Britain Dumps Another Net-Zero Gimmick

Forcing firms to sell green tech is the same as making people buy it

WSJ editorial. 

"The United Kingdom’s retreat on another net-zero policy gimmick is more than an embarrassment to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, his Conservative Party and climate-change alarmists. It’s also a warning about the green left’s latest method for trying to sneak costly mandates past consumers.

Mr. Sunak’s administration may scrap a quota system that would require manufacturers to sell more heat pumps to households, the Times of Londonreported this weekend. Most English households use natural gas to fuel the cabinet-sized boilers that provide central heating and hot water, and forcing them to adopt electric heat pumps (ultimately powered by renewable energy) is part of the government’s net-zero agenda.

An earlier proposal to ban gas-boiler sales after 2035 proved politically toxic as households balked at the cost of replacing their reliable natural-gas boilers with more expensive, untested heat pumps. So politicians resorted to subterfuge, imposing a sales quota on manufacturers. Starting in April, heat pumps would have to replace 4% of annual boiler sales or companies would pay a £3,000 fine for each “excess” natural-gas boiler they sold.

Voters still noticed what the government was trying to do. Absent demand for the allegedly carbon-friendly product, manufacturers would have no choice but to pay the fines for missing the sales targets—and then pass the cost to consumers. Worcester Bosch, Britain’s leading manufacturer, warned last year that the proposed quota would add up to £300 ($376) to the cost of natural-gas boilers, which retail for £1,000 and up.

A novelty is that industry fought back against the mandate. Manufacturers were transparent about passing the cost of the heat-pump fines to consumers, calling it a “boiler tax.” Mr. Sunak’s government tried to blame the companies for anticompetitive behavior. But when voters realized they’d be stuck paying for heat pumps even if they didn’t buy them, it was game over for the rule.

This is the latest example of how the true costs of net zero are becoming impossible to hide from the public as carbon targets become more onerous. Europe, much farther down the net-zero road than America, is noticing first and the results range from policy reversals in Britain to farmers’ protests in Germany and France and election wins for the insurgent right in the Netherlands. The mystery is why U.S. Democrats want to walk into this buzz saw, even if it runs on renewable power."