissions, but they haven't been deliberately designed as part of a climate strategy. Whereas, you know, getting off coal, that, you know, that is climate strategy. You know, and the next challenge, the challenge for the next government is to start making inroads into those other policy areas.

Can you just do a TLDR of the other policy areas?

Yeah. So so we've got, you know, top of the list is transport. That's the biggest sector now in terms of its emissions. There's been very little progress in cutting emissions from transport over the last, you know, since nineteen ninety. Cars have got more efficient. They do And so those And so those things have e kind of balanced out, and we're kind of where we were thirty years ago. So that's why we've got this, zero emissions vehicle mandate, which is supposed to drive the share of sales up, you know, in terms of which cars are electric vehicles.

That's, you know, that we won't simply put, we won't meet our climate targets unless that that mandate works. Then next, you've got buildings. And, you know, eighty five percent of homes in the UK are heated by a gas boiler. Most people don't think about what a big source of emissions that is. You know, if you ask them about their personal contribution to climate change, they'll talk about cars. They might talk about diets, hats flying. People don't tend to think about boilers, but they're really a big contributor.

So again, we've got the well now delayed clean heat market mechanism, which is a bit like the the car mandate. It's meant to drive sales of heat pumps. But again, that's a huge task for the next government. Then you've got industry. And that, for industry stuff like you know, Port Talbot obviously been in the has been in the news. But, you know, decarbonizing steel production, decarbonizing chemicals, cement, refineries.

All of those things are big challenges that, you know, the government's only just starting to grapple with. And then quite amazingly, farming and land use is now bigger contribution to UK emissions than the power sector.

So all of the power plants, all of the electricity in the country generates less c o two than than farming and land use.

And that just shows the rapid progress we've made on the power sector and the complete failure to progress in in farming and land use.

Wow. I had no idea.

That's as of last year. So we did some analysis earlier in the year when, I think it was in March time or yeah. Early March this year. And I was quite, you know, I was pretty taken aback when I saw that. And I I kinda had to double check with my colleague and say that these numbers are definitely right. But it's, it is the case because emissions in the power sector dropped significantly last year. We had this weird anomaly in twenty twenty two where the French nuclear fleet was having, real problems.

And so we were generating lots of extra electricity to export to France. And then last year was back to normal. We were importing electricity from the continent. And that meant there was like a twenty percent drop in power sector emissions.

And that, that was enough, you know, that basically brought us back on trend where emissions have been dropping rapidly. Whereas farming emissions is just complete straight line, basically.

Alright. Now let's dig into the election. So a quick, let's just take note of where we are in the polls. So Labour have got a twenty point ish point lead.

It feels like whatever happens in the election campaigns, the polls don't seem to be changing much. So unless something miraculous happens in a manifesto this week, it's looking pretty likely that Labour are gonna win a majority enough to govern and maybe even a huge landslide. The other seats of all to play for reform are getting a bigger part of, well, more significance in the polls. Lib Dems are moving a little bit upwards.

But, generally, it looks like Labour are gonna govern. And so we're gonna focus this conversation on what that would mean, where to start with this. If if labor gets in, what does that mean for carbon?

And I know that's a bit of a bit of a naughty question, but can you have a go?

I guess the really interesting situation we're in now is that that, you know, that looking at the two main parties in the UK, the conservatives who obviously have been in government fourteen years and the labor party on paper, at least rhetorically, they're both they're still committed to the net zero target to the interim carbon budgets that are meant to get us there. But the way that they're now talking about climate action are so, so different. And so effectively, a labor an incoming labor government that, you know, if they have a big majority, which looks very likely at this point based on the polls, that it could be interpreted as a big mandate, a big electoral mandate to take more ambitious action on climate.

You know, labor being criticized for not saying all that much about what they would do in government, but they have been pretty steadfast and pretty clear that one of one of their areas of focus is is about climate action, is about doing more, you know, to, to build up homegrown energy from renewables, cut energy bills through insulating homes and, and so on. And so it's undoubtedly the case that they will want to be and they would want to be and be seen to be more ambitious on climate action. So the precise ways that that manifests, you know, a little bit remains to be seen in that manifesto exactly what they'll pledge.

But we do know, of course, that they have this very ambitious target of decarbonizing electricity supplies in this country by twenty thirty.

And that contrast the government less ambitious, isn't it?

They they have rolled back a little bit in the last six months or so, Labour.

