Climate experts and politicians round on Tony Blair for ‘wrong message’

Former Labour PM accused of ‘handing talking points’ to Tories and Reform after saying net zero strategy faltering

Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming that any strategy that relied on rapidly phasing out fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”. The former prime minister’s comments, published in a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), prompted an internal row in Labour, with some accusing him of playing into the hands of a narrative used by rightwing parties to delay climate action. Blair argued the political case for net zero was faltering and that governments should prioritise “realistic” climate strategies, including a greater focus on adaptation measures and technology-based solutions. He noted the current climate approach “isn’t working”, with the debate having “become irrational” and people “turning away from the politics of the issue because they believe the proposed solutions are not founded on good policy”. “In developed countries, voters feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal,” Blair wrote in the foreword for a report from the TBI. A recent YouGov poll found that 61% of people either strongly supported or somewhat supported the government’s commitment to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Only 24% said they somewhat opposed or strongly opposed it and 15% said they didn’t know. Fifty-two per cent of voters who backed the Conservatives at the last general election supported the net zero plans, with 38% of them opposing it and 11% in the “didn’t know” category. Climate experts hit back, accusing Blair of giving political cover to fossil fuel interests and weakening momentum behind the UK’s legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Lady Brown, of the independent Climate Change Committee, said Blair’s intervention risked sending the wrong message at a crucial moment. “My concern is that people might take away a message from that report that we should do adaptation instead of mitigation, and that is absolutely the wrong message,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We need to do adaptation, because even if we get to net zero by mid-century, there’s still a huge amount of climate change to come, and we need to be ready for that. But we can’t adapt to everything. “As people know who live on the coast and suffer coastal erosion and flooding, no, we can’t adapt to everything. It’s absolutely critical that alongside adaptation, we are reducing emissions as well.” Dale Vince, a Labour party donor and founder of the renewable energy company Ecotricity, accused Blair of talking “nonsense”, adding that he “expected better than this from the TBI”. In a statement, he said: “This from Tony Blair is net zero nonsense. He talks of growing fossil demand from China, when in fact it has peaked. He says we need less focus on renewable energy and more on carbon capture – one is cheap and abundant and prevents carbon emissions, the other is an incredibly expensive way of trying to deal with emissions. Prevention (green energy) is always better and cheaper than the cure.” A senior Labour MP said: “It’s maddening. Blair parachutes in and is handing talking points to the Tories and Reform on a silver platter. TBI might want to remember it’s not running the country.”