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Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review
Mission Zero is a landmark independent report into the delivery of the UK's commitment to net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Chaired by Chris Skidmore, the UK's former Energy Minister who was responsible for signing net zero into law, its conclusions set out, for the very first time, a new economic narrative for climate policy, demonstrating the vast financial opportunity that net zero can deliver.
This timely and crucial report acts as a template for how all countries can map out future challenges and opportunities and, above all, deliver their own pathway to net zero while also creating new jobs, industries and investment for the future.
Commissioned by the UK's Prime Minister in September 2022, Mission Zero is the largest engagement exercise on net zero conducted to date and has been widely recognised as the most informative and detailed document on the topic, covering every sector and aspect of society. This important book is a vital piece of work and an indispensable must-read for anyone interested in energy, climate and sustainability policy.
This timely and crucial report acts as a template for how all countries can map out future challenges and opportunities and, above all, deliver their own pathway to net zero while also creating new jobs, industries and investment for the future.
Commissioned by the UK's Prime Minister in September 2022, Mission Zero is the largest engagement exercise on net zero conducted to date and has been widely recognised as the most informative and detailed document on the topic, covering every sector and aspect of society. This important book is a vital piece of work and an indispensable must-read for anyone interested in energy, climate and sustainability policy.
732 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 28, 2023
2 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Chris Skidmore
14 books51 followersChris Skidmore was born in 1981. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a St Cyre's and Dixon Scholar and President of the Oxford University Historical Society. He graduated in 2002 with a double first and was awarded a Gibbs Prize. Chris conducted postgraduate research at Oxford, where he was a convenor of a graduate seminar on the Tudor nobility. He was an adviser and researcher to Bristol's bid for European Capital City of Culture 2008 and was research assistant to Robert Lacey for his Great Tales of English History series. Chris has also written for the Western Daily Press and People Magazine. Chris currently teaches Early Modern History part-time at Bristol University. He served as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingswood from 2010 to 2024 and held several government ministerial posts between 2016 and 2020.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 10, 2025
My approach to choosing library books is very much, 'why not read it?' In this case, I spotted a paperback edition of a 500 page review examining the net zero carbon emissions target that was commissioned during the brief and doomed Liz Truss government. Why not indeed? It's unusual for government documents to get a paperback release, I'd heard of this one, and reading 500 page pdfs is a drag. At first I was doubtful I could get through the whole thing, as the executive summary is so dense with buzzwords (such as 'turbocharge delivery', 'unlock opportunity', and 'catalyse deployment') that it threatened to give me a headache. I'm glad that I persisted, as once you get into the substantive report itself there is some genuinely interesting information. Moreover, the review takes a panglossian approach to its topic that acted as sort of intellectual challenge.
Much has been written across many decades about the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, in this case reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 'net zero'. Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review simply assumes that no such conflict exists. It evokes a world in which more economic growth automatically means more jobs, more investment, and somehow more emissions mitigation. One can get a little carried along by this optimism when reading the section ('Pillar 2') on the power industry. The UK has substantially reduced its greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 by shifting power generation away from coal and into renewables, although we still use a lot of natural gas. Funnily enough, we can in part thank Liz Truss' idol Margaret Thatcher for for this, as she crushed the British coal industry. For more than a decade I have watched the proportion of renewables rise via gridwatch. At time of writing, 10pm in mid-December, the UK energy mix is 48% wind, 11% nuclear, 18% gas, and the rest biomass, hydro, or imported from the continent. The power grid is still far from decarbonised, but the review points out that fossil fuel power generation is far more expensive than renewables. This argument was even stronger when it was first published in 2023, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed up gas prices.
In this section I was also encouraged to see hydrogen treated with caution rather than hype, as a storage medium in situations where electricity doesn't appear practical, e.g. 'providing an alternative to coking coal and other high-carbon fuels currently used for industrial heating'. I'm not sure whether hydrogen would be practical for that either, however it definitely should not be treated as a better alternative where electric options actually exist and are much more efficient.
