Net Zero is becoming synonymous with economic suicide
Story by Matthew Lynn • 16h
If any two commodities were central to the industrial revolution, they were coal and steel. Britain pioneered the mass production of both, launching a worldwide transformation that multiplied living standards many times over. And now, ironically, it looks as if, in an almost Maoist pursuit of global leadership in achieving Net Zero, we will be the first major developed country to close them both down. There is just one catch. In reality, that is economic suicide - and time is running out to do anything about it.
It has, in fairness, a certain symbolic symmetry to it, although even Sally Rooney’s editor might turn it down as being a little too cheesy. The UK is now leading the world in shutting the industries that it pioneered, and which powered the modern world. On Monday, we closed the last remaining coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, ending 142 years of using the fossil fuel for energy: the world’s first coal-fired power station, in Holborn Viaduct, was built in 1882 by none other than Thomas Edison to bring light to the streets of the capital.
On the same day, steel workers wound up the traditional manufacturing of the metal in Port Talbot, in Wales, bringing an end to an industry that, from its origins in the 1850s, once led the world. There are many different milestones that future historians may choose when they look back on the strange story of Britain’s deindustrialisation. But October 2024 will certainly be one of them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/net-zero-is-becoming-synonymous-with-economic-suicide/ar-AA1rAYDn?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=e18ed8a9a9ac4be6bd12b1c5ead69cc3&ei=59
