US Energy Secretary attacks "sinister" net zero goals and singles out Britain

Chris Wright, the U.S. Energy secretary, called Monday's pledge to reach net zero carbon emission by 2050 "a sinister goal" and criticized British efforts to meet clean energy targets.

The former president Joe Biden has set an ambitious goal for 2021: to reduce emissions to zero by 2050 in order to combat climate change. This will be achieved in part through subsidies that encourage the expansion of clean energy sources and electric vehicles.

"Net Zero by 2050 is an evil goal." Wright, who spoke via videolink to a conference in London, said: "It's a terrible aim."

"The aggressive pursuit - you are sitting in a nation that has aggressively pursued it - hasn't delivered any benefits but has delivered enormous costs."

Wright said that his top priority at an Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) event was for the government "to get out of the way" for the production of coal, oil and gas.

The administration of President Donald Trump announced on Friday that it had granted an export license for liquefied gas to the Commonwealth LNG Project in Louisiana. This was the first LNG export approval since Biden stopped them at the beginning of last year.

He said, "We approved the Commonwealth LNG Export Terminal last Friday and there are many others in line."

The world runs on hydrocarbons, and we have no replacements for the majority of their uses.

He targeted Britain in particular for its net zero energy policy, saying that the UK's pursuit of a carbonised energy system, which the government hopes to achieve by 2030, had lowered living standards and exported pollution elsewhere.

"Nobody is going to produce an energy-intensive item in the United Kingdom anymore." He said that it has just been moved to another place.

This is not energy transformation. This is lunacy. It is a way to impoverish your own citizens under the delusion that it will somehow make the world better.

Keir starmer, the British Prime Minister, has placed clean energy at its core in his strategy. He is banking on offshore wind resources to create a new wave high-skilled jobs and economic growth.

Trump criticised Britain's energy policies in January, before he was inaugurated as president. He demanded that the UK "open up" its aging North Sea oil and natural gas basin, and remove wind farms. (Reporting and editing by William James)

(source: Reuters)