Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won't Even Save the Planet)

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In 2012, Clark's musical Shot at Dawn was performed as a workshop at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden. The musical was a success and was later restaged as a full-scale professional production in 2014 at Upstairs at The Gatehouse in Highgate, north London and the Mumford Theatre, Cambridge. [11] He also wrote, with Martin Coslett, The Perfect City, which was performed at the Etcetera Theatre in March 2013. [12] In 2015, the musical Shot at Dawn was renamed The White Feather and performed at the Union Theatre in Southwark. [13] Personal [ edit ] Clark continued: “In the minds of Deben [chair of the government’s Climate Change Committee], Sharma and others, only one thing seems to matter: lowering Britain’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. All other considerations, such as jobs and national prosperity, seem to go out of the window.”

In a Telegraph article comment piece titled “A windfall tax on oil and gas is just Left-wing populism”, Clark argued: “When Starmer calls for a windfall tax what he is really saying is: I want to cut your pension to feed yet more government expenditure”. 40 Ross Clark. “ A windfall tax on oil and gas is just Left-wing populism”, The Telegraph, April 28, 2022. Archived August 2, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/JvFiT The thing that made the biggest impression on me is that in the rush to achieve Net Zero, it’s almost inevitable that enormous costs are going to be placed on those least able to bear it. If you give over a lot more land to tree planting and rewilding rather than agricultural production, food prices are going to go up. Relying exclusively on renewables, given the cost of storage and the intermittency problem, will push up energy costs even further. Running an electric car is going to be a lot more expensive than a petrol car. Heat pumps will be more expensive than gas boilers. The list goes on. It dawned on me that there is a real a risk that the push to achieve Net Zero creates a two-tier society where the wealthy can still afford to fly, drive and not shiver, but the poor increasingly cannot.For the benefit of climate activists who live under the delusion that anyone who fails to share their belief must be in the pay of big oil, I am not part of the bonanza – I have avoided investing directly in fossil fuel companies for several years specifically so that no one can level that claim at me.” Cambridge News (1 July 2003). "City's depressing housing under fire". Cambridge News. Archived from the original on 20 December 2013.

Describing quotes from two child climate strikers as “disturbed statements”, Clark blamed “climate change alarmism” on “the traumatising power of watching frightening films at an impressionable age”. Flying, too, will become a preserve of the rich, since aviation is going to be one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. Planes might even have to be relegated to museums.”He wrote: “Homeowners face being thrown to the wolves to meet these ill-thought-out targets — spending hard-earned savings on refurbishments that may or may not cut carbon emissions,” adding: “Indeed, the only certainty is these new rules will make a lot of Britain’s homeowners much poorer.” This hard-hitting polemic provides a timely critique of a potentially devastating political consensus which could hobble Britain's economy, cost billions and not even be effective." In an article titled “Good news: we now have until 2030 to save the Earth”, Clark argued that IPCC reports in 2018, which told governments they had 12 years to avert climate catastrophe, were a good sign, as previous organisations had given a stricter deadline: 18 Ross Clark. “ Good news: we now have until 2030 to save the earth,” Spectator, October 8, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. In a January 2023 Daily Mail article, Clark wrote: 15 Ross Clark. “ My inconvenient truth: Ross Clark accepts that the planet IS warming. But in a new book he challenges the consensus and argues that the hysteria and doom-mongering that now surround any debate risk doing more harm than climate change ever could,” Daily Mail, January 21, 2023. Archived January 23, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.is/RTbU2 If the Government wants to encourage investment in native oil and gas production – and it should – it needs to […] give the industry reassurances that it is not going to be regulated out of existence by net zero commitments”.

Clark also cited an article written by Michael Shellenberger for Forbes Magazine advocating for the development of nuclear energy as opposed to renewables, which has since been removed. 55 Graham Readfearn. “ The environmentalist’s apology: how Michael Shellenberger unsettled some of his prominent supporters,” The Guardian, July 4, 2020. Archived February 1, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/ycJZs

He questioned why Government ministers “can’t summon the intellectual confidence to challenge the left wing conceit that profit is a dirty word”, and added: He also stated: “In America as in Britain, debate is becoming fixated on decarbonising energy without thinking enough about resilience.” Clark describeda short-lived interview he had with former US Vice President Al Gore who was in the UK to promote his documentary An Inconvenient Sequel. Upon Clark questioning how big of a problem climate change is, Al Gore called him a “denier”. In the article Clark describes Gore as “an obstacle to serious debate”. 81 Ross Clark. “ Question Al Gore on climate change and he’ll call you a ‘denier’,” Spectator, August 20, 2017. Archived April 4, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog. Clark has defended fossil fuel companiesas the “unsung heroes” of the modern world, and argued that criticism of them is an attempt to “palm off responsibility”. 8 Ross Clark. “ Don’t blame oil and coal companies for climate change,” Spectator, October 10, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.

This was later resharedby the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group. 62 Ross Clark. “ Christian Aid should drop the climate rubbish,” Global Warming Policy Foundation, December 29, 2019. Archived April 3, 2020. Archive URL: http://archive.fo/ShsZc In a comment piece for the Telegraph, Ross Clark criticised the UK government’s plan to install 600,000 heat pumps by 2028 and ban fossil fuel based heating systems by 2035, arguing that “the Government simply hasn’t thought through its net zero strategy”. 19 Ross Clark. “ Just admit that Britain isn’t ready for heat pumps,” The Telegraph, March 15, 2023. Archived March 15, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/bBFHR

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In a Spectator columntitled “Climate change isn’t responsible for Australia’s hailstorms”, Clark wrote: 25 Ross Clark. “ Climate change isn’t responsible for Australia’s hailstorms,” Spectator, January 21, 2020. Archived April 3, 2020. Archived .pdf on file atDeSmog.