So so what's happened with you know, the so they had this two part kind of pitch, if you like, on climate change. They said, we want to decarbonize electricity supplies by two thousand and thirty. And, also, we wanna invest twenty eight billion a year in climate action generally. And people very, very frequently and and still today, you know, deliberately tie those two together as if one relies on the other.

And that actually was never the case. And so they you know, people say, oh, well, how can you stick with that twenty thirty target when you're not gonna you're not committing to spend all that money? But the fact is that the investment in the power sector overwhelmingly in the UK comes from the private sector. And that's, yeah, ultimately paid via consumer energy bills, you know, households and businesses.

And that was always the case. You know, there, there is this GB energy that the party wants set up. And the role of GB energy is still a little bit unclear. But fundamentally, you know, the big push in the power sector was about unlocking private sector investment.

The actually, the area where that twenty eight billion that they're no longer gonna gonna be committed to will actually make a big a bigger difference is about insulating homes. They had a really punchy, you know, punchy part of that twenty eight billion was about doing a huge amount of work to insulate homes. So, you know, we know that the UK's got some of the leakiest and least well insulated housing stock in in Europe. And we know that that that invasion of Ukraine.

And we and we know that, you know, not insulating our homes is is kind of, you know, penny wise pound foolish, if you like. You know, a decade ago when when, David Cameron and pre previous conservative government infamously said we should get rid of the green crap. That was all about cutting spending on insulation, which ultimately left us with a hefty big bill. We we did some analysis on this.

Yeah. It's many billions of pounds higher that bills were as a result of not having insulated homes, not having continued to build out renewables at the pace that they were being built out in the twenty tens. So, yeah, so coming back to the labor pitch, you know, we we still got this twenty thirty target. There's, of course, lots and lots of debate about whether it's possible or not.

There's some quite silly debate about, you know, whether you could actually run a grid that's fully decarbonized by two thousand and thirty. And I think that it's very clear that you could. It's just a question of whether you can build all the stuff you need quickly enough. And that, you know, that isn't only about investment.

In fact, it's more about, you know, you know, the logistics of it. If you like, it's about, can you get things through the planning system quickly enough? Can you get things connected to the grid? Can you build the grids, you know, the bigger grid that you will need all all in that, you know, quite short period, which is after all just over five years.

What about transport? What's if labor get in, what changes in transport? You said that was the the next biggest thing after power.

Well, it's it's actually much bigger now in terms of its missions, but it's kind of the next big priority if you like. You know, we we've already made a lot of progress. The power decarbonizing the power sector is fundamental to unlocking mission savings elsewhere in the economy, whether that's via electrified vehicles or electrified heat. But yeah, and in terms of priorities, like transports, that, you know, the next big one.

And so there's been quite a lot of chopping and changing here, which is all quite confusing. Fundamentally, we've got this zero emissions vehicle mandate, and it currently runs up to two thousand and thirty. And it says, you know, this year, eighteen percent of sales or whatever the target is exactly have to be electric vehicles. And that number goes up each year until two thousand and thirty.

And the difference really is about what happens after two thousand and thirty. So, originally, under Boris Johnson, the conservatives had said, after twenty thirty, you might be able to buy a plug in hybrid, but you won't be able to buy a pure combustion engine vehicle.

Then Rishi Sunak last autumn in his kind of, I'm commit I honest, I'm committed to net zero, but we should go more slowly. He said, well, actually, after twenty thirty, you'll be able to buy a pure combustion engine car. And what labor the the difference for labor is they're saying, no. Actually, we go back to the Boris Johnson version of this policy. So no pure combustion engine cars only plug in hybrids or electric vehicles. So, ultimately, you know, a lot of noise, a lot of kind of confusion, but it's not really all that different in the end.

And and how about conservatives? What do we expect from them? Let's say they turn this around somehow, and the conservatives get a majority. Or they become there are other scenarios where they become far more politically significant than the polls would suggest. What are the conservatives saying that they're gonna do, and how is that different?

So I I guess the biggest point of difference that they're trying to to draw with the Labour Party is is in fact, like, them them saying they wouldn't do what Labour say they will do, which is to end licensing for North Sea oil and gas exploration. So, you know, the the North Sea has been a massive source of of effort for the UK over, you know, the past kind of forty years or so, And it is a declining basin. It basically, most of the oil and gas that was in it, we have extracted it and burnt it. And, you know, a lot of people don't think about this, but actually that the sort of tax bonanza that came out of that in the early eighties is what enables Nigel Lawson to make lots of tax cuts.

