Kemi Badenoch is wrong – net zero is an investment in the UK’s security, not the other way around

The leader of the opposition not only glossed over that it was her party that first developed the plan, she ignored the importance of self-reliance, writes Chris Wright

This week, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch distanced herself from the UK’s net zero policy, labelling it “fiction” and claiming it was “making our country less safe, less secure, and less resilient”.

In a speech filled with inflammatory rhetoric and buzzwords, she blamed the energy transition for “bankrupting us” and tried to warn the UK public that it would “make families poorer” and “mortgage their children’s future”. I’m sure any scientist who has dedicated their lives to studying the climate crisis would have a lot to say about Badenoch’s vision of “their children’s future”.

But what is so surprising about her speech is not that she is trying to make you forget that the net zero policy was actually developed by her own party, but that she is trying to undermine a policy that will actually lead to fewer energy imports, more energy security and more self-reliance.

The cornerstone to her argument is that the net zero transition will be expensive, and that the UK is already feeling the pinch. By conflating the growth of renewable energy and the “highest electricity bills in the developed world”, she wants you to scowl every time you see a solar panel and tell your friends that’s what’s driving up your monthly bills.

But in doing so, Badenoch is conveniently ignoring the UK Climate Commission’s findings that the net zero transition might cost only about 0.2 per cent of GDP per year. She is also ignoring the fact that the price of your monthly electricity bill isn’t set by solar panels at all; it’s largely set by gas-powered generation.

While it is true that electricity prices weren’t always this high (prices tripled between 2020 and 2021), the price increase followed the cost increase of generating electricity from fossil gas, which also tripled during the same period.

This is further supported by a 2022 study by UCL, which found that while gas generated only about 37 per cent of the UK’s electricity in 2021, it set the electricity price 98 per cent of the time. It also stated that solar panels and wind farms generated just over a quarter of electricity, but they set the price only 2 per cent of the time – that’s about 29 minutes per day.

The reason why prices were so high then is that 70 per cent of that gas is imported. Since 2021, the continued explosion of “homegrown” renewable power increased its generation share from 37 per cent of UK electricity in 2024, displacing largely imported gas, which has fallen to less than a third. That’s the beginning of a net shift from imported, insecure and expensive fossil fuels to homegrown renewables every year.

Yes, it costs a lot to change – but think of it like an investment in energy security, which comes with a passive income return every year for the next 25 years at least.

As clean energy businessman Michael Liebreich recently said, “If we stopped confusing costs with investments, investments with asset replacements and gas imports with exports – and if we understood the cost of fossil price volatility to the UK economy – we would understand that net zero done right would be a huge economic win for the country”.

Thanks to the growth of renewable energy and electric vehicles, the Department for Energy Security highlighted that the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels recently fell to the “lowest quarterly share this century due to reduced gas demand”. And if the UK keeps pushing ahead in this direction, the reliance on imports will only fall further.

A recent Ember analysis of the Clean Power Action Plan found that, if achieved, it could cut gas imports by an estimated 57 per cent by 2030. But this transition is not just in the electricity sector, and it won’t happen overnight.

The UK, like most countries, still depends on fossil fuels to run the broader economy. That isn’t going to change soon. But what the UK Climate Commission recently outlined was in effect a roadmap; a 25-year plan to shift the country from being dependent on oil, gas and wood pellets for energy, to one that generates its own power at home, all year round.

Like any good investment strategy, this transition is not going to happen overnight. It needs regular, continued investments with a clear long-term vision.

Kemi Badenoch is trying to cover our eyes. The net zero policy is a bet on transformative British energy – not the other way around. It’s an investment in homegrown energy security with a domestic dividend payback for generations to come.