Days seem like weeks, weeks seem like decades. It’s hard to be bored at the moment. But rather easy to seem bored, because the glazed look and paralytic affect following overload, with a bit of saliva dripping down your chin, can be hard to distinguish from extreme boredom.
Outro
For reasons that will become clear:
Just yesterday, we had three big news items:
the UK’s seventh Carbon Budget - the official advice on how to achieve Net Zero by 2050 across the British economy - was released by the Climate Change Committee.
the EU released its long-awaited Clean Industrial Deal, promising €100 billion in supports to pivot the rationale for the energy transition from climate to competitiveness/energy security.
BP ditched its strategy to diversify away from oil and gas and back to those roots. With enough references to “Gulf of America” to make even Mango Mussolini take note of their Orwellian obeisance.
Knowing some of this was coming we spoke with Liam Hardy, head of research at the Green Alliance, which has just published a new report about the electrification of industry. We talked about the report and why it’s so timely.
No prizes for guessing it ties in perfectly to what the Climate Change Committee, those welcoming the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal, the dogs on the street know, and keeps Ed Miliband and Chris Stark up at night: we have to translate the dropping LCOE from wind, solar and batteries into lower electricity prices. Like now. Failure to do so and be seen to do so will result in a loss of support from voters, consumers, industry, and basically create a vacuum that petro-populists will eagerly fill.
But as the CCC points out in its Carbon Budget - and as Simon Evans of Carbon Brief observed had been ignored in most of the commentary - the forecast cost of achieving Net Zero by 2050 has not gone up. Since the last budget in 2020, which put it at £400 billion or so, the projected net cost has gone DOWN 73% to just over £100 billion. Why? 20 years of people crushing the cost curve in renewables and other climate tech.
Which is why we also had Charlie Mercer from Startup Coalition on the episode. The Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, a programme of UK govt support for the climate tech industry, crowded in 2.4 x the private investment for every public pound put into the sector. And those investments continue to deliver on making the business case for climate tech adoption.
Get in touch with Charlie to support Startup Coalition’s open letter of support for NZIP to the Chancellor and DESNZ.
In the era of “drill baby drill”, the stampede to get on the other side of the trend has caused a few cuts and bruises. BP did its strategy reverse ferret yesterday. With a doleful dozen forelock-tugging references to the Gulf of Trump - sorry Gulf of America to make clear how important being on the right side of the new regime is to BP.
And on the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal, which we’ll come back to, here’s some pretty on-point reax from the Wind Europe trade assn:
Thanks for listening. We’ll be back soon with a lot more.
Meanwhile, stop doomscrolling and check out our new team-up with Bookshop.org. Buy books written by authors who have been kind enough to be guests on the show, while supporting independent booksellers, and a tiny bit of support for independent media like Wicked Problems.
And check out our collection of outro tracks:
Back soon.
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