Now, you know, despite successive kind of efforts, you know, particularly under George Osborne to revive the North Sea effectively, there there just isn't that much oil and gas left.

And so no matter what happens, I think the key point that's often lost in the way is that no matter what happens, production of the oil and gas from the North Sea is going down a lot over over the next five to five months.

The lifting cost the the cost per per barrel or barrel equivalent, the, what they call, the lifting costs are so much higher, like ninety to a hundred dollars, I think, plus in the North Sea compared to American shale, which is what we're currently relying on, which is the cheapest gas the world has ever seen, basically. You could argue that the way because it's very debt laden and blah blah blah, but very cheap gas. And, yeah, even subsidies in the North Sea gas fields would have to be huge to compete with global LNG.

Yeah. So so ultimately that, you know, the conservatives are making a big deal about how important the North Sea is to energy security and implying that it would mean lower bills, when in reality, it means very little to either of those things. You know, new licenses for oil and gas would take many years to come to fruition. And if the government were you know, the the current government were truly serious about boosting energy security, there are a lot of things they could have done much more quickly since the energy crisis, which after all was a couple of years ago now. They could have, you know, pushed through energy efficiency or, you know, awareness campaigns about the things people can do immediately in their homes to cut their gas bills.

They could have, you know, allowed unfettered kind of expansion of onshore wind in line with other energy sources and and so on. But they have made this very big dividing line, attempted to make this sort of performative dividing line, electoral wedge between themselves and the labor party by saying they would continue to offer new licenses for oil and gas. And that and then saying, in contrast, that they think Labour's pledge not to offer any new oil and gas licenses would be a disaster for energy security, for jobs, for tax take, and so on. And I think, you know, apart from the fact that no matter what happens, oil and gas production and loss is gonna go down a lot.

I think the, you know, people get lost in the details. You know? Where's the oil and gas gonna come from if we don't get it from the North Sea? Is it gonna be a higher low higher or lower emissions?

I think the other thing people lose sight of is how important in any kind of anything relating to people is how important, you know, symbolism is. And, you know, so from the labor point of view, pledging the no no new oil and gas would be a hugely significant thing to do. The UK is no longer one of the world's biggest, you know, big kind of oil and gas producers, but it is one of the, you know, the world's major economies. And in that sense, it it would be a very significant decision, a very significant signal to the rest of the world if the UK were to to do that.

And what about the rest of conservative policy? So if we could just run through the power sector, transport, and, you know, big industrial heats and processes, what are the conservatives saying they're gonna do?

Well, we haven't no. I start this by saying we haven't seen their manifesto yet. And, actually, you know, despite the fact that they're the party of government, you know, they've been in power for fourteen years. It's actually not all that clear.

You know, Rishi Sacks been very fond of saying on the campaign trail that he has a plan and we should stick to it and it's working, but it's not actually that clear in the, you know, in, in the energy sector, what exactly that plan looks like. You know, we know they'll continue to offer oil and gas licenses. We know they'll stick to the target for the power sector to decarbonize by two thousand and thirty five. You know, they're already have in, you know, in train a whole series of policies aimed at developing carbon capture and storage, both for industry and for power, you know, developing a clean hydrogen supply chain.

But actually, we don't know that much else about, you know, about how what they do over, you know, over the next parliament would be different, to what they're doing at the moment, I think would be my sort of short answer. We you know, we've seen hints through briefings to the papers about, you know, a plan for drivers. They keep, again, trying to create a wedge between themselves and labor, you know, around standing up for drivers, whatever that means exactly, which seems to mean kind of blocking twenty mile per hour speed limits, blocking, you know, or even overturning low traffic neighborhoods and, you know, London's, ultra low emission zone.

But in terms of the specifics, in terms of how that relates to to, you know, actual emissions in the sector, it's not so clear. You know, presumably, where they haven't said otherwise, they would stick to the, to the zero emissions vehicle mandate for EVs. They brought it in after all, not that long ago. They would, you know, they have delayed, but they would, as far as we know, stick to the the clean heat market mechanism for heat pumps.

So, you know, unless something changes in in in the manifesto, we assume that they'll they'll stick to those things. We did also see, over the weekend, an interview with the Sunday Telegraph by Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, saying that she would force the climate change committee if reelected to consider things like energy bills and energy security when they're proposing targets. The only slight problem with that pledge is that the climate change act has already risen, has already legislated, is already on the statute books, And the climate change committee already has to consider those things.

So there's quite a lot of strange positioning going on by the conservative party, if I could put it that way. And I I probably could give you a better answer if I'd seen the manifesto, but I haven't yet.

What strikes me is that sentiment is shifting and has shifted a lot since certainly since COVID where climate social justice and climate issues became almost the number one priority, and now that has moved. And the conservatives especially especially with the rise of reform, and we've just had the European elections where there's been a big increase in votes being going to right or far right parties. It's clear that the electorate feel or a section of the electorate, wanna push back on, elements of climate and the move to climate and the costs and how they're distributed. Could you just talk a little bit about how sentiment has changed?

Yeah. So I think that's right, that it it it's fair to say that we're in a different world compared to to twenty nineteen. You only have to listen to, you know, a Boris Johnson speech versus a Rishi Senak speech about climate to see how that shifted. And that's you know, part of that is down to personal preferences.

You know, I think it is clear that that Boris Johnson was on board in, you know, in his prime ministerial kind of incarnation, if you like. You know, he may not have been in previous lives, but but as prime minister, he was very on board with, you know, green being good for the economy, being good for jobs, being good for energy security. And, you know, it was went very big rhetorically on it, you know, hosted cop twenty six and so on. We had, you know, the kind of the climate strikes and the Greta Thunberg's rise and this kind of wave of, you know, popular support for climate action, culminating in the UK and Theresa May passing the net zero target, just as just as she was kinda, you know, going out of her job as prime minister.

And now, as you say, we've really seen a big change since COVID, but also very importantly, since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and decision to use, you know, effectively to cut off gas supplies to Europe deliberately as a weapon of war to increase gas prices. And what we're seeing is this very it's quite bizarre in in many ways because, actually, the global energy crisis that resulted from that was all about fossil fuels being very volatile, being very expensive, and causing immense problems for people and pushing lots of people into energy poverty, making commodities very expensive, hammering economies around the world.

And yet, somehow, out of that, there's been this rise of the populist right and the narrative that somehow we need to worry about climate action because it's gonna be bad. You know, it's gonna be costly, and it's gonna be bad for our pockets.

Just very recently, the International Energy Agency put out a really comprehensive report where they looked at what will happen to the cost of energy globally and in different regions of the world if we continue on our current path, and then comparing that to what would happen if we really accelerated climate towards net zero by two thousand and fifty globally. And, you know, it's really quite remarkable how, unremarked this has gone, that they found that massively accelerating climate action would actually make energy bills lower, and it would make, you know, the cost of energy fairer, more equitable around the world.

And, basically, that's because there are huge upfront investment costs, but those are more than offset by by operational savings. Effectively, fossil fuels are quite expensive. If you have a petrol car, you will know that you go to the pump and, you know, you put fifty quids in in the tank without blinking. And you have to do that, you know, every couple of weeks or however often you you fill the tank up. If you have an electric car, it's way, way cheaper, especially if you charge it at home overnight.

And so, really, this is about a change of you know, what the IEA is saying is is about completely changing the narrative.

What they're saying is instead of thinking about climate action as a cost, which we have to bear because we need to avoid, you know, dangerous and catastrophic, you know, warming, Instead, they're saying, actually, just economically, it's gonna be beneficial for the world to shift to to net zero. And really then the question for policy makers and for society is how to do that in a fair way. What actions the policy makers need to take to ensure that those that actually had struggled to afford energy are able to unlock the, you know, the benefits of cheaper, cleaner power, you know, cheaper, cleaner electric vehicles and so on.

What's what the bizarre part of all of this is that somehow politics has totally missed this this this and has come up with this different narrative. And as he's you know, he mentioned with the EU elections that have have just concluded. I mean, it's worth saying, yes, there has been a big boost in far right vote in France and Germany. But across Europe as a whole, a kind of centrist coalition, if you like, which has, you know, broadly supported, you know, the the European green deal and European ambitious climate action in the EU. That remains that block remains in place. So I think, you know, it's clearly gonna be a trickier time for EU climate policymaking in the wake of the elections. But I I don't think that we're necessarily gonna see kinda major rollbacks.

Let's come back to labor for a second. Are these plans actually achievable? Can they actually do this? And can we talk specifically about this idea about a great British energy company? I don't really understand how that's gonna work.

Yeah. I mean, I have to say I've been caught up with various kind of election facing work in the, you know, the past few weeks. I, you know, I think more details of what British Great British Energy might look like have have been coming out, but I think it still really isn't all that clear. We've seen in kind of interviews and election debates already that there's been confusion in Keir Starmer's answers as to whether GB Energy is gonna own generating assets. That's actually gonna start producing electricity.

