Is the Net Zero bubble bursting, Darren Grimes asks

Is the march towards ever more extreme Net Zero targets, finally, coming to an end? For years now, British politics has been greener than Kermit the frog. Governments of red and blue have appeased green vested interests, Greta Thunbergs, painfully middle-class eco-terrorists and an eagerness to outspend each other on their new eco-friendly pet projects.

But are we now ready to say enough is enough? Has the Green utopianism finally run up against reality? Has this generation-defining Cost-of-Living Crisis brought the eco loons in government back down to earth? Or are we all destined to turn seasick green each time we open our energy bill estimates?

This week, one of the most powerful men in the country who you've never voted for published a report which could affect your life for decades to come.

Lord Deben, the government's supposedly independent climate adviser, who has a huge influence over how the UK reaches its ambitious Net Zero targets, published his annual Committee of Climate Change report.

Often, the government accepts his recommendations without question. But this time, Greg Hands, the energy minister, hit back at some of Deben's comments and defended the government's record of cutting down on coal.

Let's get some perspective here, the UK is seeking what amounts to the immiseration of the working class, a prescription that will ultimately lead us to be both colder and poorer. Everyone from the Treasury to the green extreme admits it. And the UK's targets can only impact a mere 1 per cent of global CO₂ emissions. 1 per cent.

Do you think President Xi of China will be bankrupting his nation in order to appease the green lobby? China accounts for nearly a third of global emissions.

You see, if we are to meet the Government's net zero target, or their net stupid target, we have to use technologies like wind and solar to get there. Without some new technology galloping down the hill like a knight on a valiant steed, we simply cannot get there without decimating the economy, our lives and seriously rationing our energy usage.

The reality is we will need fossil fuels for decades to come. Renewables are unreliable (the wind doesn't always blow), battery technology is poor, and nuclear will take years to bring online. We still need coal in industry, for steel production, and we still need CO2-emitting cement for construction.

What do you think builds the levelling up infrastructure or those great big whopping wind turbines? Why don't we source it here at home?

There is no way around this reality... other than cutting down on power use and massively increasing poverty and suffering in the UK.

All across Europe, and the world, nations are turning towards coal and gas to ease the crippling energy crisis which is threatening to destroy growth and industry and increase poverty.

Meanwhile, the ban on fracking in the UK could be lifted within days, the Mail reported this week, if a scientific review but the British Geological Survey finds the risk of earth tremors can be minimised.

The only alternative is more of the Net Zero emergency, and an exacerbation of the cost-of-living crisis we have started to see. This is just a snapshot of what's to come folks.

Is the Tory party waking up? Former Brexit Minister Lord Frost wrote this week: "I don’t like poverty, I don’t like artificial limits on human aspiration and potential, and when you don’t have enough energy, you get a lot of both. That’s why we need to change tack now."

He's right. And as the recent Australian elections have taught us, when a conservative government attempts to out green the greens, the public wonder why they ought not just vote for the green instead.