Subsequent sections ('pillars') of the review cover net zero and the economy, the community, the individual, and the future. This taxonomy strikes me as designed for a conservative party audience and avoids the more usual approach of dividing up emissions mitigation targets by sectors, such as transport, built environment, etc. These subdivisions are to be found in the review, albeit distributed rather arbitrarily. Are net zero homes really a matter for the individual? As the review acknowledges, house builders determine the carbon emissions of new homes and renters have no control whatsoever over the energy efficiency of where they live. Homeowners have options, which are limited by financial, technological, and regulatory factors. The 'challenges and opportunities' part of the Net Zero Homes subsection is an enraging reminder of why Britain still has cold, damp, and wasteful housing stock:
I worked in local government for a few years pre-Coalition and remember planning for the Zero Carbon Homes Standard. Housing developers built stylish demonstrator zero carbon homes that I toured in 2009! I appreciate the nearly snarky tone in this part of the report, as if the author simply could not sugar coat this shit.
Elsewhere, I found the barrage of meaningless numbers a bit wearing. Thank you, economists, for estimating that UK natural capital could be worth £1.2 trillion and carbon sequestration by natural systems worth £2.1 billion. Presumably the former is what it could cost to buy a new island on the open market if Great Britain and Northern Ireland suddenly vanished under the sea. The sections on the circular economy also lacked substance, although the report does at least acknowledge the absence of a widely agreed definition of 'circular economy'. In areas where GHG emissions mitigation is well-established, such as electricity generation, the review's recommendations are specific. By contrast, the recommendations for the waste sector include 'launch a task force', which suggests things are at an early stage. A number of recommendations also involve gathering more data, which certainly makes sense but requires an initial step of defining what you're trying to measure, e.g. 'green jobs'.
The sections of Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review that I found most sensible and genuinely refreshing concerned the role of local government. Unfortunately the recommendations to simplify and expand funding streams to local authorities so they can get on with carbon mitigation projects seem among the least likely to be followed. UK governments since 2010 have savagely cut local government funding, to be the point of bankrupting councils. I agree that local authorities should really have a specific statutory duty to take account of the UK's carbon targets, for example to deal with this situation:
However this new duty would have to be accompanied by funding. At the moment most local authorities are struggling to meet their existing statutory duties to provide schools and social care. Maybe it's the former local government employee in me, but I really think central government should delegate a bit and get out of the way. Policy and public finances are so centralised in the UK. I also agreed with the recommendations to reform the planning system, albeit with some caution. The devil really is in the detail and the planning system has seen many undesirable reforms over the past 20 years. Thus the crap housing stock.
One theme running through the review's quoted evidence and recommendations is the need for stable policy, something that the UK political system makes very difficult. It's also a much more complex issue than the review really acknowledges. Setting out legally binding carbon targets in the Climate Change Act 2008 was an excellent first step and good progress has been made in several areas. What the review is wrangling with is how to set up taxation and regulation to consistently support and continue this, across all sectors of the economy. The reality is, economic special interest groups are always trying to defend their profits and governments are constantly giving in to lobbying. Businesses want stable policy, as long as that policy suits their business model. Stable policy (and funding) would be excellent, if two governments in a row had the bravery to continue prioritising carbon emissions mitigation over the plaintive complaints of lobbyists. Regulation of lobbying would probably help.
Tetchy comments on the housing stock aside, I am grudgingly impressed by how skillfully Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review paints a picture of the private sector saving the day with the assistance of 'smart regulation' by the government. The reality-warping effects of economics and neoliberal ideology are particularly clear in the subsection about 'ecosystem markets'. This states that, 'government has a role to play in ensuring there are readily investible nature-based solutions projects in the UK'. If that sounds anything other than profoundly insane to you, I advise that you read Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman, a very funny novel that extrapolates the effects of such markets.
Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review was an unusual reading experience overall, being a lengthy yet unusually readable report rather than a non-fiction book. It got a fair bit of publicity when published, by which time the government that commissioned it was long gone. I appreciate Skidmore and his team for essentially putting forward a conservative argument for net zero, which I enjoyed approaching critically. My reactions to different sections varied widely, depending on how sensible I found the recommendations. The reading process definitely stimulated a lot of thought about emissions mitigation policy in the 21st century and what is holding it back. While I try not to be fatalistic and do believe that better-regulated capitalism could potentially further reduce GHG emissions, I find it very hard to believe that a genuine net zero could be reached while still prioritising economic growth. The conflict between capitalism and carbon creeps in here and there, for example in the international trade subsection. One man's essential environmental standards are another's non-tariff trade barriers. I was left wondering whether any of the review's recommendations have been rebranded and implemented by the current Labour government. That will require further research. The Sunak government published a 67 page response to the review back in 2023, but I'm not reading that.
Much has been written across many decades about the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, in this case reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 'net zero'. Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review simply assumes that no such conflict exists. It evokes a world in which more economic growth automatically means more jobs, more investment, and somehow more emissions mitigation. One can get a little carried along by this optimism when reading the section ('Pillar 2') on the power industry. The UK has substantially reduced its greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 by shifting power generation away from coal and into renewables, although we still use a lot of natural gas. Funnily enough, we can in part thank Liz Truss' idol Margaret Thatcher for for this, as she crushed the British coal industry. For more than a decade I have watched the proportion of renewables rise via gridwatch. At time of writing, 10pm in mid-December, the UK energy mix is 48% wind, 11% nuclear, 18% gas, and the rest biomass, hydro, or imported from the continent. The power grid is still far from decarbonised, but the review points out that fossil fuel power generation is far more expensive than renewables. This argument was even stronger when it was first published in 2023, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed up gas prices.
In this section I was also encouraged to see hydrogen treated with caution rather than hype, as a storage medium in situations where electricity doesn't appear practical, e.g. 'providing an alternative to coking coal and other high-carbon fuels currently used for industrial heating'. I'm not sure whether hydrogen would be practical for that either, however it definitely should not be treated as a better alternative where electric options actually exist and are much more efficient.
Subsequent sections ('pillars') of the review cover net zero and the economy, the community, the individual, and the future. This taxonomy strikes me as designed for a conservative party audience and avoids the more usual approach of dividing up emissions mitigation targets by sectors, such as transport, built environment, etc. These subdivisions are to be found in the review, albeit distributed rather arbitrarily. Are net zero homes really a matter for the individual? As the review acknowledges, house builders determine the carbon emissions of new homes and renters have no control whatsoever over the energy efficiency of where they live. Homeowners have options, which are limited by financial, technological, and regulatory factors. The 'challenges and opportunities' part of the Net Zero Homes subsection is an enraging reminder of why Britain still has cold, damp, and wasteful housing stock:
The UK's housing stock is older than similar nations, with over half the homes in England built before 1965 and almost 20% built before 1919. According to the ONS, the age of a property is the single biggest factor affecting its energy efficiency. Nearly half of low-income households in England still live in homes with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of D or below, meaning they may use 27% more gas and 18% more electricity on average than EPC C-rated homes. [...]
The UK has experienced years of low home insulation rates. In 2013, government cut support for insulation and rates fell by around 90%, with successive policies failing to resurrect the industry due to being ended early or not funded enough. [...]
Retrofitting a new home to meet energy efficiency standards - including replacing its gas boiler with a heat pump - could cost a household an average of £26,000, according to Climate Change Committee (CCC) data. That is over five times more than the £4,800 it would have cost to meet the standard when the property was first built. The Zero Carbon Homes Standard was supposed to be implemented from 2016 onwards but was scrapped in 2015 - this led to over a million homes being built to poor standards, which will ultimately cost the thousands of people who bought those homes millions of pounds.
I worked in local government for a few years pre-Coalition and remember planning for the Zero Carbon Homes Standard. Housing developers built stylish demonstrator zero carbon homes that I toured in 2009! I appreciate the nearly snarky tone in this part of the report, as if the author simply could not sugar coat this shit.
