We can’t electrify everything without reliable energy

The latest Carbon Budget report wants us to cut meat, drive EVs, and install heat pumps. But what about the baseload?

Earlier this year, the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) published its Seventh Carbon Budget report. Yet adequate public scrutiny of the report since then - from the media, experts, or public figures - has been sorely lacking. More concerningly, a notable criticism that I did come across had been quietly removed from the internet. When I contacted the person who had written it to find out why, they admitted that they had been pressured into taking it down.

I am not a partisan person. Been there, done that. After years of being tangled in ideological echo chambers, I’ve learned to trust my own judgment more than any tribe. I don’t pick teams. If someone has a good idea, I’ll say so, even if I disagree with everything else they stand for. And if a group I usually align with does something questionable, I won’t bite my tongue about it.

So, to be fair to them, since gaining power a year ago, the UK Labour Party has been making the right noises about nuclear energy. And that’s a good thing, particularly since they chose to upset elements of the left by doing so, as well as enraging the NIMBYs. I laughed out loud when Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that he “hates tree huggers.” I still believe that we need serious investment in clean, firm energy, but tackling the anti-nuclear crowd is part of the fight to get here, and I applaud anyone who is willing to take on that vicious crowd.

However, while the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband was once bullish about nuclear energy, proposing the most ambitious expansion of power plants in UK political history back in 2009, that enthusiasm is nowhere to be seen today. Labour is pressing ahead with existing nuclear projects: Hinkley Point C is still under construction, and funding for Sizewell C has (thankfully) been approved. But beyond that, government momentum regarding nuclear energy rests on SMRs (Small Modular Reactors), with no proposals for new large scale projects. And what’s currently on the table isn’t nearly enough to meet our future energy needs - especially since the government is also hoping to power a wave of new data centres.

Read my post outlining the history of energy politics in the UK:

Fact check: A brief history of energy politics in the UK

This is where the UK’s Seventh Carbon Budget comes in. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) isn’t a think tank with a manifesto, it’s a statutory body set up by the 2008 Climate Change Act to give independent advice to the government on how to hit net zero targets. In theory, it’s the grown-up in the room: evidence-based, technocratic, non-partisan. It weighs in on everything from how we heat our homes to what we eat, and tries to keep climate policy grounded in realism - ambitious but technically and politically doable.

At first glance, the latest report is an effective roadmap to cut emissions drastically by 2050. But look closer, and it starts to resemble one of those GPS routes that should technically get you to your destination, but only if you don’t mind cycling through a canal and hopping a few garden fences along the way, using quite a lot of guesswork.

Here’s the gist: the CCC wants a massive pivot to electrification: 80% of UK cars need to be electric by 2040, gas boilers out, and heat pumps in. They also want us to eat less meat (25–35% less) and cut over a quarter of the national livestock herd.

These aren’t gentle tweaks to the system, but full-scale rewrites of how British people live. The report places heavy emphasis on individual lifestyle changes, while largely sidestepping the political landmine that is British agriculture. The proposed cut of over a quarter of UK livestock isn’t just a climate target; it’s a grenade lobbed into the middle of the already-fractious UK farming sector. Farmers are already fuming over low margins, Brexit fallout, and supermarket pressures. Now, they’re being told that their livelihoods need to be sacrificed to meet these targets.

The CEO of the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA), George Dunn, has criticised the report for what he calls "anti-livestock rhetoric" that lacks justification for such drastic measures. TFA argue that the proposed cuts could threaten the livelihoods of farmers and disrupt the rural economy.

It’s climate policy by spreadsheet, not politics by consent. But we’ve been down this road before, and as I’ve said many times before, the best behavioural scientists have spent decades trying to figure out how to nudge people toward radical lifestyle shifts, and they don’t have any solid answers for us. It’s incredibly difficult to shift people’s daily habits, let alone pass policies that actually force them to do it.

