WE PAY. THEY CLAIM.
The Climate Change Committee recommends the target. Ed Miliband accepts it. Parliament gives it legal force. Households and businesses then face the cost of delivering it.
In the spending case, a vast carbon benefit is entered on the other side of the ledger. But that entry supplies no money to pay for the programme.
A valuation is doing work that only actual savings and affordable finance can do for a household. That is the distinction politicians should be forced to explain.
The ledger needs two honest headings:
| Money spent | Carbon value appraised |
|---|---|
| Real payments for equipment, construction, finance and running costs. Someone must provide the money. |
A monetary value assigned to greenhouse gas emissions avoided. A benefit entered in an appraisal. |
WE PAY THE COST. THEY CLAIM THE CARBON BENEFIT. A positive result in a model does not prove that the people expected to finance it can afford it.
THE CCC RECOMMENDED CHANGING HOW WE LIVE
On 26 February 2025, the CCC recommended an emissions cap of 535 million tonnes over 2038–2042, equivalent to an approximately 87% cut against 1990 levels. Its Seventh Carbon Budget pathway reaches into everyday life.
Cars: 80% of the fleet electric by 2040.
Heating: heat pumps in 52% of existing homes by 2040.
Food: average meat consumption down 25% by 2040 against 2019.
The CCC also proposed fewer livestock to release land for tree planting, rapid expansion of electricity infrastructure, and roles for carbon capture and hydrogen in industry. These are the choices behind its headline promise of a secure and prosperous future.
Calling a pathway cost effective does not install the equipment, connect the homes, train the workforce or make the upfront payments affordable.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE ADVICE
Professor Piers Forster was the CCC’s interim chair when this advice was published. Photograph: COP30, November 2025. Xuthoria / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Emma Pinchbeck, CCC chief executive, was among the leaders of the report’s preparation. Archive photograph: WWF event, June 2015. © Stonehouse Photographic / WWF-UK, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. The photograph predates her CCC role.
The CCC is an appointed statutory advisory body. Its expertise deserves scrutiny; it does not remove ministers’ responsibility for what they accept. The report identifies its preparation team in the acknowledgements, and Parliament identifies Pinchbeck’s role in its oral evidence record.
MILIBAND ACCEPTED THE TARGET. THE PLAN WOULD FOLLOW.
On 2 June 2026, Miliband told Parliament that the Government had accepted the CCC’s recommended level. His statement presented it as protecting bill-payers and delivering jobs and growth.
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary who accepted the recommended target. Official parliamentary portrait, 2017: Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0.
In that same statement, he said the delivery pathway would be set out in a future plan, after the budget level had been set.
The target came first. The detailed delivery plan would follow.
There was an impact assessment and parliamentary scrutiny. The criticism is that these supported a binding target before the promised detailed plan could be examined.
For a programme reaching into homes, transport, industry and farming, that is a serious question of political responsibility.
Both Houses approved the Order. Climate Minister Katie White signed it on 25 June, and it took effect the next day. The legal instrument therefore records her signature, while Miliband’s statement records his acceptance of the target.
In the Government’s announcement, Miliband spoke of people who want to “stick their heads in the sand”. That rhetoric answers none of the practical questions about household costs, grid capacity or delivery risk.
A minister’s confidence is not a financial guarantee. A legally binding emissions target is not a funded construction plan.
THE CARBON VALUE BEHIND THE SPENDING CASE
How can an expensive policy be called cost effective if it does not reduce your bills? Government puts a money value on each tonne of emissions avoided. The CCC uses it to assess the cost. See the valuation guidance.
In the CCC’s analysis, that central value reaches £409 a tonne in 2050, in 2023 prices. Its carbon valuation explanation, pages 22–23 describes a value based on the estimated cost of meeting climate targets, rather than directly measuring damage avoided.
Consider a measure costing an extra £300 to avoid one tonne in 2050, using that same price basis.
Give the avoided tonne an appraised value of £409, and the benefit exceeds the cost in this simple comparison.
Your bill has not fallen. You have not received £409. The £300 still needs paying.
If the assumed carbon value rises, more expensive measures can pass the test. The CCC acknowledges this in its methodology: some measures become cost effective as their costs fall below the increasing carbon value.
The spending case can improve on paper without an equivalent improvement in a household’s finances. That should invite harder scrutiny, not political applause.
ABOUT £1.5 TRILLION IN THE CARBON COLUMN
The Government’s impact assessment, Table 6 models the recommended target against a “no Net Zero” baseline over 2025–2050. It reports:
£880 billion: additional capital and finance costs.
£1.495 trillion: the value assigned to emissions avoided.
Carbon accounts for about 92% of the £1.620 trillion total appraised benefits. Those carbon values cannot finance the capital costs.
Keep every other entry unchanged and remove just the carbon-benefit entry: the appraised net benefit of £865 billion becomes an appraised net cost of about £630 billion. This is our subtraction, showing the result’s dependence on carbon valuation; it is not a separately modelled energy plan.
Avoiding climate damage can have economic value. Actual fuel savings also matter. But this is an enormous reliance on an assumed valuation, and it does not demonstrate what families will get back in lower bills.
WHO CARRIES THE RISK?
Households make purchases and pay bills. Businesses invest and raise finance. Government uses taxes and borrowing. The precise split depends on the policies ministers choose.
If equipment costs more, uptake is slower, grid works arrive late or expected savings fail to appear, the carbon-value entry cannot make up the cash shortfall.
No builder accepts an appraised carbon benefit as payment. No family can use it to clear an electricity bill.
That is the magic money tree: a large benefit appears in the calculation, while actual funding still has to be found. “Thin air” describes the book entry, not a claim that climate damage has no cost.
The burden of proof belongs with those promoting the programme. They should show who pays, when they pay, what savings are expected and who bears the loss if delivery falls short.
MINISTERS OWE US AN ACCOUNT, NOT A SALES PITCH
SHOW US THE MONEY SPENT.
SHOW US THE CARBON VALUE APPRAISED.
SHOW US THE FUEL SAVINGS.
SHOW US WHAT HOUSEHOLDS ACTUALLY GET BACK.
Independently test the alternatives for cost, reliability and affordability. Publish the effect of lower carbon values and less favourable delivery assumptions. Do it before the programme creates further expensive commitments.
WE PAY. THEY CLAIM. MAKE THEM SHOW THE EVIDENCE.
Sign and share the petition for a full national impact assessment.
EVIDENCE NOTE
The Order makes the national emissions cap binding; it does not itself mandate every measure in the CCC’s pathway or approve £880 billion of contracts. Miliband’s statement explains that publishing the detailed delivery plan after setting the budget is the statutory sequence. The criticism of that sequence is ours.
The Government totals are Table 6, option 2: discounted 2025 prices over 2025–2050. Capital costs are modelled estimates, not spending already incurred. Net costs are £755 billion after operating changes. Our calculations are 1,495 ÷ 1,620 ≈ 92%, and 865 − 1,495 = −630, in £billion. They keep the other model assumptions unchanged.
The CCC’s £409 value is for 2050 in real 2023 prices; earlier years are lower. The hypothetical £300 example considers one cost and one benefit on the same year and price basis. The original CCC net-cost estimate includes operating savings and excludes carbon benefits; the later social appraisal is a different calculation.
For historical investment, a parliamentary answer reports £300 billion in public and private low-carbon investment over 2010–2023, citing BloombergNEF. That is not a taxpayer-only total and should not be added uncritically to future forecasts. Photographs are dated archive images, not records of the budget’s approval, and have not been cropped or retouched for this article.
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