Elsewhere, I found the barrage of meaningless numbers a bit wearing. Thank you, economists, for estimating that UK natural capital could be worth £1.2 trillion and carbon sequestration by natural systems worth £2.1 billion. Presumably the former is what it could cost to buy a new island on the open market if Great Britain and Northern Ireland suddenly vanished under the sea. The sections on the circular economy also lacked substance, although the report does at least acknowledge the absence of a widely agreed definition of 'circular economy'. In areas where GHG emissions mitigation is well-established, such as electricity generation, the review's recommendations are specific. By contrast, the recommendations for the waste sector include 'launch a task force', which suggests things are at an early stage. A number of recommendations also involve gathering more data, which certainly makes sense but requires an initial step of defining what you're trying to measure, e.g. 'green jobs'.
The sections of Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review that I found most sensible and genuinely refreshing concerned the role of local government. Unfortunately the recommendations to simplify and expand funding streams to local authorities so they can get on with carbon mitigation projects seem among the least likely to be followed. UK governments since 2010 have savagely cut local government funding, to be the point of bankrupting councils. I agree that local authorities should really have a specific statutory duty to take account of the UK's carbon targets, for example to deal with this situation:
One local authority pointed to local authorities' existing statutory duty to consider and preserve local heritage, making it essentially impossible for them locally to improve the energy efficiency of listed homes and buildings, or those in conservation areas. [...]
There are now around 10,000 conservation areas in England, covering an area the size of Luxembourg.
However this new duty would have to be accompanied by funding. At the moment most local authorities are struggling to meet their existing statutory duties to provide schools and social care. Maybe it's the former local government employee in me, but I really think central government should delegate a bit and get out of the way. Policy and public finances are so centralised in the UK. I also agreed with the recommendations to reform the planning system, albeit with some caution. The devil really is in the detail and the planning system has seen many undesirable reforms over the past 20 years. Thus the crap housing stock.
One theme running through the review's quoted evidence and recommendations is the need for stable policy, something that the UK political system makes very difficult. It's also a much more complex issue than the review really acknowledges. Setting out legally binding carbon targets in the Climate Change Act 2008 was an excellent first step and good progress has been made in several areas. What the review is wrangling with is how to set up taxation and regulation to consistently support and continue this, across all sectors of the economy. The reality is, economic special interest groups are always trying to defend their profits and governments are constantly giving in to lobbying. Businesses want stable policy, as long as that policy suits their business model. Stable policy (and funding) would be excellent, if two governments in a row had the bravery to continue prioritising carbon emissions mitigation over the plaintive complaints of lobbyists. Regulation of lobbying would probably help.
Tetchy comments on the housing stock aside, I am grudgingly impressed by how skillfully Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review paints a picture of the private sector saving the day with the assistance of 'smart regulation' by the government. The reality-warping effects of economics and neoliberal ideology are particularly clear in the subsection about 'ecosystem markets'. This states that, 'government has a role to play in ensuring there are readily investible nature-based solutions projects in the UK'. If that sounds anything other than profoundly insane to you, I advise that you read Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman, a very funny novel that extrapolates the effects of such markets.
Mission Zero: The Independent Net Zero Review was an unusual reading experience overall, being a lengthy yet unusually readable report rather than a non-fiction book. It got a fair bit of publicity when published, by which time the government that commissioned it was long gone. I appreciate Skidmore and his team for essentially putting forward a conservative argument for net zero, which I enjoyed approaching critically. My reactions to different sections varied widely, depending on how sensible I found the recommendations. The reading process definitely stimulated a lot of thought about emissions mitigation policy in the 21st century and what is holding it back. While I try not to be fatalistic and do believe that better-regulated capitalism could potentially further reduce GHG emissions, I find it very hard to believe that a genuine net zero could be reached while still prioritising economic growth. The conflict between capitalism and carbon creeps in here and there, for example in the international trade subsection. One man's essential environmental standards are another's non-tariff trade barriers. I was left wondering whether any of the review's recommendations have been rebranded and implemented by the current Labour government. That will require further research. The Sunak government published a 67 page response to the review back in 2023, but I'm not reading that.
Displaying 1 of 1 review