This weekend, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) read the last rites to Labour’s policy of hitting Net Zero by 2030.
Alright, that’s not quite how they put it. The report, commissioned by Ed Miliband, concludes that the objective is “a huge challenge but is achievable”. You need to parse these things, however. It is seldom the habit of officials to outright tell ministers their plans are hopeless — and in any event, in a technical report NESO can stick to the realm of what is technically possible, rather than what is politically achievable. And the politics looks impossible.
Consider the money, for example. Now, Rachel Reeves has actually been fairly generous to Ed Miliband; he’s had £22 billion (over 1- years) for a major Carbon Capture and Storage project, and his department’s budget has risen from £6.4 billion in 2023/24 to £14.1 billion in 2025/26.