Has any harmful group ever had as much effort made to support it as the ‘fossil fuel’ lobby? Politicians are lying about climate change again.

Both the Conservatives and Labour have been defending their scaled-back plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions into the atmosphere, on false and specious grounds, after departing Climate Change Committee chief Chris Stark said Rishi Sunak had “set us back”.

Mr Stark, whose committee provides independent advice to ministers and monitors its progress on targets, said the overall message was that the UK is “less ambitious” than it once was, and the “diplomatic impact” was “immense”.

Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said even after prime minister Rishi Sunak delayed a ban on new petrol and diesel cars and weakened targets on phasing out gas boilers, the government had a “very strong track record of delivery”.

But she had to point to records going back as far as 1990, saying the government had halved its emissions since then.

She resorted to whataboutery, saying other countries “are polluting a lot more” and ignoring the UK’s leadership role; as the first country to become an industrial polluter, we may be said to have a duty to lead the way to a pollution-free future.

She also said she did not want to “heap costs on families” by bringing in changes that are more costly to the public – but this too is nonsense. Public money could subsidise reductions of domestic pollution with no adverse effects to the economy at all.

The Labour Party is just as bad. Keir Starmer’s cronies want to achieve net-zero by 2030 – 20 years before the Tories and less than six years from now – but announced earlier this year that it was ditching a plan to spend £28 billion a year on a “Green Investment Plan” – because it would cost too much.

Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmoud said the party had been forced to “scale back” its plans, due to the “likely economic inheritance” from the Tories if Labour forms the next government.

That is saying there won’t be enough money. But there is always enough money – as the Tories’ heavy use of the so-called “magic money tree” since 2010, with no harm to the economy, has proved.

So politicians are lying about climate change. The UK’s government could change to a net-zero economy tomorrow, if it so desired.

Why doesn’t it? There’s only one logical explanation.

Politicians on all sides are supporting the fossil fuel industry – the polluters – so they can continue making the massive profits for which they have become infamous.

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