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Looking for a sceptic’s view of net zero? Look no further than Richard Tice.
“Of course, the climate changes, but where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop it?” asked the deputy leader of Reform, speaking at a press conference in August. “Where is the evidence? There is no evidence.”
But is this outright hostility to net zero indicative of the public mood, or is the debate strictly a media/Westminster concoction? And what impact – if any – is antipathy toward the target having on adoption of renewable energy technology?
Let’s start with sentiment. The backlash against net zero in some parts of the press is real. Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Persuasion UK suggests that in 2025, online news coverage was more than two and a half times (160%) as negative towards net zero as the public. (This is a trend that seems to have been growing. For example, newspaper editorials attacked Ed Miliband and his net-zero commitments more in the first four months of 2025 than across the whole of 2024. Looking back a little further, at the time of the general election, DeSmog says GB News broadcast almost 1,000 anti-climate attacks.)
And net zero-bashing is not just the preserve of the press, or Reform’s leaders. Kemi Badenoch said in July that the Conservative Party would abandon the Climate Change Act, which commits the country to the target. “Net zero has become a slogan where Britain needs a plan. It allows politicians to announce a virtuous destination without explaining how we will reach it, what it will cost, who will pay, which industries will survive, or whether it will reduce global emissions at all.”
She argues net zero’s effect on electricity costs is harming consumers and helping deindustrialise the country. “If our model creates the highest industrial electricity prices in the world, shuts factories and transfers production to countries burning more coal, nobody will follow us. Instead, other countries will take our jobs and grow their economies.”
This stance on net zero may be at odds with public opinion, however. The IPPR suggests that “the British public remains consistently supportive of the UK’s 2050 net zero target – around 60 per cent of people support the goal”. Rowing back on the target would be a “political miscalculation”, the think tank says.
Climate Barometer, which analyses opinion about climate change, found in the run-up to May’s local elections that most of the public support net zero, with two in three Britons (63%) backing it. (Reform supporters, it should be noted, are an exception, with approval for net zero dropping by half, to 32%.)
In short, while there may be a lot of negative noise about net zero, it’s not necessarily being made by voters.
“Where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop climate change?There is no evidence.”
© House of Commons / Laurie Noble, CC BY 3.0
Looking for a sceptic’s view of net zero? Look no further than Richard Tice.
“Of course, the climate changes, but where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop it?” asked the deputy leader of Reform, speaking at a press conference in August. “Where is the evidence? There is no evidence.”
But is this outright hostility to net zero indicative of the public mood, or is the debate strictly a media/Westminster concoction? And what impact – if any – is antipathy toward the target having on adoption of renewable energy technology?
Let’s start with sentiment. The backlash against net zero in some parts of the press is real. Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Persuasion UK suggests that in 2025, online news coverage was more than two and a half times (160%) as negative towards net zero as the public. (This is a trend that seems to have been growing. For example, newspaper editorials attacked Ed Miliband and his net-zero commitments more in the first four months of 2025 than across the whole of 2024. Looking back a little further, at the time of the general election, DeSmog says GB News broadcast almost 1,000 anti-climate attacks.)
And net zero-bashing is not just the preserve of the press, or Reform’s leaders. Kemi Badenoch said in July that the Conservative Party would abandon the Climate Change Act, which commits the country to the target. “Net zero has become a slogan where Britain needs a plan. It allows politicians to announce a virtuous destination without explaining how we will reach it, what it will cost, who will pay, which industries will survive, or whether it will reduce global emissions at all.”
She argues net zero’s effect on electricity costs is harming consumers and helping deindustrialise the country. “If our model creates the highest industrial electricity prices in the world, shuts factories and transfers production to countries burning more coal, nobody will follow us. Instead, other countries will take our jobs and grow their economies.”
This stance on net zero may be at odds with public opinion, however. The IPPR suggests that “the British public remains consistently supportive of the UK’s 2050 net zero target – around 60 per cent of people support the goal”. Rowing back on the target would be a “political miscalculation”, the think tank says.
Climate Barometer, which analyses opinion about climate change, found in the run-up to May’s local elections that most of the public support net zero, with two in three Britons (63%) backing it. (Reform supporters, it should be noted, are an exception, with approval for net zero dropping by half, to 32%.)
In short, while there may be a lot of negative noise about net zero, it’s not necessarily being made by voters.
