These activists are not short of allies in government. “Fossil fuels simply cannot provide us with the security, or indeed the affordability, we need,” Mr Miliband intoned recently, even though seeking to eradicate them from our electricity generation within six years threatens both. Around 40pc of the UK’s electricity is currently produced with gas that will need to be imported.
But then came the setback. On the same day that the National Energy System Operator published its analysis, America went to the polls. In Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the eco-establishment had perhaps their greatest net zero allies. Biden’s $1 trillion (£770bn) Inflation Reduction Act was nothing more than a big green giveaway, with the president himself admitting it had “less to do with reducing inflation than dealing with providing alternatives that generate economic growth”.
And Kamala would’ve taken it further: she wanted to ban fracking, and was so in favour of the Green New Deal when she signed up to be a co-sponsor of it that she was willing to kill a senate filibuster to see it enacted.
Instead, the man who wants to quit the Paris Agreement and once called efforts to boost green energy a “scam” has clinched the popular vote.
“THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL CLIMATE DENIER IS BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE,” howled Friends of the Earth, though I don’t recall Donald Trump ever denying the existence of a climate. “The world feels a whole lot more terrifying this morning… [we] will try even harder to light candles rather than curse the darkness,” tweeted Caroline Lucas, though presumably we’ll all be lighting candles when Mr Miliband has made us completely dependent on renewables.
No wonder some green activists are “heartbroken”: Mr Trump could be about to expose the conceit at the heart of their crusade. For years we have been fed the myth that the only way for our advanced economy to mitigate climate change is with more austere lifestyles. “Cut back, you don’t really need all the trappings of modernity anyway “, is their message.
“Leading the world on climate change is the right thing to do,” the grandstanding navel-gazers proclaim, even though no one is following. Now we could be about to see that narrative set against an agenda of abundance, one which puts faith in capitalism and technological innovation to lead the low carbon transition.