Net zero rubbishers lost no time blaming the blackouts in Spain and Portugal on it, even though the cause has yet to be established. That’ll teach the Spanish to get 53 per cent of their energy from sunlight seemed to be the general consensus.
These net zerophobes are beginning to sound like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion fanatics, but without the superglue and traffic holdups.
But they received another boost from a Tony Blair Institute report, which said the sacrifices people are being asked to make will have “minimal” impact on the planet's climate.
Tell that to climate change activists coming up with enough horrifying stats to give polar bears the sweats. It would be no surprise if mummy bear, daddy bear and baby bear were packing their bags and eyeing up brochures for London Zoo.
They shouldn’t be hanging around in the Arctic too much longer anyway because, if global warming campaigners are right, by 2050 they’ll be falling through their own ice. And no point migrating to the Antarctic, where ice sheets ten times the size of the UK have already melted.
NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment data shows that Greenland has been losing 279 billion tons of ice each year since 1993, and wildlife is now going extinct at 10,000 times the normal rate, especially in the sea, where warmer waters are playing havoc with ecosystems.
If the heat doesn't kill marine life, then the millions of tons of plastic waste we keep dumping on it will, and whales, dolphins, porpoises and sea lions have had to learn how to swerve around fishing gear on their travels to avoid critical injury.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says if we don’t do something about all this by 2030, coral reefs will disappear and floods, extreme heat spells, and droughts will increase.
Which led the International Organisation on Migration to predict that by 2050, there will be 200 million refugees on the move as global temperatures and sea levels rise. If you think 10,000 migrants crossing the Channel in small boats so far this year is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Should you be toying with the idea of taking a bracing hike up Mount Kilimanjaro, think again - there won’t be much cooling white stuff at the top as 80 per cent of its snow has disappeared.
I doubt we will reach net zero by 2050 now, or keep global warming to 1.5 degrees above industrial levels agreed in Paris a decade ago. But equally, I don’t think we should give up trying because even if we only get near the target, that’s better than nothing.
Net zero rubbishers are starting to sound a lot like Just Stop Oil without the superglue - Nigel NelsonGetty Images
The Tories rowed back on net zero when they were in power, scrapping the carbon homes target for 2016 and the buildings zero target for 2019, and pushing back bans on new petrol and diesel cars and chugging old boilers from 2030 to 2035.
Now Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband is reportedly softening up on boilers, too, by making the ban apply only to new builds, and Keir Starmer is giving the car industry get-outs for gas guzzlers.
Even in opposition, Labour welched on the £28billion of promised spending to go green. The more net zero is watered down, the less likely we are to reach it.
I can’t pretend to understand all the science behind climate change, but I know what I see with my own eyes.
We were in Lapland a few years ago, where the temperature was 10 degrees below. But that was like a heatwave to the huskies who took us for a ride. They were used to conditions of - 25, and we had to stop our sledge several times to let them get their breath back.
When on holiday in Greece, I like to do some snorkelling, and 20 years ago, turning over a few stones on the seabed more often than not revealed an octopus hiding underneath.
The last time we were in Rhodes, I didn’t find a single one, no matter how many underwater boulders I shifted. That, said our boatman, was because the sea was getting warmer and predators had swum in to eat all the baby octopuses.
I appreciate 2050 is a quarter-century away and some of us will be pushing up global warming daises before it arrives. That’s why it's tempting to say net zero is all too much trouble and expense.
But if there is a chance of not wrecking the planet before our children and grandchildren can enjoy it, is that not a chance worth taking?
