The Climate Change Committee should be guided by the science

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has an impressive line-up of highly intelligent people. On 9th March it issued a 131 page report which “illustrates what a reliable, resilient, decarbonised electricity supply system could look like in 2035, and the steps required to achieve it.”

The use of the subjunctive is important: this is what the committee wishes for, not what they expect to happen. For example, the second key message is “the Government must give equal focus to low-carbon flexible solutions as to the full delivery of its existing renewables and nuclear commitments.” Existing renewables have already been delivered and the Treasury has ensured that the Government has no nuclear commitments beyond Hinkley Point C which was approved back in 2016.

The first 10 of the 25 priority recommendations, basically, tells the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to do its job. Those of us under the impression that the PM should be the one to get the DESNZ to do its job are obviously living on the wrong planet.

The CCC’s first key message in its previous year’s report was “The UK Government now has a solid Net Zero strategy in place.” Where has it gone? That report’s 619 pages did not have space to disclose what it expected net zero, i.e. 2050, electricity demand to be. In their 6th Carbon Budget, however, they expect electricity demand to double, to just over 600TwH p.a. from 2018 to 2050. We are not told the basis for this forecast, just “CCC Analysis”. Unfortunately, it does not look right. If the overall demand for energy remains about the same as now and electricity’s share moves from 15% (2018) to nearly 100% (2050), as it must for zero carbon, the increase will be closer to seven times.

The CCC are enthusiasts for the role of hydrogen, which gets no less than 833 mentions in their 2023 report. But 2022 report showed that it is three and a half times less efficient for heating homes than electricity. Producing green hydrogen using electrolysis uses more electricity than it replaces which means it is useful for storage, if surplus wind is used, but not for much else. Generating electricity from blue hydrogen rather than the gas used to make it, is less efficient than simply using the original gas. In short, the CCC enthusiasm for hydrogen is wildly over-stated.

There are many good things in the CCC report and it would be churlish to continue to find fault beyond concluding that it is unreliable. They are right that preparing these strategies and forecasts, and making the necessary decisions, are matters for DESNZ and HM Treasury, not a parliamentary committee. For that purpose government should be advised by a science and technology committee akin to SAGE for COVID-19, not the green lobbyists, however talented, that make up the CCC.

We should learn from the COVID-19 SAGE experience in two respects: 1) the members and the relevance of the science and technology expertise should be published and 2) their advice to DESNZ and HM Treasury should be promptly published so that it is open to peer review. As it happens, such a team already exists informally; it would not be a big step to take it public.