And now we’re venturing into murky waters. For what it’s worth, given Starmer’s stance on environmentalists, I don’t think he’d entertain this approach anyway. But the real issue here is the glaring absence of alternative, practical advice for the Labour government to implement - guidance that can help achieve climate targets without jeopardising people’s livelihoods or resorting to authoritarian measures.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: making voters feel poorer, with higher energy costs and pricier food, while asking them to trust a long-term climate vision, is a hard sell in any democracy. It simply will not work, and risks further public backlash.

Then there’s whether this pathway is attainable or not. The first three carbon budgets were easier to meet, mostly because they involved wrapping up the easy part: the transition from coal to gas. The UK’s shift from coal to gas began back in the 1990s, long before net-zero was the buzzword of the decade. All the CCC really had to do back then was formalise what the market and previous policy shifts had already started. One of the solutions involved throwing money at “renewable” energy projects like offshore wind. Easily done.

But that only got us partway there. So let’s address the elephant in the room: a glaring omission in the CCC’s roadmap in its relative downplaying of nuclear energy. For a nation set on phasing out fossil fuels and relying heavily on electrification, the absence of substantial nuclear investment feels like skipping leg day while training for a marathon. Nuclear provides low-carbon, reliable baseload power - something that “renewables” are still struggling to deliver without colossal storage infrastructure. If the UK is genuinely serious about maintaining grid stability while scaling EVs and heat pumps, excluding nuclear from the equation isn’t just short-sighted; it’s strategically perilous. Frankly, this approach reeks of ideology.

The Seventh Carbon Budget does acknowledge the role of nuclear power in achieving net zero emissions by 2050 - nuclear power is recognised as a stable form of energy that can ensure a reliable supply of electricity, even during adverse weather conditions. The report emphasises the need for a diverse energy mix, including nuclear, to maintain grid stability as the UK transitions away from fossil fuels.

However, it also outlines a "Balanced Pathway" for decarbonisation, which includes a significant expansion of low-carbon electricity generation. While the report makes vague room for nuclear, its main focus is on “renewables,” as the pathway anticipates a six-fold increase in offshore wind capacity and a doubling of onshore wind capacity by 2040.

Unfortunately, this is because the CCC uses the flawed levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) metric to make an economic assessment. That means that they start with the premise that nuclear energy is too expensive compared to other low-carbon technologies. The report therefore sees offshore wind and solar as cheaper than nuclear energy - which is incorrect.

Read my post on an alternative metric to the flawed LCOE model:

Move over, LCOE. LFSCOE is the new metric in town

The outcome is that the aim of the report is a British form of Energiewende. Germany decided to phase out nuclear energy, throw huge amounts of money at wind and solar, and hope for the best. They ended with energy instability, soaring costs, and increased reliance on coal. Any attempt to follow in their footsteps is deeply flawed and dangerous.

Although we haven’t ditched nuclear energy altogether, the report is essentially attempting to replicate Germany’s approach, pushing forward with a proposed heavy reliance on “renewables” to support a transition to electric vehicles and heat pumps. This isn't just policy; it’s a gamble. We’re not talking about a green revolution, but a green crash. Energy transition is hard, and taking this current path is going to make us poorer and less stable in the long run.

Decarbonisation needs more than targets based on wishful thinking; it needs a strategy that people can live with and support. One that’s transparent about trade-offs, invests in cost buffers for struggling households, and gets buy-in not just from green policy wonks, but from the average person who just wants to keep the lights on, afford dinner, and keep their job.

The CCC has drawn the map, but it’s deeply flawed, and not many people are brave enough to admit it. It’s a high-level vision, full of ambitious goals and shiny promises, but light on practicalities. Now, the Labour government needs to work out how to translate this theoretical path into a real, workable strategy, while keeping their “build, build, build” mantra at the forefront. Hopefully, they will take note of the recent blackouts across Spain, Portugal and parts of France, and make a sensible decision regarding baseload energy generation. We can have it all, but only by setting aside advice based on ideology and making nuclear energy a central part of the plan. Without it, the whole journey risks grinding to a halt.