Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming 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 within 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”.
TBI published its report weeks after 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. There were 52% of voters who backed the Conservatives at the last general election and supported the net zero plans, with 38% of them opposing it and 11% in the “didn’t know” category.
Despite this, Blair wrote in the foreword for a report from the TBI: “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.”
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.
Nicholas Stern, the former World Bank chief economist and author of the landmark Stern review of the economics of climate change and chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said the TBI report was “muddled and misleading” as “there is far more progress being made around the world to decarbonise the global economy than it suggests”.
He added: “The UK’s leadership on climate change, particularly the elimination of coal from its power sector, is providing an influential example to other countries. So, too, its climate change legislation and its Climate Change Committee. If the UK wobbles on its route to net zero, other countries may become less committed. The UK matters.
“And the report downplays the science in its absence of a sense of urgency and the lack of appreciation of the need for the world to achieve net zero as soon as possible, in order to manage the growth in climate change impacts that are already hurting households and businesses across the world and in the UK. Delay is dangerous.”
Lady Brown, of the independent Climate Change Committee, said Blair’s intervention risked sending the wrong message at a crucial moment.
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“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.”
The backlash has prompted TBI to issue a clarifying statement that said “the report is clear that we support the government’s net zero targets” and added, “people support climate action, and it is vital that we keep the public’s support for how we do it”.
Anger in Labour circles has not yet dissipated, with some astonished at how close his intervention has come to the local elections. 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.”
At prime minister’s questions, Keir Starmer said Blair was “absolutely aligned” with the Labour government.
