The Times view on net zero: Climate Costs

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t is established fact that the planet has warmed by around 1.2C since the Industrial Revolution owing to human activities. Deliberate interventions to contain the rise in average temperatures to 1.5C are needed to prevent irreversible climate change. These mere truisms do not end the debate on environmental policy, nor do they preclude the need for one. The vehement response this week to Rishi Sunak’s modest abridgements of government policy to attain net zero carbon emissions suggests that critical scrutiny is in short supply.

On environmental policy, the institutions of British democracy are not performing as they ought to. All the parties declare their ambition to curb emissions, yet few parliamentarians involve themselves in the minutiae of effective action to mitigate climate change. Underlying this

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