‘Muddled And Misleading’: Why Tony Blair’s Criticism Of Net Zero Misread The Room

Tony Blair sent a shockwave though Labour circles this morning after he appeared to criticise the push to achieve net zero by 2050.

In a foreword to a report by the Tony Blair Institute, the former prime minister said political leaders know that the debate around the policy “has become irrational”.

He also said that the government’s plan to phase out fossil fuels is “doomed to fail”, in what was seen as a dig at Downing Street’s flagship policy to reduce net carbon emissions to zero in the next 25 years.

Keir Starmer is known for sharing many values with New Labour and has taken advice from his predecessor, meaning Blair’s words were a major blow to No.10.

The Tony Blair Institute quickly tried to downplay the split, and claimed the current government has the “right” approach – but it was too late.

The damage was already done, and the story swept through the country, and even secured a mention in PMQs.

Here’s a look at why Blair’s comments completely missed their mark.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with Tony Blair
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with Tony Blair

via Associated Press

A win for Labour’s opponents

Although Blair himself has emphasised the importance of addressing the climate crisis, his words appeared to validate concerns from climate sceptics.

For instance, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the party has “newfound fans like Tony Blair” who agree with their anti-net zero policy – although he admitted he was “teasing”.

DUP MP Sammy Wilson adopted the same tone in PMQs when he told Starmer his net zero policy “is not only bad, it is mad” – and claimed even Blair agrees.

Of course, Blair’s former political secretary John McTernan suggested the opposite to Times Radio, saying the ex-PM was just explaining “grievance is the energy source for populist movements”.

He claimed that he was encouraging politicians to engage with “people’s feelings” to deter support for groups like Reform UK – not that Blair was against net zero altogether.

While the former PM might be winning backing from Labour’s opponents, those affiliated with the party said otherwise.

Unite the Union issued a firm warning that Blair’s net zero intervention must be a wake up call for government.

General secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite is not against net zero but it will not be achieved without serious investment in new jobs.

“Unite has warned time after time, that all the rhetoric about a joined up industrial strategy and future jobs must be backed up with serious investment that actually delivers. What is Labour waiting for? The time to act is now.

“If they fail to do this, then Labour cannot expect workers to support their net zero plan.”

To make matters worse, Blair’s intervention came just before local elections in 23 councils and the Runcorn by-election – the current government’s first big test since it won a landslide in July.

Net zero is not the main concern

Blair’s remarks were also criticised for being “misleading” amid the already hotly-contested climate debate.

An organisation which promotes debate on climate policy, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said: “Given the clarification the TBI has had to issue, this seems like a bizarre case of naivety on how parts of the media and politicians might misinterpret some of the statements in the foreword.”

The Blair government’s former climate guru, Nicholas Stern – now chair of the Grantham Research Institute – called Blair’s report “muddled and misleading”.

“The UK’s leadership on climate change, particularly the elimination of coal from its power sector, is providing an influential example to other countries,” Stern continued.

“So, too, its climate change legislation and its Climate Change Committee. If the UK wobbles on its route to net zero, other countries may become less committed. The UK matters.”

Stern, who launched a landmark report on climate change in 2006 under Blair’s government, found the costs of inaction outweigh the costs of action.

PM Keir Starmer, center, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, right, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband
PM Keir Starmer, center, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, right, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband

via Associated Press

He warned that the report “downplays the science in its absence of a sense of urgency and the lack of appreciation of the need for the world to achieve net zero as soon as possible”.

Meanwhile, Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on climate change at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “This report provides weak analysis and the wrong solutions. It fails to recognise that the longer it takes to reach net zero emissions in the UK and around the world, the more that households and businesses will suffer from growing impacts of climate change.”

He added that the challenge is to “accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, not to slow down”.

Helen Clarkson, CEO of Climate Group, said the report set up a “false binary” between climate strategies of either phasing out fossil fuels or investing in new low-cardon technologies.

And even the Social Market Foundation’s Theo Betram – a former special adviser to Blair – wrote on X that his old boss had “got it wrong on net zero” and his words “has only served to help populist opponents” of the policy.

There also appears to be limited public support for Blair’s take.

A recent YouGov poll found 61% of people either strongly support or somewhat support the government’s commitment to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

Overshadowed climate warnings

Then there’s the fact that Blair’s intervention overshadowed fresh warnings from the government’s climate watchdog, too.

The Climate Change Committee – the statutory adviser on the issue to the government – published a report today calling for Downing Street to go further and faster on climate action, particularly with flood defences.

Chair Lady Brown said: “We are seeing no change in activity from the new government, despite the fact that… it’s clear to the public that the current approach just isn’t working.

“The country is at risk, people are at risk, and there is not enough being done.”

Brown also warned that there were already too many cuts to flood defences, adding: “I can’t be clear enough about our message: we cannot wait to take action.”

But Blair’s remarks overshadowed her points on the environment.

As she later told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “My concern is that people might take away a message from that report that we should do adaptation instead of mitigation, and that is absolutely the wrong message.

“We need to do adaptation, because even if we get to net zero by mid-century, there’s still a huge amount of climate change to come, and we need to be ready for that. But we can’t adapt to everything.”

