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Summary

• Since 2019, there have been many attempts to put a cost on achieving net zero by 2050, with wildly different results.


• The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has repeatedly revised down its estimates for the costs of net zero. From an initial cost estimate of £1.5 trillion for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, the CCC now suggests that the cost of achieving net zero in the 2025-50 period will be ‘just’ £108 billion. However, this dramatic reduction in costs relies on some heroic estimates of the cost of renewables and other low-carbon technologies.


• The CCC’s low estimates for the cost of renewables and low-carbon technologies, with correspondingly low costs of capital, mean they dramatically underestimated the cost of net zero and overestimated the alleged operating cost savings.


• The cost of net zero is highly likely to be above the 2020 estimate of roughly £3 trillion from the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), and could even be above this year’s attempt, which calculated gross cash costs of £7.6 trillion or over £9 trillion including the carbon costs of emissions.


• If we are to have a serious debate about net zero, the various public bodies need to be more transparent and frankly more honest, both about the upfront costs and their assumptions about the operational savings that net zero will bring.

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