Where are the green jobs that were supposed to replace those lost in heavy industry? - Bill Carmichael

But even if the goals were achievable, Net Zero would still be a massive con trick, because it will not reduce global carbon emissions by a single unit, and therefore will make not the blindest bit of difference to average temperatures in 50 or 100 years time. It is all a lot of pain, for absolutely no gain.

Let me explain. The only way we can even approach such massive reductions in our carbon emissions is by “offshoring” heavy manufacturing. In other words other countries will produce our steel, chemicals and cement for us abroad, giving the illusion that carbon emissions are declining here in the UK.

We are still going to need these materials that take a lot of energy to produce, but in future they will be produced in places like China, where environmental protections are much weaker than in the UK and the rest of Europe.

So instead of making steel in the UK, partly using green energy from renewable sources and nuclear, it will be made in China using the dirtiest fuel on the planet - coal.

By offshoring heavy industry we are not reducing global carbon emissions at all, and in all probability we are instead increasing them significantly. Could the world get any more insane?

China is pressing ahead with a massive expansion of coal-fired power stations to produce electricity needed for the heavy industries that are being relocated from the Western world.

For example, they have plans to build more than 300 new coal-fired power plants and the country is mining record amounts of coal.

But it gets even worse, because we are not just exporting our heavy industry, but the jobs and tax revenue that goes with it.

We are seeing this in real time in the Port Talbot steelworks in Wales, where the Indian owners, Tata Steel, announced 2,500 job losses last week as a direct consequence of Net Zero.

The government and its environmentalist cheerleaders have repeatedly promised that the tens of thousands of jobs lost in heavy industry will be replaced by lots of highly paid “green jobs”.

Just one question - where exactly are these “green jobs”? The soon-to-be laid off workers in Port Talbot would like an answer to that question too. They are just not there in anything like sufficient numbers to replace the jobs we are exporting.

And to add insult to injury the taxpayer is stumping up for all this to happen. The British government is paying Tata Steel a subsidy of £500m to replace traditional blast furnaces with electric arc furnaces that emit less CO2 and require far fewer workers.

That’s right - British taxpayers are paying a fortune in order to destroy British jobs. You couldn’t make it up.

Of course, some people will argue that the Port Talbot jobs have to go because the plant cannot produce steel as cheaply as foreign plants.

That is indeed true, but Port Talbot is uncompetitive as a result of deliberate government policies to artificially push up energy prices, including by imposing so-called green taxes.

As a result, UK industry pays over 60 per cent more for electricity than France or Germany, and energy prices in China and India are about a third of that in Europe.

Is it any wonder that British companies cannot compete? That is exactly what the government wants - to deindustrialise the UK and destroy British jobs.

And the depressing thing is that come the election you won’t have much choice over these damaging policies because all the large parties support the Net Zero lunacy.

So well done the government. Well done the green lobby. Well done MPs who have obediently nodded all this through, without even making a token effort to understand the issues. You have all played an absolute blinder.

You have destroyed British jobs, destroyed manufacturing industry, made us all poorer, increased the benefits bill, reduced the tax take we need to pay for public services, left us in hock to authoritarian regimes such as China, and, to put an absolute cherry on the top of the cake, you’ve in addition actually managed to increase carbon emissions and made climate change even worse.