Not Zero – Badenoch and the Tories take great green gamble

I recall a time in the not so dim and distant past when a new leader of the Conservative Party took a sledgehammer to Tory orthodoxy, travelled to the Artic to hug a husky, and encouraged voters in the local elections to ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’. From that moment, David Cameron set his party as a leading political voice on the environment and climate change, something that was continued by his successors Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

This week history has repeated itself and a new leader of the blue team in opposition has once again broken Tory orthodoxy, though this time by abandoning her party’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050. Like Cameron 19 years ago, Kemi Badenoch is taking a big political gamble, one that she is hoping will pay dividends by the time of the next general election.   

Badenoch has broken with the consensus of her predecessors and argues that the target of achieving net zero by 2050 is not only unachievable, but that the costs associated with it would make the country and its people poorer. She suggests that one of the main beneficiaries of this green revolution would be Chinese manufacturing. These are fair points as neither the Conservatives nor Labour have been straight about the costs of achieving net zero, with the current government only doubling down on targets set by the Tories against a backdrop of tension between going green and growing the economy. 

So, Badenoch may have a point, but who is her audience? Is her attempt to break from the consensus an attempt to shift to the right and win Reform voters, or a long-term play in the hope that mainstream attitudes against net zero harden over the coming years? 

In the short term her gamble doesn’t look to be paying off, as some research this week from the right-leaning think tank Onward discovered. The survey found that two thirds of Conservative voters and a huge three quarters of the all-important Labour and Lib Dem switchers, listed tackling climate change as a priority.  As for those infamous Reform voters, only 4% said they backed the party based on its environmental stance.

Perhaps listening to the rhetoric in some of the right-leaning media and the recent noises from the United States, Badenoch’s strategy is definitely a long-term play. She hopes that by positioning the Tories as critics of Labour’s climate pledges, her party will benefit if there is a backlash against those policies.  But it is a big if.

Climate change is clearly a problem, and most of the population rightly want to breathe cleaner air and see the phasing out of fossil fuels. But imagine a situation where gas and oil prices fall and give the option of cheaper energy, yet households (and businesses) are instead faced with higher bills, the cost of installing expensive heating systems, and pressed into buying impractical and pricey electric vehicles. The shine may begin to come off net zero when it becomes reality, and those who have supported the principles may start to question the realities when it starts to hit them in the pocket. 

For many years Britain has led on reducing emissions, but in the face of growing scepticism from the Conservative Party, plus the cool air coming from across the pond, the challenge for the current government is to ensure the transition is smooth and consistent without hitting the pockets of voters and businesses or reducing our collective quality of life. 

Voters will need it to be made clear what the policy options are for pursuing clean energy without bankrupting them or the country. If this is not effectively demonstrated over the next few years, Badenoch’s great ‘not zero’ gamble could pay off, but equally it could leave her isolated and far from the centre-ground that she needs to occupy to win the next election (if indeed she lasts ‘til then).