We need to ask who is behind growing scepticism about climate action – Inside track

Ed Miliband has come out fighting. In a hard-hitting Observer article, he says opponents of climate action will “make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda, the latest example being their attempt to use the crisis facing the steel industry for their deeply damaging agenda”.

He is right. A UK industrial crisis resulting from decades of underinvestment has, with terrible predictability, been turned into yet another attack on net zero.

There are serious questions around the future of steelmaking in the UK. Green Alliance has been working on the issue for years, producing heavyweight reports on how the UK can benefit from the global move to cleaner steel production; how, in Will Hutton’s words, to “become part of the new economy, not a prisoner of the old”; and how to achieve a fair transition for workers in the industry. We have highlighted, for instance, Sweden’s green steel roadmap, set out ten years ago, its investment in the industry and the state’s close collaboration with trade unions.

Some will disagree with our view that the future of the industry predominantly lies in electric arc furnaces. That is fine. We can have the debate. But the media and political furore around the threat to British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant is not really about steel. It is just another opportunity for opposition parties and the right wing media to attack net zero and pin the blame for anything bad that might happen on Ed Miliband.

Rebutting this nonsense has become almost a full time job. No, Andrew Griffith, no, Daily Telegraph, the proposed coal mine in Cumbria would not have rescued Scunthorpe: it would have produced high sulphur coal for export. No, Harriet Baldwin, more North Sea oil and gas would not bring down energy prices. No, recycled steel is not a problem: UK-produced recycled steel could meet 80 per cent of UK demand and it makes more sense for us to recycle steel here, with electric arc furnaces, than to export it for reuse abroad, while importing coking coal and ore for blast furnaces.

High energy costs are not the fault of net zero Coal is not the answer, and other countries agree. The high cost of energy in the UK is not down to net zero (though reducing energy prices in the short term should certainly be a higher priority for the government). No, Nick Robinson, it would not make sense just to get rid of environmental regulations. No, John Rentoul, you cannot just blame everything on Ed Miliband without producing any evidence.

The trouble with rebuttal, of course, is that every time someone says, “the steel crisis is not about net zero” people hear “net zero” and “steel crisis” and draw a connection. That was a lesson of the Brexit referendum: Vote Leave said, “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead”, and the rebuttals from remainers just embedded in the public mind the idea that the UK sent £350 million a week to the EU.

Rebuttal is certainly not enough. The deluge of lies and disinformation on climate action has been likened to a slow Brexit and, as with Brexit, it will not be adequately countered by facts alone. We must engage the emotions and remember that people really do care about climate change – one reason the net zero sceptics hardly mention it – and the impact it will have on their children and grandchildren. Net zero is not an end in itself, it is a means to arresting climate change. Happily, it is also the way to modernise the UK economy, clean our air, warm our homes and generally improve lives.

The assault on climate action is serious We will need to make the case with improved vigour because the assault on climate action is serious. Until recently, it was possible to see the anti-climate lobby as little more than an irritant. The right wing media was relentlessly hostile and the Conservative Party, post-Boris Johnson, increasingly unenthusiastic about the green agenda. But outspoken net zero sceptics on the right had little credibility. Richard Tice and Nigel Farage struggle with the details of energy policy while the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the main UK vehicle for climate scepticism, just looks a bit weird (how is it possible in 2025 to have 42 men involved in your organisation and only one woman?).

Two things have changed. First Kemi Badenoch now opposes net zero, breaking the cross party consensus. Predictably, she has nothing to say about climate change. The Conservative Party is being dragged rightwards by Reform UK and some in Labour want also want their party to become Reform-lite. The Lib Dems, with 77 MPs, have ambitious climate policies but appear unwilling to talk about them.

Second, the Trump administration is not just climate sceptic, it is attacking climate action and climate science with the vigour of the Inquisition. This will have an impact beyond the US. Trump is defunding scientific research (part or a wider attack on science), threatening climate philanthropy, stopping renewable energy projects and taking aim at state and city climate action. Shockingly, Greenpeace US faces closure following a court case brought by an oil and gas company.

One could dismiss Trump’s rage against science and reality as an old man’s nostalgia for a simpler world. This may be part of the explanation: there is no getting away from the fact that those opposed to climate action are disproportionately men of a certain age. But he is also delivering for his funders, and those same oil and gas interests are pouring money into UK politics. Next time you read an attack on climate action in the Sun, Mail, Telegraph or Times, or hear a politician dissing net zero, ask yourself who benefits and who is paying the pipers?

I hope those in the mainstream parties who are tempted to believe or even peddle climate lies will ask themselves the same question.