So the short answer is, I guess we're gonna have to wait and see. And lots of smart people have been coming up with all sorts of ways that that GB Energy could potentially make a useful contribution to, you know, decarbonizing electricity supplies. But I think until Labor gets in, until they actually formally launch that, you know, that vehicle, it's pretty hard to say. And in terms of, like, can they actually achieve, you know, can they actually achieve the target twenty thirty decarbonization?

I mean, you know, look, lots of people in the sector are pretty skeptical. I think that's fair to say. You've got various people like professor Helms saying it's, you know, it's just completely unachievable.

Aurora Energy Research, the the consultancy basically saying they they don't think it's it's doable either, just looking at the practicalities of it. And then you got people like Greg Jackson at Octopus Energy saying, yeah, it's a big push, but it's still, you know, he's very, you know, he's very optimistic. He says, yeah, definitely doable. But Chris Stark, former head of the climate change committee saying, you know, huge task, but but it could be done.

Rather than obsessing about that two thousand and thirty target, you know, the the more interesting thing is to come back to the point about labor's electoral mandate for for stronger action on climate change. You know, they may or may not get to a hundred percent. In fact, really, they're aim aiming for ninety nine percent by two thousand and thirty. But the fact is that they're gonna come in.

They're gonna make a whole load of changes. They're gonna try and accelerate action in the sector. And so they'll probably get further than we would have gone under the conservatives.

Whether or not they get to that target is is probably less important.

Yeah. I hope so. I hope so. I feel like the green the great British, Bake Off Bank thing, the sound bite about the energy company, I feel like they started with a sound bite, and what we really need is change.

And the sound bite delivered one a couple of things, which had the word British in it, which is gets people excited, and then it it suggests public ownership of something. But, I mean, the question is how and yeah. And, how does that fit within the current electricity sector? I don't know, but it's exciting.

It's big and it's bold. Let's see what they can do with it. But the jury's out on that for now. Can we now talk we're battery people.

We really love batteries. We think batteries got a huge place in this world. Are any of the political parties talking about grid scale batteries?

It remains for me to to read all of the manifestos, some of which, you know, are on out at the point that we're recording this.

But broadly speaking, not, you know, not really. As far as I can tell, you know, they might mention batteries in passing, but I don't think you know, I don't know that batteries are a vote winner in the sense that, you know, they're something like a retail policy offer that you would go out and make to voters and expect to to be rewarded for. I think they're kind of several steps removed from that kind of arena.

But, yeah, I mean, it's clear that the the battery capacity in this country is already expanding massively, much more so that I think that many people realize.

And, you know, there's a huge pipeline of projects.

And it, you know, moreover, is pretty vital to that decarbonized grid, whether it's by two thousand and thirty, two thousand and thirty five, or some other day. Battery energy storage is a huge part of that.

Can we just talk about China and tariffs for a second? It would be rude not to having you on a pod. We are in a situation at the moment where well, firstly, the UK is not part of Europe. That's the first part.

And Europe has started to introduce tariffs on some Chinese goods. The big talking points here are electric vehicles, but, generally, it's, energy transition supply chain stuff. And the US has gone really hard at this, a hundred percent import tariff on electric vehicles. And the UK is is piggy in the middle at the moment, where the UK doesn't have to follow either.

There'll be tons of pressure, and Rishi Sunak or next prime minister has got a difficult decision to make, which is you can open your arms to Chinese imports and then really have loads of cheap EVs and decarbonize fast at the cost of well, it's a huge political cost, or you can put these tariffs on and pay the consequences.

What what's gonna happen, and what are politicians saying or thinking about this?

I would sort of step back from a moment and say, well, isn't it an interesting place that we've got to where for so long, I know, and Nigel Farage in a TV debate just the other day was saying, oh, but China's building all these coal parks. So for so long, peep, you know, China's been the full guy that, you know, the people that, that aren't doing anything on climate change and therefore, why should we bother? And now suddenly we're like, oh God, like they're producing vast numbers of very cheap EVs, very cheap batteries, solar panels, you name it, all of these clean tech products that China is churning out in vast quantities. And by the way, Carbonbury published analysis, earlier in the year showing that investment in those sectors made up something like forty percent of China's GDP growth last year. Absolutely vast and very economically sort of significant part of what what's happening in China at the moment.

