US energy secretary slams 'lunacy' of UK green power push
British government is pushing to largely eradicate fossil fuels from the grid by 2030 through massively ramping up deployment of renewable energy
US energy secretary Chris Wright has attacked the UK’s goal of running a largely clean power grid by the end of the decade, calling it “lunacy” that will impoverish citizens and drive away business.
Wright was speaking via video link at a conference on Monday in London where he said that net zero policies damage living standards and export emissions elsewhere.
The UK Labour government led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer has set an ambitious target to largely eradicate fossil fuels from the grid by 2030, which it plans to do by massively ramping up renewables, particularly offshore wind.
Speaking about this target, Wright said: "No one's going to make an energy-intensive product in the United Kingdom anymore. It's just been displaced somewhere else.”
Wright is an oil and gas hardliner who until his confirmation as energy secretary earlier this month had been CEO of oilfield services group Liberty Energy.
Wright has previously described the phrase ‘carbon pollution’ as “outrageous” and claimed ‘energy transition’ and ‘climate crisis’ are “alarmist marketing terms that cheapen the dialogue” and are "nonsense".
The scientific community and global institutions overwhelmingly say that there is a climate crisis and that transitioning away from polluting fossil fuels is critical to try and stave off catastrophic global warming.
At his confirmation hearing this month, Wright said that the US Department of Energy will no longer pursue net zero policies, which he claimed raise energy prices, threaten the reliability of the energy system and undermine national security.
Former US President Joe Biden, who left office on 20 January, had pursued an ambitious climate agenda that sought to place the country irrevocably on a 2050 net-zero glidepath.
But speaking at the UK Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference on Monday, Wright said that "Net Zero 2050 is a sinister goal. It's a terrible goal.”
"The aggressive pursuit of it – and you're sitting in a country that has aggressively pursued this goal – has not delivered any benefits, but it's delivered tremendous costs."
Wright said primary objective as energy secretary under US President Donald Trump was to get the government say his number one priority was for the government to "get out of the way" of the production of oil, gas and coal.
"The world simply runs on hydrocarbons and for most of their uses we don't have replacements."
The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was contacted for comment.
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