Rebranding Net Zero as "Electrification" Won't Save It

UN Secretary General António Guterres has proclaimed that the "age of electrification" is here. But electricity doesn't come from nowhere

Every now and then, the Blob cannot help but reveal itself through the agencies it has captured. At London Climate Action Week this week, UN Secretary General António Guterres proclaimed that: “The age of electrification will require a massive expansion of grids, storage and system flexibility.” The memo has gone out, instructing its recipients to use this new buzzword: electrification.

Also launching this week, Electrify Now is the initiative of the EU Commission which intends to increase global rates of electrification and close what it calls the “electrification gap”, which is holding back “clean power expansion into real-economy decarbonisation”.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) reports to Parliament this week that the “Government needs a more ambitious plan to electrify the UK”, and that its “plan for electrification lacks ambition”. And by “ambition”, the CCC means laws that force us to buy EVs and install heat pumps whether we want them or not, because “the slow pace of electrification is putting the UK’s climate targets at risk”. Oh no! Not the climate targets!

The International Energy Agency also this week declares that “electrification can be a critical pillar of strategies to meet [Asia’s] rising energy demand while mitigating… energy security risks”.