And so now we're faced with this very tricky balancing act, I guess, for, you know, developed countries where, obviously, the car industry is hugely important, particularly places like Germany. And you've they're trying trying to work out what to do. And as you say, you you presented the trade off already. You know, do you accept lots of cheap imports in order to decarbonize faster? Or do you say, well, these are strategic industries. They employ lots of people, and, actually, we need to protect those industries.

And, you know, so we'll see what happens. I I guess it's slightly perhaps slightly more nuanced for Europe because a lot of big European car manufacturers have big operations in China. And so they they know that there's a risk. If the EU puts in big import bar barriers on Chinese cars coming into Europe, then it's likely that that China will reciprocate.

So I doubt, you know, I'd said I didn't have a crystal ball, but I do doubt that there'll be such a strong and such a kind of fierce response from from the EU as compared to what the US has done. And And, you know, I guess the key thing, you know, whether it's the US or the EU or the UK is, like, is this forever? Or is this about, you know, giving domestic manufacturers a chop to actually up their game? Because you can't you kinda can't keep that game up forever. There will be loopholes that may be that China can get around it by building factories in Mexico and importing them, you know, under the, you know, NAFTA.

Maybe they can set up factories in the US. You know? And maybe that's the end game that, you know, ultimately, Chinese firms set up manufacturing in the way that's we as we've seen previously. You know?

Like, one of the big manufacturers in the UK is Nissan, right, which is a Japanese company. So, you know, perhaps that's that's sort of the end game. But in in the interim, you know, it may be that they've then you know, that we end up in the EU and the UK with with tariffs. I think the other thing that that's worth noting is that, you know, the conservative government one of the versions of the conservative government we've had had over the last fourteen years was was big on industrial strategy.

We even had a department named, you know, business engine and industrial strategy. They were quite big on that. And that's kinda gone out the window, but I suspect with the labor government coming back in on, you know, on the fifth of July, we may see a kind of reappearance of a British industrial strategy. And this will certainly be the sorts of questions they're having to ask answer as they come into office.

I really miss Bayes, I must say. It was a a lot of cool stuff happened under Bayes. Well, yeah. And, it was an easy to say, acronym. Let's move on to the There's there's no questions.

I've lost track.

We still don't have everyone in the modal office saying it the same. There's a there's there's there's there's.

There's some pretty funny versions. Alright. Last couple of questions. Do you have anything you want to plug? We plugged you guys pretty hard at at the beginning, but is there anything that our listeners should know about or you'd like to announce?

Well, yeah, you very kindly already mentioned our newsletter. We've got a daily briefing newsletter which wraps up the, you know, all of the news around the world over the past twenty four hours. We've got a weekly debriefed newsletter, which is a kind of a weekly summary. And we've also got newsletters on China, and also separately on food and the nature.

So, if you want to keep up to date with the latest news on any of those topics, do sign up. They're all free As with all our content at Carbon Brief. And just, you know, we're looking towards the UK election. I mentioned our manifesto tracker.

By the time this goes out to where that should be fully updated with all of the, you know, all of the big parties' manifesto pledges. So they do check that out as well.

And, Simon, I wanna ask you about your contrarian view. What do you believe that you that perhaps most people don't?

So I don't know if this quite counts as contrarian, but, you know, a lot of people these days are pretty gloomy about prospects for for global climate action. You know, it's clear that we're massively off track for staying below one point five or even two degrees.

We're currently on track for more like two and a half. But I guess I guess where I'm pat perhaps out of line and, you know, you could say contrarian is that I think, you you know, actually, we shouldn't lose hope because of the fact that just a decade ago, before the Paris Agreement was signed, we were on track for more like three and a half or four degrees.

And although emissions are still going up, we're very close to the point where globe you know, where Chinese emissions could have peaked last year, analysis we published just a few weeks ago. Global emissions, if that happens in China, could well peak imminently.

We're at this moment, which could be a real turning point even if only symbolically because, obviously, getting to net zero is a long way from stopping emissions going up. But nevertheless, I think, you know, people often lose sight of how much progress we've made and, you know, the potential that we could, you know, we could continue to do better in the future.

Alright. So reasons to be cheerful. Yep. Simon, I wanna say a massive thank you to you for coming on the podcast.

Once again, we are huge fans of what you guys are up to. Big readers of your newsletter. Keep doing what you're doing. It is awesome. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Thanks very much for having me, Quentin. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to Transmission, a Modo Energy podcast.

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