Political leaders owe their citizens the truth about the costs and the challenges of the energy transition on a warming planet. Last week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak failed – and California Governor Gavin Newsom passed – that test.
…
If Sunak had mustered the courage to tell Brits the truth, rather than throwing up flack about excessive costs and burdens, he could have taken a cue from Newsom and said this instead: “The cost-of-living crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. Inflation persists. It’s not complicated. It’s not complicated. It’s the burning of oil. It’s the burning of gas. It’s the burning of coal – and we need to call that out.”
As my former colleague Isabeau van Halm reported for Energy Monitor in August 2022, energy bills in the UK and the EU skyrocketed that autumn because of an over-reliance on natural gas – not the clean energy transition.
“The rise in energy prices started last winter, when many countries experienced low gas stocks, leading to a rise in gas prices. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and volatile market conditions led to further price hikes,” wrote van Halm. European gas prices peaked in August 2022 at more than €300 per megawatt-hour (/MWh), she noted, when before the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European gas prices were regularly around €10–20/MWh.
In his address, Sunak should have doubled down on climate action, not pretended that the UK’s economic malaise was the fault of net-zero policies. He should have announced measures to ensure that offshore wind projects secured capacity in the UK’s next clean energy auction; to overhaul the government’s failed programmes to insulate homes; and to jump-start the country’s lagging heat pumps market. Instead, a few days later, Sunak’s government disbanded its energy efficiency taskforce.
Back in New York, Gavin Newsom was clear that California would continue to “advance our low-carbon, green-growth future”.
…
