Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error

Exclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data

Kemi Badenoch’s flagship party conference policy document overestimated the cost of net zero by nearly £500bn, seemingly after someone accidentally double-counted figures on a spreadsheet.

Justifying the Conservatives’ decision to scrap the target of the UK reaching net zero emissions by 2050, introduced under Theresa May, the document says that estimates of how much this would cost the economy “have varied enormously”.

It goes on: “In 2020, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimated that its route to net zero would cost £957bn.” It cites the Sixth Carbon Budget produced by the CCC, the government’s climate change advisers, saying the report put gross economic costs at £1.4tn, falling to £957bn when savings were taken into account.

A CCC spokesperson said: “We don’t recognise this number. The committee has previously offered to meet with Ms Badenoch and talk her through our advice. That offer is, of course, still open.”

The error was spotted by the publication Carbon Brief, which informed the Guardian.

The Conservative document says it is intended to be a precise diagnosis of the UK’s problems. It is modelled in part on The Right Approach, produced by Margaret Thatcher’s Tory party in 1976, which set out some of the economic ideas later used in the 1979 election.