George Monbiot attacks scrap net zero argument

Firefighters were still battling a wildfire near Preveli on Crete on 30 July when a London debate about “Mediterranean life” reached British readers. According to the Guardian, Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath argued in a recent Daily Telegraph column that Britain should scrap net zero targets and adapt to a hotter, drier future with measures such as universal irrigation and more swimming pools.

George Monbiot’s reply, published by the Guardian, treats Heath’s argument as a shift in tone rather than a new set of facts: climate change is conceded, but mitigation is framed as futile and even morally suspect. That move matters because it changes what the public is asked to tolerate. If the premise is that the “war” is lost, then the only remaining political question becomes who gets protection, who absorbs losses, and who is told to relocate, pay more, or accept rationing when drought and fire become routine.

Heath’s column, as described by Monbiot, also leans on a familiar promise: markets will deliver clean energy and zero‑carbon transport once they are “better and cheaper” than fossil alternatives, so governments should stop trying to force the transition. The Guardian piece counters that renewables are already cheaper in most situations and says the Trump administration has spent billions trying to slow clean‑energy initiatives and sustain coal. The dispute is less about thermodynamics than about timing and accountability: if decarbonisation is deferred, adaptation spending becomes the growth sector, with contracts, subsidies and planning permissions attached.

That is where the politics of scarcity enters. A hotter Mediterranean is not just a lifestyle change; it is a constraint on water, food supply and insurability. Irrigation systems and fire‑proofing cost money up front, while the benefits arrive later and unevenly. When governments are asked to underwrite those costs, the argument over emissions targets turns into an argument over public finance: whose homes get protected, which regions get new reservoirs, and which households face higher premiums or no coverage at all.

Monbiot also links this rhetorical turn to the radical right’s evolving pitch. The Guardian piece describes a move away from outright denial toward a posture of nihilism: nothing can be done, so any sacrifice is pointless. In practice, that stance leaves room for a different kind of activism—border hardening, blame assignment, and selective relief—because those are visible actions that do not require long-term follow‑through or international cooperation.

The Preveli fire was fought with hoses and aircraft, not columns and counter‑columns. But the argument it triggered in Britain is already about what gets funded first: emissions cuts that are hard to see, or adaptation projects that can be photographed when the next heatwave arrives.