Costing £40bn a year until 2030, Labour has decided its colossal net zero plan is worth the risk
There’s a reason previous governments baulked at the net zero challenge – it’s absolutely colossal, something Labour’s new Clean Power 2030 plan lays bare.
Offshore wind generating capacity, which has taken 20 years to reach 14.8GW, must more than triple to about 50GW within just six years.
The plan calls for a tripling of solar generation too, and a doubling supply from onshore wind turbines.
And to get all that clean, locally produced power to where it is actually needed will require an overhaul of the National Grid not seen since the current system was planned in the 1950s.
The government projects that to deliver all that infrastructure will require investment of £40bn a year until 2030.
The prime minister has pledged an overhaul of the UK’s power grid and renewable energy.
Pic: AP
Nearly all of that will come from the private sector – it hopes – knowing the Treasury certainly will not have any spare money to pay for it.
And all that is backed up by a promise that the project will lower consumer bills.
It’s a massive challenge and given the UK’s recent history of delivering large infrastructure projects – high-speed rail line anyone? – a major political gamble.
But Labour has decided it is worth the risk.
Read more:
Paris Agreement never been ‘more fragile’, UK climate chief warns
Scientists already say 2025 will be top three warmest years
If they pull it off, most analysts agree that locally generated renewable power will reduce the wholesale price of electricity – currently dictated by the international gas market.
This, in turn, will protect customers from price shocks and lower bills. Definitely a vote winner.
The other main attraction is to “get Britain building,” creating new, skilled jobs with many of them in parts of the country where they are needed most.
Coupled with that, many countries are pursuing similar goals and UK companies and workers stand to benefit by exporting their knowledge and skills.
And not forgetting the fact this government, like its predecessors, is legally required to do all this under the terms of the Climate Change Act as well as fulfilling the commitment made when we signed the global carbon-cutting Paris Agreement.
But none of that makes it any less difficult.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
From September: Can the UK achieve its offshore wind target?
Take the grid for example.
Right now, as new renewable projects like large offshore windfarms are connected to our old, fossil fuel orientated national grid, on really windy days, there is already more electricity than the system can handle.
Increasingly big wind farms out to sea and a long way from consumers are having to be paid not to generate electricity, and gas-fired power stations closer to customers have to be paid to come online instead.
The bill for these “grid constraints” is already about £2bn a year.
Re-wiring the grid will solve that problem – benefitting everyone.
But imagine there’s a delay – thanks to local opposition to new pylons, or a labour shortage, or poorly managed construction – and the grid doesn’t get upgraded in step with generating capacity.
The constraint costs are projected to hit £8bn a year – that’s £80 per household – by the late 2020s.
That would make very bad headlines for a government that promised to lower bills. And the grid is just one of the pieces of the zero-carbon electricity puzzle.
Read more from Sky News:
Starmer has a particularly toxic fight to come
PM defends ‘great British institution’ of sandwiches
Everything – from reforming the retail market for energy, to smart metering, EV charging, connecting heat pumps and new technologies that can store excess electricity for when the wind isn’t blowing – will all have to happen in parallel, at pace, to ensure the project delivers the benefits promised.
The Clean Power plan will be a genuine test of whether Britain can “get building again”, but also of Keir Starmer’s political stomach when it hits the inevitable bumps along the way.
Politics
Nigel Farage’s ‘fantasy’ policies will lead to Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, Sir Keir Starmer to warn
Nigel Farage’s “fantasy” policies will lead to a Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, the prime minister will warn today.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to argue that Reform UK’s pledges would cause mortgages, bills and rent payments across the country to surge.
On Tuesday, Mr Farage vowed to reverse cuts to winter fuel payments and scrap the two-child benefit cap, with an ambition to slash income tax.
But new analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggest that his party’s aim of hiking the personal allowance to £20,000 a year could cost between £50bn to £80bn a year.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will PM’s ‘Farage lite’ strategy work?
Visiting manufacturing workers in the North West, Sir Keir will describe Reform’s economic agenda as a “mad experiment”.
He is expected to say: “In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill. We were right – and we were elected to fix that mess.
“Now in government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy.”
Labour is criticising Mr Farage for betting “that you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it”.
The prime minister will add: “Just like Truss, he is using your family finances, your mortgage, your bills as a gambling chip. The result will be the same. Liz Truss bet the house and lost.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Angela Rayner ‘hoping’ for winter fuel update
Sir Keir is referring to the former prime minister’s mini-budget in 2022, which had proposed abolishing the top 45% rate of income tax.
But this policy, among others, spooked financial markets and led to economic turmoil in the UK – with a dramatic spike in the cost of government borrowing feeding through into interest rates.
Mr Farage has argued that his measures can be paid for by scrapping net zero commitments and ending the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.
Recent polls have put Labour second behind Reform UK, while the local election results earlier this month saw Mr Farage’s party win a parliamentary by-election, control of 10 councils and two mayoralties, while Labour lost almost 200 seats.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Farage could ‘definitely’ become next PM
Sir Keir has been under pressure from his backbenchers to regain the initiative, leading to the party’s U-turn on winter fuel payments last week.
Plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap have also not been ruled out by ministers, in what would be a second reversal of current Labour policy.
Dominic Cummings, the former top aide to Boris Johnson, exclusively told Sky News he believes Mr Farage could “definitely” become the next prime minister, with the right strategy.
Elon Musk confirmed that he’s quitting as the White House’s government cost-cutting czar after admitting it was an “uphill battle” trying to slash federal jobs and programs.
Musk’s status as a Special Government Employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) meant that by law, he could only serve for a maximum of 130 days, which was set to finish on May 30.
Musk confirmed his exit in a May 29 X post, thanking President Donald Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.” Reuters reported that a White House official said his “off-boarding will begin tonight.”
Musk told The Washington Post for a May 27 report that the “federal bureaucracy situation is much worse” than he expected, and it was “an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”
In separate comments to CBS, Musk criticized the multi-trillion-dollar tax break package that House Republicans approved on May 22, claiming it would increase the budget deficit and undermine the work that DOGE is doing.
DOGE, which is named after the cryptocurrency, claims to have saved taxpayers $175 billion since Trump’s Jan. 20 return to the White House, a figure heavily disputed by multiple news outlets, which report the figures are overstated, have multiple errors and are inaccurate.
The project’s claimed savings are only 8.5% of Musk’s initial ambition to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which he later revised down to $150 billion.
According to the Reuters report, DOGE has cut almost 12%, or 260,000, of the 2.3 million federal workforce through layoffs, buyouts and early retirement offers.
Despite the criticisms, Musk said on X that DOGE’s mission will “only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
It comes as a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to proceed that accuses Musk and DOGE of illegally exerting power over government operations.
The lawsuit, filed by 14 states, alleged that Musk and DOGE violated the Constitution by illegally accessing government data systems, terminating federal employees and canceling contracts at federal agencies.
Musk admits he spent too much time in politics
In a May 28 interview with Ars Technica, Musk, the CEO of EV maker Tesla, admitted that he spent “a bit too much time” in politics, which some critics claim has impacted Tesla’s performance.
“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk said. However, he added that the time he spent on DOGE wasn’t as significant as many believed, and he blamed media coverage for overrepresenting his involvement.
“It’s not like I left the companies. It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”
When Musk announced in Tesla’s first quarter report that his time spent on DOGE would drop significantly in May, Tesla (TSLA) shares rose over 5% in after-hours trading, despite the company reporting an 80% drop in net income.
As of March 31, Tesla still held 11,509 Bitcoin (BTC), currently valued at about $1.24 billion.
Related: Musk confirms X Money beta testing ahead of planned 2025 launch
Tesla shares are still down 5.9% year to date, in part due to Musk diverting his attention away from the company and Tesla’s sales falling considerably in the first quarter.
However, the fall is in line with other Big Tech firms, including Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG), which are also in the red in 2025.
Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight
Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam has said the crypto market will remain unregulated unless the agency he led is given greater authority.
In a May 28 Bloomberg TV interview, Behnam sided with the crypto industry on its long-standing argument that cryptocurrencies are commodities.
“If you look at existing law, the few largest tokens are commodities, which means the SEC does not have jurisdiction over those tokens, which include Bitcoin and Ether,” he said.
He added that the Securities and Exchange Commission currently cannot properly regulate crypto because its law doesn’t allow it to regulate commodities, and the CFTC cannot regulate because it is a derivatives regulator.
Without new authority for the CFTC to regulate “cash markets in digital assets, non-securities,” this will remain an unregulated space, he claimed.
Behnam comments amid increasing scrutiny of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, which include the crypto platform World Liberty Financial, memecoins and a stablecoin.
On May 28, American political strategist and political commentator Sanders Townsend said Donald Trump is boosting his family’s investments in cryptocurrency and “is using the presidency to do it.”
The administration’s involvement in the regulatory process and legislative effort is “raising red flags” among some members of Congress, and there are “well-baked rules” for any elected or appointed government official that need to be complied with, he said.
“Ultimately, until we do something, the [crypto] market will remain unregulated. Customers, investors, retail and institutional, will be more vulnerable to harm, fraud, manipulation and conflicts of interest, until the market is regulated.”
Regulation critical to financial markets, says Behnam
Behnam also weighed in on Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, backing up the need for crypto regulations.
Related: Trump’s use of presidential seal at memecoin event raises legal questions
Vance said in a speech at the event that “we reject regulators” and that crypto “has a champion” in the White House.
“Regulators are extremely important,” Behnam said. “They’re the reason American markets are the most desired in the world.”
“Consumer protections and enforcement of the law are extremely critical to the health of our financial markets,” he added.
Magazine: Bitcoin bears eye $69K, CZ denies WLF ‘fixer’ rumors: Hodler’s Digest
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway