UK energy secretary Ed Miliband has insisted that public opinion remains firmly in favour of the government’s clean energy drive despite increased political opposition.
He said the British public continued to believe in the benefits of cutting the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels in the wake of calls from opposition parties to scrap key net zero policies in a bid to drive down energy costs.
Miliband conceded that the “breakdown of the consensus poses a challenge”, but urged potential investors not to “overstate the public backlash”.
His intervention followed a pledge made by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch earlier this month to ditch the Climate Change Act 2008 that mandates cuts in emissions, and which she claimed “stands in the way” of reducing bills and boosting the economy.
“People make a lot of noise, (but) the British public are in a sensible place on this,” Miliband told today’s (14 October) Energy UK conference in London.
“They don’t want the Climate Change Act ripped up and they don’t want us to go backwards. They know this is the future.”
Miliband said net zero critics were ignoring “the reality they need to confront” which included higher exposure to volatile international gas prices and “diving a coach and horses” through national efforts to curb global warming, were the government to halt the rollout of renewable energy.
He told delegates that ministers’ “top priority” was to deliver value for money in the energy transition and that continued reductions in the levelised cost of energy for technologies including solar and offshore wind would ensure “this is the answer to the affordability challenge businesses and people face”.
“As long as we make it happen in a way that benefits them – and that is what we are going to do, we can definitely win the argument, reassure investors and provide them with hope,” he added.