Net-zero by 2050 is “sinister” according to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who has cited the UK’s wind farm and solar panel plans as evidence that renewables offer poor value, inflated pushed energy prices and hurt manufacturing.

During a speech at the Arc 2025 event via video link he claimed that the push to renewables was, at least in part, a plot to centralise power within the government, and called the aim of reducing carbon emissions to neutrality a “delusion”.

The comments put the US and UK on different paths in terms of attitudes to energy and climate but also show a rising tide of disparaging rhetoric from the US just as Kier Starmer attempts to build bridges with the trump administration.

Although the language was confrontational, bordering on rude, the issue for Starmer and Ed Miliband is that Wright made some hard-hitting points, especially pointing out that fossil fuels and carbon intensive production will find the UK less attractive and merely be offshored with no overall benefit to the planet unless renewables can be made to create energy as cheaply as the alternatives.

So, despite the hectoring words, this might yet be a Trumpian negotiation: Go in hard – disrupt – expect a compromise, for even Wright acknowledged that there could be a “credible” solution, involving nuclear power and that at the heart of the issue are economics, and these, like security, can change.

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