Badenoch under fire after saying net zero 'impossible'

Kemi Badenoch faces backlash from business leaders and a former Tory minister after she announced the Conservatives could drop their commitment to reaching net zero by 2050

- DAVID MADDOX KATE DEVLIN

The Tory leader claims that she was one of “just a handful” of MPs to raise concerns about the climate plan, introduced by her predecessor Theresa May, and even went as far as that warning the targets are “impossible” to achieve. In questions after her speech yesterday, Ms Badenoch even floated the idea of dropping net zero altogether. She said: “It may be that there’s a better way of delivering net zero – or it may be that we shouldn’t be looking at net zero but just focusing on clean energy and energy security, and there’s a different way of doing that.”

Leading the attack against her is former Tory environment minister Chris Skidmore, who took to social media platform X to highlight a speech made by Ms Badenoch in favour of net zero policies when she was business and trade secretary. In a sarcastic post, Mr Skidmore pointed to her previous comments, saying: “Great speech by Kemi Badenoch on the economic importance of net zero and clean energy.”