Britain is being sold a dangerous fantasy.
Opposition parties promise prosperity through fossil fuels. Cheaper bills. More jobs. Getting Britain "back on track" by simply abandoning Net Zero. It sounds appealing, particularly to families whose pay slips show the same numbers but buy smaller lives.
Their specific claims — that Net Zero is the sinister force behind thousands of monthly job losses and a 30% premium on energy bills — are demonstrably misleading or false. But vilifying climate policy is easier than confronting uncomfortable realities: that Britain, like much of the West, has become economically overstretched and needs structural adjustment.
Yet the real scandal isn't the falsehoods. It's what a retreat from Net Zero would cost Britain.
In tomorrow's global economy, wealth and power will flow to nations with cheap, abundant, clean electricity. Key players like China and Europe are accelerating clean-tech investment while America's policy chaos sends capital fleeing overseas.
If Britain abandons Net Zero, UK firms face five immediate competitive disadvantages: trade barriers through mechanisms like the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment; higher cost of capital as green finance undercuts conventional debt; supply-chain exclusion as major global corporations require climate-aligned suppliers; talent flight to countries signalling innovation over regression; and technological stagnation as competitors capture the clean-tech patents and modern manufacturing techniques that will define the next century.
A word from the author: The Net Zero debate deserves more than soundbites and political point-scoring. This essay can't cover everything. What we aim to do is call a pause in the political wrestling match — to make the case that Net Zero should be beyond partisan campaigning, and to offer some practical direction on how business leaders can plan and act to support Britain's prosperity into the second half of this century. I welcome challenge, alternative perspectives, and deeper questions. — Emma Walford, Co-founder, Perigon Partners
The false promise of fossil prosperity
A decade since the Paris Agreement, significant progress has been made beneath the noise. We have wrestled forecasts for global emissions in 2035 down by a third from earlier projections. In Britain, territorial emissions have more than halved from 1990 while the economy grew over 80%.
Yet just as momentum builds, so too does a transnational narrative that conflates fossil fuels with growth and decarbonisation with decline. This binary between cheap energy and environmental responsibility persists not because it reflects reality, but because it simplifies complex issues into electoral soundbites.
Arguments that Net Zero targets, carbon taxes, and wind subsidies have raised bills and cost jobs cast environmental regulation as the enemy of prosperity. What is being presented as economic responsibility is, in reality, incomplete accounting that leaves Britain strategically exposed.
Lessons from history
History offers a cautionary lens. Earlier transitions suggest that defending incumbent energy systems does not protect prosperity — it erodes it. The defenders of whale oil in the 1850s warned that petrol was dangerous and untested. Stable owners insisted cars were unreliable and that oats, not petrol, sustained national independence. Both positions were, in the immediate context, technically defensible — but they overlooked the deeper structural transformation already in motion.
The same lesson applies today. In today's fossil fuel system, two-thirds of all primary energy is wasted before it produces any benefit. That is over $4.6 trillion per year — almost 5% of GDP — just gone. Renewables are already two to four times more efficient.
Defending fossil fuels in 2025 is like defending whale oil in 1860: it still works, but there are better alternatives, so it is not where future wealth and power lie.
The competitive cost of regression
Anti-Net Zero proponents frame the debate purely in economic terms, yet their own metric is incomplete because it counts the costs of transitioning while ignoring the far greater long-term economic costs of fossil-fuel dependence.
Withdrawing from Net Zero would expose UK firms to five structural disadvantages:
1. Trade barriers. The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, effective from 2026, will levy tariffs on high-carbon imports. UK exporters that no longer align with Net Zero standards will face costs their European competitors avoid. Increasingly, trade agreements embed Paris Agreement compliance as a prerequisite for access.
2. Cost of capital. Green finance is typically 0.1–0.5% cheaper than conventional debt. ESG-aligned assets now exceed US $30 trillion globally. 40% of UK pension schemes now have dedicated climate allocations, while 60% regard climate risk as a core fiduciary responsibility. Insufficient ESG alignment is becoming grounds for divestment.
3. Supply-chain exclusion. Over 11,000 companies, representing 40% of global market capitalisation, have adopted or committed to science-based targets requiring actions across the value chain. If the UK retreats from Net Zero, domestic manufacturers will struggle to meet these criteria and risk exclusion from the procurement frameworks of multinationals.
4. Talent and innovation flight. Over 70% of millennial and Gen Z workers consider an employer's climate stance when choosing where to work — rising to 80% in engineering and technology, precisely the sectors where the UK faces skills shortages.
5. Technological stagnation. China already controls over three-quarters of solar and EV battery manufacturing. Countries using Net Zero as a modern industrial strategy are positioning themselves to capture the technologies that will define the next century of growth. If the UK withdraws from the renewables race, it will find itself licensing innovations it could have developed domestically.
The changing global context
China's high current emissions are often cited as evidence that decarbonisation is futile. This is short-sighted: those emissions are part of an industrial transformation positioning China as the renewable superpower of tomorrow. Over 400% more Chinese companies have submitted 1.5°C-aligned targets to the Science Based Targets initiative since 2020.
The United States offers a timely warning. The Trump administration's rollback of emissions standards and tax incentives disrupted investment flows and eroded the credibility of US capital markets in pricing climate risk. Meanwhile, the European Union and China consolidated dominance in batteries, hydrogen, and renewable manufacturing. Renewable energy investment in the US fell by around 36% in the first half of 2025, while European investment rose by 63%.
The lesson for the UK is that retreating from climate policy is economically harmful: it destroys jobs and suppresses enterprise value. With UK unemployment already at 5%, the US experience shows that stepping back from climate leadership doesn't protect workers or industry — it leaves them more exposed.
If Britain is to legitimately compete in this global context, it must recognise that climate action isn't a constraint on competitiveness — it's a prerequisite.
Does abandoning Net Zero actually reduce energy bills?
The attribution of high electricity costs to decarbonisation policy is misleading. Carbon-related costs are estimated at around 16% of bills — less than £12 per month for the average household, not the 30% claimed. Structural factors such as gas-driven wholesale pricing, market design, and costs of old and underinvested infrastructure are the primary drivers. Renewables have also already reduced exposure to the gas price surge that followed Russia's war on Ukraine.
Is Britain really responsible for enough global emissions to make a difference?
While it is true that Britain currently contributes around 1% of global emissions, this ignores the legacy of the UK's historical emissions. Cumulatively, the UK contributed around 3% of emissions since 1850, rising to over 5% when emissions generated under British colonial rule are included. The bystander logic also relies on a collective-action fallacy: if every country emitting around 1% opted out, over half of global emissions would be unaddressed.
What practical steps should UK businesses take given the policy uncertainty?
The five competitive disadvantages — trade barriers, cost of capital, supply chain exclusion, talent flight, and technology stagnation — are already present realities, not future risks. UK businesses should treat climate action as a prerequisite for long-term competitiveness regardless of political cycles: maintain alignment with science-based targets, build ESG credibility with capital markets, ensure supply chains can meet the requirements of global customers, and invest in the innovation capabilities that will define the next generation of their sector.
