Britain’s Net Zero Lesson for the U.S.

Britain’s median income after direct taxes is £31,400. Skyrocketing fuel prices could push 10.5 million households, or one-third, into fuel poverty next year, says the End Fuel Poverty Coalition. Fuel poverty is when energy costs drag household disposable income below the government’s official poverty line.

That doesn’t include the energy costs households pay indirectly. Businesses, whose prices aren’t capped, have seen electricity costs rise in the past year between 45% and 122% depending on company size, and gas prices between 131% and 185%. These costs inevitably will be passed on via higher prices, lower wages or lower returns to pension savers.

Politicians are eager to dodge responsibility for this disaster, and Russia offers a convenient excuse.

Vladimir Putin’s

Ukraine invasion and the resulting energy supply disruptions have pushed up global natural-gas prices. Some 86% of households in England rely on natural gas for hot water and central heating, and gas powers one-third of Britain’s electricity generation, the most of any single source.

But these trends are inseparable from Britain’s homegrown fixation with achieving net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. That’s Prime Minister

Boris Johnson’s

worst mistake, which is making the energy crisis worse.

Start with the direct costs, such as taxes and levies. Various green charges add £153 to the annual household bill, the industry regulator says. But other net-zero costs lurk in household energy bills and budgets. The electric grid operator spent about £3.4 billion over the past year on balancing costs to match supply to demand in real time—a cost that tends to be higher due to the unreliability of wind and solar, and that’s passed to consumers by utilities. Higher commercial energy costs mean higher prices for goods and services.

Another imponderable is how much lower gas prices would be if Britain produced more itself. Conservative Party administrations have flirted for years with proposals for shale-gas fracking in northern England only to lose their nerve. Lately the party has grown hostile to North Sea drilling, as companies see a government promising to diminish the industry under net zero while imposing windfall profits taxes.

Britain’s energy emergency is a growing threat to an economy expected to be among the developed world’s worst performers next year. It’s a political emergency for the Tories, who are in the process of replacing Mr. Johnson. Former Chancellor

Rishi Sunak

and Foreign Secretary

Liz Truss

both say they support fracking and lower taxes on energy bills, although both still pay lip service to net zero. There’s little evidence environmentally minded voters give the Tories credit for net zero and ample evidence voters of all persuasions blame the party for the energy-price crisis.

So much for those who say conservative parties need to adopt the left’s climate agenda to court younger voters. Net zero has turned the Tories into the party that is impoverishing Britain. As steep a price as the party may one day pay at the polls for this blunder, households already are paying dearly today.