Europeans Ditch Net Zero, While Biden Clings to It

Unaffordable climate commitments have two leftist British parties racing to exit stage left

By Joseph C. Sternberg of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Europeans are admitting the folly of net zero quicker than their American peers."

"A recent report from the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee noted Scotland had fallen far behind on its climate goals. The government aimed to reduce by 20% the aggregate distance driven by Scottish motorists, compared with 2019 levels, but had no plan to accomplish the reduction in personal mobility by the 2030 deadline. To get back on track with the government’s goal of a transition to home electric heat pumps, Scotland would have to replace natural-gas fire boilers at a rate of more than 80,000 households a year by the end of the decade. That’s a big ask considering that in 2023 it managed 6,000 boiler replacements. The government resisted imposing an aviation tax to discourage excess flying."

"He all but abandoned net zero. His administration announced it is ditching firm annual emission-reduction targets in favor of fuzzier “carbon budgets.”" (Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister)

"Scotland had reached the point where further net-zero progress would have made obvious and material demands of household budgets. That isn’t counting the additional costs of renewable power hidden in utility bills."

"Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has toned down electric-vehicle mandates and ditched plans to require English households to install heat pumps. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, likely the next prime minister, has hedged his party’s commitment to phase out oil and gas drilling in the North Sea—so that he can promise unionized Scottish oil workers that they’ll keep their jobs—and abandoned an earlier pledge to spend £28 billion the British government doesn’t have on the green transition every year."

"No one wants to be the party that’s promising to take voters’ jobs and raise their energy bills."

"the U.S. is headed in the opposite direction. President Biden is pressing ahead with aggressive net-zero policies such as an electric-vehicle mandate and pouring trillions of dollars of borrowed government and hard-earned household money into climate boondoggles."