Uninformed views on Net Zero pose a threat to our politics and planet - Yorkshire Post Letters

Arguments continue our response to the climate crisis. Net Zero is debated. Those who are optimistic about it are ‘crazily obsessed’. Is that true? Only ‘self-aggrandising politicians’ are said to be in favour. A poll by YouGov last October showed that 94 per cent of MPs support Net Zero. To apply insulting terms to such a majority of Parliamentarians, who give of their best for most of the time, is very dangerous.

If we so distrust current MPs we might succumb to any group who claim that ‘broken Britain can be easily fixed’ with the flick of a fag and a swill of beer.

The UK is said to be too ‘puny’ to have any influence in the world over the adoption of Net Zero. so we shouldn't follow the policy ourselves!

If as is suggested we should wait for the major nations to lead towards climate sense yet another of the reasons given for Brexit (global influence) has not materialised. As one of the initiators of the industrial revolution we not only made enormous economic strides (from which we still benefit) but helped to launch the volumes of greenhouse gases that are profoundly threatening. Thus we have a moral duty to show leadership in resisting the charge towards the climate crisis.

‘Climate obsessives’ are said to be ‘arrogant and condescending’. Exactly the opposite. The motivation for Net Zero supporters is to beg for widespread commitment to a self-evidently essential policy.

Essential because a recent study published by c.100 UN scientists was entitled ‘Europe, the fastest warming continent’. It stated that at least 335 people died in 2024 because of the heat and that ever mounting temperatures would soon be causing up to 30,000 European deaths per annum.

National finances are more than stretched. Can money be found for Net Zero? Plans for environmental improvement include a prerequisite for the Government to expand social justice and the money is there.

The lie that 11,000 millionaires have left the UK because of higher taxes is shown to be false by Patriotic Millionaires UK. This most positive of groups states that a 2 per cent tax on wealth of over £10m would raise £460m per week, a significant step towards Net Zero.

If nothing is done, let's hope that supplies of suncream are inexhaustible.

We must not be misled over climate change even though we were misled over Brexit. The real financial negatives of it are still ignored. Nearly every economist states that our act of self-harm means £100bn annual loss to our economy and our GDP down by 4 to 5 per cent.

Exporters have had two billion extra pieces of paperwork post Brexit; these papers would wrap 15x round the world (source: Chartered Institute of Exporters).

Mr Rees-Mogg, one of the experts on the benefits of Brexit, said that it would take 50 years before we saw the full results. Worse still to come? And still repeated in the regional press is the dictum ‘everyone has the right to speak (or write) complete rubbish on any subject’ because opinion, even uninformed, is part of freedom of expression.

The truly worrying aspect of this theory is how it underpins the Trump regime in Mar-a-Lago and how it might become central to politics here. If the ordinary man spouts ‘rubbish’ he (or she) is more likely to accept leadership that does the same. The leader of Reform has said that Trump's victory in the US election was "an incredible victory...an inspiration".

In the medium and long term the climate threat is enormous. In the short term the Reform threat is nearly as profound.