Net zero by 2050 What will it cost to hit the target and will it be a price worth paying?

Britain’s official energy system operator has attempted to work out what achieving net zero carbon emissions will cost, with its figures showing surging spending in the coming years.

- Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent

Wind turbines in Scotland. The National Energy System Operator has said a slower transition to clean energy could cost less but the benefits, such as reduced exposure to fossil fuel markets, would be delayed

(KEN JACK/GETTY)

The scale and speed of the shift to a low-carbon economy, and how to fund it, are hotly debated by political parties.

Investing in clean generation projects, distribution networks and replacing fossil fuel cars and boilers could be many billions cheaper if the UK was less ambitious, the report suggests. However, among the downsides would be that the benefits from net zero emissions, which include far lower energy costs, would be delayed.

Here we look at the different scenarios laid out by the operator, and the costs for households, businesses and the planet.

In the first analysis of its kind, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) set out the cost of meeting a range of scenarios that tally with the government’s green agenda.

The UK already spends about 10% of its gross domestic product on investments related to net zero, and Neso expects those costs will climb and remain higher than they are today until the 2030s.

In its most ambitious green scenario, costs peak at about £460bn by 2029 before beginning to decline to about 5% of GDP by 2050 or roughly £220bn a year. In the “falling behind” scenario, which models a future of slow climate action in which Britain misses its net zero target and ignores the cost of climate damage, the total costs are about £350bn lower.

This calculation does not include the impact of “carbon costs” - any tax that puts a price on polluting to disincentivise producing greenhouse gas emissions and help cover the damaging impacts of fossil fuels on the economy.