Clean energy is our only path to energy security in the medium to long term - Yorkshire Post Letters

People’s excuses for resisting Net Zero are disappearing by the day. You don’t believe in climate change because you don’t trust the IPCC? Forget it because scientists working for the oil majors have confirmed global warming is down to us burning their oil and gas.

The argument that it’ll cost too much is disappearing before our eyes. The beneficial economics of renewables alone is attracting massive investment. Globally, twice as much money is now going into clean energy as fossil fuels.

The Economist reports that solar power is growing so quickly it is set to become the biggest source of electricity on the planet by the mid-2030s. It’ll overtake all the world's nuclear energy output in less time than it takes us to build one nuclear power station.

The excuse that it’s all China’s fault is ebbing away as China is now a world leader in clean energy research, development and deployment. It’s playing catch-up so fast that, if it hasn’t already reached peak-coal use, it will very soon.

Thank goodness that the UK will now make faster progress on wind and solar energy installations because last year, during the energy crisis, we’d have been looking for twice as much expensive gas for electricity generation if we hadn’t had renewables. I doubt we’d have found it. This year’s rise in the energy price cap is down to the cost of gas, so we're better off using as little as possible.

With North Sea gas production dwindling by the year, clean energy is our only path to energy security in the medium to long term.