Womp Womp: UK Climate Liars Withdraw "Study" Replete With Ridiculous Errors
A report that hugely overestimated the cost to the UK of reaching net zero emissions has been retracted by the rightwing thinktank that published it. The Civitas pamphlet published on Thursday claimed to offer a “realistic” estimate of the cost – £4.5tn – and said “the government needs to be honest with the British people”. However, factual errors were quickly pointed out after publication.
The most serious error was the confusion by the report’s author, Ewen Stewart, between power capacity in megawatts (MW) with electricity generation in megawatt hours (MWh). As a result, he presented an unrealistic “£1.3m per MWh” figure for the cost for onshore wind power. The true number is more than 10,000 times lower at about £50 to £70 per MWh. Another error was mixing up billions with trillions. A statement on the Civitas website said: “This report has been taken down from the website because it was found to contain factual errors, it is undergoing revision and a fresh process of peer review. A revised report will be released when this process is completed.”
This statement replaced an earlier one in which Civitas said the report’s problems were limited to only two paragraphs: “There has been criticism on social media of two paragraphs of this report, where capacity and output are confused. These paragraphs will be amended and updated. The author is happy to acknowledge this and correct the report. The fact remains that we are facing a huge bill for net zero that is many times more than official estimates.”
The erroneous Civitas estimate of the cost of meeting net zero is far higher than the figure produced by the government’s official adviser, the climate change committee (CCC), which said that reaching net zero would require net investments of £1.4tn by 2050. However, the CCC also found that reaching net zero would generate savings in the form of lower fossil fuel bills worth £1.1tn, resulting in a net cost of £0.3tn. The Civitas report did not reference the Office for Budget Responsibility’s 2021 conclusion that “unmitigated climate change would ultimately have catastrophic economic and fiscal consequences”. Stewart wrote in 2021 that human-caused warming is a “contested theory”.
EDOA report that hugely overestimated the cost to the UK of reaching net zero emissions has been retracted by the rightwing thinktank that published it.
The Civitas pamphlet published on Thursday claimed to offer a “realistic” estimate of the cost – £4.5tn – and said “the government needs to be honest with the British people”. However, factual errors were quickly pointed out after publication.
The most serious error was the confusion by the report’s author, Ewen Stewart, between power capacity in megawatts (MW) with electricity generation in megawatt hours (MWh). As a result, he presented an unrealistic “£1.3m per MWh” figure for the cost for onshore wind power. The true number is more than 10,000 times lower at about £50 to £70 per MWh. Another error was mixing up billions with trillions.
A statement on the Civitas website said: “This report has been taken down from the website because it was found to contain factual errors, it is undergoing revision and a fresh process of peer review. A revised report will be released when this process is completed.”
This statement replaced an earlier one in which Civitas said the report’s problems were limited to only two paragraphs: “There has been criticism on social media of two paragraphs of this report, where capacity and output are confused. These paragraphs will be amended and updated. The author is happy to acknowledge this and correct the report. The fact remains that we are facing a huge bill for net zero that is many times more than official estimates.”
The erroneous Civitas estimate of the cost of meeting net zero is far higher than the figure produced by the government’s official adviser, the climate change committee (CCC), which said that reaching net zero would require net investments of £1.4tn by 2050.
However, the CCC also found that reaching net zero would generate savings in the form of lower fossil fuel bills worth £1.1tn, resulting in a net cost of £0.3tn. The Civitas report did not reference the Office for Budget Responsibility’s 2021 conclusion that “unmitigated climate change would ultimately have catastrophic economic and fiscal consequences”. Stewart wrote in 2021 that human-caused warming is a “contested theory”.OA report that hugely overestimated the cost to the UK of reaching net zero emissions has been retracted by the rightwing thinktank that published it.
The Civitas pamphlet published on Thursday claimed to offer a “realistic” estimate of the cost – £4.5tn – and said “the government needs to be honest with the British people”. However, factual errors were quickly pointed out after publication.
The most serious error was the confusion by the report’s author, Ewen Stewart, between power capacity in megawatts (MW) with electricity generation in megawatt hours (MWh). As a result, he presented an unrealistic “£1.3m per MWh” figure for the cost for onshore wind power. The true number is more than 10,000 times lower at about £50 to £70 per MWh. Another error was mixing up billions with trillions.
A statement on the Civitas website said: “This report has been taken down from the website because it was found to contain factual errors, it is undergoing revision and a fresh process of peer review. A revised report will be released when this process is completed.”
This statement replaced an earlier one in which Civitas said the report’s problems were limited to only two paragraphs: “There has been criticism on social media of two paragraphs of this report, where capacity and output are confused. These paragraphs will be amended and updated. The author is happy to acknowledge this and correct the report. The fact remains that we are facing a huge bill for net zero that is many times more than official estimates.”
The erroneous Civitas estimate of the cost of meeting net zero is far higher than the figure produced by the government’s official adviser, the climate change committee (CCC), which said that reaching net zero would require net investments of £1.4tn by 2050.
However, the CCC also found that reaching net zero would generate savings in the form of lower fossil fuel bills worth £1.1tn, resulting in a net cost of £0.3tn. The Civitas report did not reference the Office for Budget Responsibility’s 2021 conclusion that “unmitigated climate change would ultimately have catastrophic economic and fiscal consequences”. Stewart wrote in 2021 that human-caused warming is a “contested theory”.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/02/report-claiming-net-zero-will-cost-uk-trillions-retracted-due-to-factual-errors
