Kemi Badenoch’s flagship party conference policy document has significantly overestimated the cost of achieving net zero emissions by nearly £500bn, seemingly due to an accidental double-counting of figures in a spreadsheet.
Background
The error was identified in a chapter on net zero in The Right Way, a 100-page policy document produced for the Conservative conference in Birmingham. Badenoch emphasized this figure during her main speech, justifying the Conservatives’ decision to abandon the target of the UK reaching net zero emissions by 2050, a goal introduced under Theresa May.
The document claims that estimates of the economic cost of reaching net zero have varied widely. It states, "In 2020, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimated that its route to net zero would cost £957bn." This figure is cited from the Sixth Carbon Budget produced by the CCC, which advises the government on climate change. The report indicated that gross economic costs would be £1.4tn, but would fall to £957bn when savings were considered.
The Error
However, the actual figures in the CCC report total £478bn, which is half of what the Conservative document claimed. The discrepancy appears to have arisen because a tally of all costs in a CCC spreadsheet mistakenly included totals for each individual column, effectively doubling the amount.
