Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error
A flagship policy document from UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch appears to overstate the cost of net zero by nearly £500bn because of a spreadsheet double-count. The Climate Change Committee says it does not recognise the figure.
A flagship policy document from Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK's opposition Conservative Party, overestimates the cost of reaching net zero emissions by nearly £500bn, apparently because someone double-counted figures on a spreadsheet. The document was produced for the party's conference in Birmingham, and it matters because the cost estimates are used to justify the Conservatives' decision to scrap the target of net zero by 2050.
What the document says
The 100-page document is called The Right Way, a phrase Badenoch used repeatedly in her main speech. Its net zero chapter says estimates of the economic cost have "varied enormously". It states that in 2020 the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the government's climate advisers, estimated its route to net zero would cost £957bn. It cites the CCC's Sixth Carbon Budget, saying gross costs were £1.4tn, falling to £957bn once savings were included.
How the error arose
The figures in that report in fact add up to £478bn, half the amount in the Tory document. The mistake seems to have occurred because a tally of all costs in a CCC spreadsheet also included the row giving totals for each column, which doubled the result.
A CCC spokesperson said the committee does not recognise the number, and that its earlier offer to meet Badenoch and talk her through its advice still stands. The committee's latest analysis puts the expected cost of reaching net zero by 2050 at about £110bn, or roughly £4bn a year, equal to 0.2% of GDP.
The error was spotted by the publication Carbon Brief, which told the Guardian. The Conservatives may have copied the figure without checking it: it appears to have been published in a report by the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs and in an article in the Spectator.
The document is presented as a precise diagnosis of the UK's problems and is partly modelled on The Right Approach, produced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party in 1976. In a foreword, Badenoch says that "as an engineer" she is used to diagnosing issues correctly. The Conservatives and Badenoch's office were contacted for comment.
