The Right Way, a 100-page policy document produced by the Conservatives ahead of their party conference this week, was stark: at nigh-on £1 trillion, the UK’s route to achieving net zero carbon emissions was far too high.
Justifying Kemi Badenoch’s commitment to scrapping the target of reaching net zero by 2050, introduced under former Tory PM Theresa May, the document says that estimates of how much this would cost the economy “have varied enormously”.
“In 2020, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimated that its route to net zero would cost £957bn,” it states, linking to a footnote citing the Sixth Carbon Budget produced by the CCC, the government’s own climate change advisers, saying the report put gross economic costs at £1.4 trillion, falling to £957 billion when savings were taken into account.
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And it is indeed far too high – literally. Because the flagship policy document overestimated the cost by almost £500 billion, apparently after a dozy staffer double-counted figures on a spreadsheet.
The figures in the CCC report total £478 billion, about half of what the Conservatives’ document said (and indeed still does – it is available on the party’s website). The embarrassing error appears to have occurred because a tally of all the costs in a spreadsheet from the document also included the row showing totals for each individual column, and whoever compiled the Tory report counted them twice.
The blunder was first spotted by the website Carbon Brief. The exact same erroneous figure appears to have also been published in a report by right wing thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs and also in an article in the Spectator.
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A CCC spokesperson has said: “We don’t recognise this number. The committee has previously offered to meet with Ms Badenoch and talk her through our advice. That offer is, of course, still open.”
The document – “a major statement of Conservative principles setting out how the Party will govern Britain differently if returned to office” – was launched to much fanfare with a number of figures on the right queuing up to have their names on the blurb praising it.
Tory peer and historian Andrew Roberts described it as a “concise, hard-hitting and well-researched book” – whoops! – while Niall Ferguson claims it provides a “tough diagnosis and clearcut prescription” and Times columnist Juliet Samuel says it is “a serious and radical essay”. Perhaps they’ll ask to have their names removed if and when it gets republished?
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