‘Why Tony Blair’s Intervention on Net Zero Is the Most Irrational Contribution to Climate Discourse in Some Time’

The man known for championing a “third way” in politics has popped up purporting to have found a “third way” in physics. 

The science on climate change is quite clear in presenting the world with two basic options: drastically cut back the use of fossil fuels to a degree that is consummate with safer levels of warming, or don’t do that — and face a world of spiralling temperatures, irreversible tipping points and all the attendant social, economic and political catastrophes which will follow.

But Tony Blair thinks that he — uniquely among the world’s forum of climate scientists, policymakers, campaigners and experts — has spotted a way to transcend this fairly fixed and clear binary, claiming that any climate agenda predicated on rolling back fossil fuel use and overconsumption is “doomed to fail” in a new report from his Institute. 

In reality, the opposite is true. The only approach doomed to fail is one in which we don’t rapidly phase out fossil fuels and curtail the excess emissions of the small number of people who consume the most. 

To give him his due, the report rightly draws our attention to one salient and difficult truth often repressed in the climate movement: that global emissions —  and fossil fuel production — are still rising year on year. In spite of flagship legislation in economies like the US and the rapid rollout of renewables, nothing has slowed the global extraction of coal, oil and gas.

The correct response to this situation, however, is to do the only things known to work, rather than chasing the chimera of tech solutions which have no track record of success. Blair’s central prescription is to invest heavily in carbon capture and storage technologies, along with further deployment of AI to supplement technologies which can aid the response to climate change. 

Given that one of his central critiques of current net zero policy is that it asks too much of the public and the pound in their pocket, it’s curious that he would point to a solution which his own report acknowledges is “prohibitively expensive” above renewables whose production costs are tumbling year on year, with a real prospect of bringing down bills for the average consumer.

Of course, the central message to give up on phasing out fossil fuels in favour of expensive and untested tech is much less curious when you consider that — among a portfolio of petrochemical interests — Blair has been, for example, a chief lobbyist for Saudi oil.

Meanwhile, his Institution is bankrolled by the sort of tech firms that would likely benefit from ramped up investment in products to which he is suggesting that huge philanthropic bodies should turn their attention. 

The policy prescriptions are compromised and wrong. But his reading of climate politics is equally warped. Blair says that the movement needs a “public mandate”, completely blind to the fact that it already exists.

Away from the noise in the media and the attempt to drive a wedge within the electorate among some politicians, the consensus on the need to act on climate remains rock solid in the public. 

In fairness, Blair isn’t the only person to fall foul of the fallacy of thinking that climate action is less popular than it actually is. As analysis from Climate Barometer shows, there’s a clear majority of support for net zero across the public, but half of our parliamentarians consistently underestimate this, along with an astonishing 70% of the public. Little wonder when we have an establishment determined to tell us that net zero is deeply unpopular despite all available evidence to the contrary. 

The public mandate to act on climate will likely endure if not strengthen if governments pursue policies which reduce the cost of living and improve quality of life for the average citizen, while taking action to curtail the excess consumption of the small group of people causing most of the emissions. 

Here in the UK, for example, around 70% of the flights are taken by about 15% of the population with aviation expansion for the last couple of decades servicing this small group of people’s ability to go on holiday abroad more and more often. Meanwhile, cars being bought by the highest earners are getting bigger and bigger year on year, choking up our urban spaces with SUVs. 

There are ways to curtail this excessive consumption. One would be tax reform which disincentives excess emissions while bringing in revenue to fund climate action which benefits the majority, such as a frequent flyer levy or an SUV supertax of the kind pioneered in Paris. Another would be to take action on the avalanche of advertising which pushes cheap flights and massive cars, with the sorts of bans being brought in by councils across the country. 

Blair claims that the debate on climate has become “irrational” but his intervention is one of the most irrational contributions to climate discourse in some time, inviting us to throw out the only solutions known to actually work in favour of the status quo and white elephants dressed up as silver bullets.

Despite how he sneers at the strikingly broad coalition calling for a phase out of fossil fuels from activists being arrested to bodies like the IEA, it’s us who are the climate realists.

Tony Blair is chasing a fantasy.