The government has until 30 June 2026 to agree and legislate the seventh carbon budget, and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has confirmed he will accept the Climate Change Committee's advice: an 87% cut in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels, covering the years 2038 to 2042. It is one of the most far-reaching economic commitments any government can make. And it is being waved through with barely a debate about who pays for it. The answer, as always, is you.
A Target Set Without a Bill Attached
Setting a number on a chart in Westminster is easy. Delivering it is what costs money - and the cost lands on households through energy bills, on motorists through the drive to electric, and on industry through prices that send jobs overseas. Even the Conservatives' own energy spokeswoman warned the target "will make us weaker, poorer and send everyone's energy bills even higher." When the opposition that signed Britain up to net zero in the first place is sounding the alarm, ordinary people should be paying attention.
Bills First, Ideology Second
Britain already has some of the highest industrial energy prices in the developed world. That is not an accident - it is the direct result of a decade of policy that treated cheap, reliable power as something to be ashamed of. Now the government has handed the regulator, Ofgem, a new mandate to prioritise the "clean energy transition" alongside protecting consumers. When you tell the referee to care about something other than keeping prices down, do not be surprised when prices go up.
The People Who Pay Don't Get a Say
The family choosing between heating and eating did not ask for an 87% target. The pensioner watching the standing charge climb did not vote for it. The transition is being driven by people who will never feel its cost, and imposed on people who feel little else. That is not climate leadership. It is a class of politicians making promises with other people's money.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would scrap the rush to net zero and put affordable, secure energy first. That means using Britain's own oil and gas reserves rather than importing energy at a premium, backing reliable baseload power, and refusing to load the cost of grand targets onto the bills of people who can least afford them. Cut the bills, secure the supply, and stop punishing British households for a transition the political class will never personally pay for.