SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
London: A political tide is turning across Europe, and at its centre is a hard truth: the age of easy climate promises is over.
In Britain, Sir Tony Blair’s sharp critique of the government’s net zero strategy this week marks a watershed moment for green policy debate. The former Labour prime minister, who has been quietly advising Downing Street, accused politicians of pushing unrealistic and politically unsustainable climate agendas.
Travellers wait outside a closed train station during a major power outage in Barcelona on Monday.Credit: AP
“People are being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal,” Blair said in a foreword to a new report from his think tank released on Tuesday.
Blair’s intervention lands at a time when Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government, despite rhetorical commitments to climate action, is already walking back key pledges amid soaring energy costs driven by rising global gas prices.
The planned 2030 ban on new hybrid cars has been quietly delayed. A third runway at Heathrow is back on the table. While Starmer insists that climate action remains “in the DNA” of his government, the practical realities of cost-of-living pressures and infrastructure limitations are beginning to dictate policy.
According to Blair, the political elite is paralysed by a climate discourse he described as “riven with irrationality”. He argued that many leaders know the current approach is unworkable but are “terrified” of voicing that view for fear of being labelled climate change deniers. “The movement now needs a public mandate, attainable only through a shift from protest to pragmatic policy,” he said.
Tony Blair attending the COP29 climate confernce in Azerbaijan in November.Credit: Bloomberg
Blair is not alone in questioning the political sustainability of the green transition. Across the Channel, similar cracks are appearing in once-ambitious net zero agendas.
Germany, under pressure from automakers and regional governments, has lobbied to soften the European Union’s 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine cars, securing a loophole for vehicles powered by synthetic e-fuels.
France has softened its vehicle emission targets and fuel reforms after a resurgence of “yellow vest”-style protests, introducing exemptions for rural drivers and slowed enforcement of low-emission zones amid cost-of-living protests.
Even in progressive Spain and Portugal, an 80 per cent reliance on renewables has come under scrutiny after a massive blackout this week, blamed so far on power transmission issues.
A third runway at Heathrow is back on the table.Credit: Bloomberg
The EU is showing signs of strain. After populist parties gained ground at last year’s European Parliament elections, Brussels has tempered its green mandates.
Quiet revisions are being made to emissions targets and regulatory frameworks to accommodate member state resistance – a recalibration critics say threatens the bloc’s 2030 climate commitments.
Italy has openly challenged the EU’s timeline, the Meloni government arguing that many policies are out of step with consumer realities and disproportionately harm poorer households. Even in climate-forward Nordic nations, the once-unified push to phase out petrol cars is fragmenting under political and economic pressure.
The report Blair endorsed proposes a pivot toward technologies such as carbon capture, nuclear energy and sustainable fuels – areas often underfunded in favour of symbolic targets such as fossil fuel bans and arbitrary consumption limits. Blair warned that demand for fossil fuels is rising, not falling, particularly in Asia. Aviation is set to double over the next two decades, and global urbanisation will continue to fuel demand for cement and steel. “Any strategy based on ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail,” he said.
The blunt assessment of what once had bipartisan support has found resonance across party lines. The UK’s Conservative Party – under siege from Nigel Farage’s populist Reform movement – have echoed Blair’s concerns, slamming the “mad dash to net zero” as both unfeasible and geopolitically reckless, a veiled reference to Britain’s growing dependence on green technologies sourced from China.
British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the architect of the party’s climate plan, is under growing pressure. He has defended the £22 billion ($46 billion) investment in carbon capture as essential, even as critics attack it as unproven and wasteful. Blair doubled down on the need to support such technologies and championed a nuclear renaissance, particularly through small modular reactors – an idea that has been gaining traction across Europe.
The shift in tone reflects a deeper reckoning. While climate change remains a defining challenge of our time, the politics of net zero are being forced to evolve. Public support, once buoyed by a sense of urgency and moral imperative, is colliding with economic strain and energy insecurity.
Blair’s warning is clear – without a fundamental reset of climate policy that reflects real-world constraints and technological possibilities, the green transition risks losing democratic legitimacy altogether.
“Political leaders must start taking some of the hysteria out of the climate debate,” he wrote.
The message is unlikely to win applause from activists, but it may resonate with a weary public – and an increasingly cautious political class.