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Tony Blair Accused Of ‘Mimicking Nigel Farage’ Over Net Zero Comments

Tony Blair has been accused of trying to “mimic Nigel Farage” after claiming the government’s attempts to tackle climate change are “doomed to fail”.

The former prime minister said Labour’s attempts to achieve net zero by 2050 would only have a “minimal” impact on global warming.

His comments, in the foreword to a report by the Tony Blair Institute, triggered an angry backlash from No.10.

A source told HuffPost UK: “Net zero is a growth opportunity, and as the PM said last week at the energy summit, we are already seeing the benefits.”

Labour insiders are also furious that his comments emerged on the eve of the local elections, handing the Tories and Reform UK ammunition to attack the party.

In an attempt to defuse the row, the TBI insisted that its report supported what the government is doing on climate change.

A spokesperson said: “The report is clear that we support the government’s 2050 net zero targets, to give certainty to the investors and innovators who can develop these new solutions and make them deployable.

“People support climate action, and it is vital that we keep the public’s support for how we do it.”

But Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party, said: “Tony Blair has decided to mimic Nigel Farage on net zero and sounds like he is speaking on behalf of petrol-states like Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan for whom he has lobbied for more years than he was prime minister.

“It is vital that the government distance itself from this latest dodgy dossier from Blair.”

She added: “Labour must not allow yesterday’s man to drag us back into the dark ages. The government must press ahead with the drive towards clean energy and the green economy and all the advantages that will bring in creating good quality jobs, cutting energy bills and creating a healthier society.”

A spokesman for Keir Starmer also defended the government’s backing for net zero.

He said: “The PM has said previously that we will deliver net zero in a way that treads lightly on people’s lives, not telling them how to live or behave.

“We are focused on our mission to be a clean-energy superpower.”

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Tony Blair Defends Matt Hancock Over I’m A Celebrity Appearance

Tony Blair has defended Matt Hancock over his appearance in the I’m A Celebrity jungle – suggesting that his decision to park his political responsibilities for a spell in Australia “took courage”.

The former health secretary has faced a cross-party backlash and questions about his future in Westminster after coming third in the ITV show.

The West Suffolk MP, who explained he was “looking for a bit of forgiveness” by appearing on the show, reached the final but came behind the winner, Euro 2022 champion Jill Scott, and Hollyoaks actor Owen Warner in a public vote on Sunday night.

Hancock broke coronavirus social distancing rules during the pandemic by having an affair in his ministerial office with aide Gina Coladangelo, and has told campmates it was caused by the fact he “fell in love”.

But even though prime minister Rishi Sunak said Hancock’s decision to enter the jungle was not “noble” because he was failing to prioritise his “constituents and our country”, he seemed to have support from the former Labour PM.

Blair, who said that he had not been watching the popular TV show, told The News Agents podcast: “When you’ve been through the wringer as he has, and you know, as a politician who’s got to a certain level in politics, he’s probably got quite a lot of courage to go and do something like that.

“And I mean, people can attack him or whatever. But I always say this to (former Labour frontbencher) Ed Balls, who reinvented himself in this extraordinary way after leaving politics, and literally this is the most surprising thing I ever came across in terms of a post ministerial career.

“But, you know, it takes a lot of courage to go do something like that.

“I wished him well, from the outset. I worked with him a bit during the pandemic. And, you know, he was working hard, they were all working hard on it.”

The former Labour leader suggested that Hancock, who said entering the jungle would allow him to reach out to voters in a new way, might have had “a point”.

“I don’t think people’s political views are going to be changed one way or another.

“But I think the problem with politics nowadays is how do you communicate with people when you’re going into fragmented, media, social media, and when it’s quite difficult to get a message across to people who aren’t in your circle, because the way the media works today is essentially, it works by developing a constituency of people and essentially appealing to that constituency.

“And if you’re not careful, you don’t break out and go and talk to the people who disagree with you. So, I guess in that sense, he’s got a point. But it’s quite an extreme way of reaching the public.”

Earlier, business secretary Grant Shapps suggested that Hancock’s time on the show indicated he may have come to the conclusion his career in Westminster is “pretty much done”.

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‘Time For Blair’ Is Trending And Everyone Knew What To Do

With the Labour Party in turmoil following the loss of the Hartlepool by-election and the subsequent botched shadow cabinet reshuffle, questions are being asked about the leadership of Keir Starmer.

Does the former Director of Public Prosecutions have the charisma to match Boris Johnson? Could anyone realistically do better against a government spending lots of money and successfully vaccinating its population against a deadly pandemic?

As many wrestle these questions and more, one man has an answer: Time for Blair. 

That’s the simple solution proposed by Andrew Adonis, the former Labour Cabinet minister in the 2000s who now sits in the House of Lords.

The proposition on its surface is pretty simple: bring back the man who steered Labour to a hat-trick of general elections, a man with a proven track record of success. 

And he boiled it down to just three words. And used it again.

The polls, however, don’t quite see it that way, with Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn regarded as better placed than TB.

But the argument seemed lost on most who engaged with the idea on Twitter, and there seemed to be three directions to take it.

The most popular was to reference Blair’s foreign policy, and implicit in all of them was the war in Iraq. 

A second was to apply the maxim to the more trivial moments in life. 

Or deliberately get confused about which famous Blair is being referenced.

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