Since the U.S. election in November, Kemi Badenoch has been working hard to align herself with president Donald Trump and the anti-climate right-wing populist movement abroad. 

This has seen the Conservative Party leader meeting with U.S. vice president JD Vance, backing Elon Musk’s campaign for a public enquiry into grooming gangs, speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, and touring the “anti-woke” podcast circuit. 

In doing so, Badenoch has portrayed herself as a fierce critic of the UK’s net zero policies. However, DeSmog analysis of Badenoch’s climate record – based on parliamentary records and her media appearances – reveals some abrupt U-turns which challenge her claim that she has always been at war with net zero. 

Instead, it paints the picture of an opportunist MP who backed Boris Johnson’s net zero agenda as a government minister, criticised it when running for leader in 2022, supported Rishi Sunak’s diluted net zero plans when serving in his cabinet, then attacked net zero when running again in 2024. 

It also shows that Badenoch publicly championed the government’s plans to reach net zero by 2050, describing them as detailed and affordable, only to claim as a leadership candidate that there was no plan, or that it was not “costed”. 

Kemi Badenoch and the Conservative Party did not respond when contacted for comment. 

“Ms Badenoch advocated for the UK’s very responsible net zero 2050 target when she was a minister in Boris Johnson’s government,” said Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics.

“She now pretends that she has always opposed the net zero target, showing not only that she lacks conviction but also that she does not tell the truth. And all because she wants to compete with Reform UK’s ridiculous opposition to net zero rooted in unscientific climate change denial.” 

Badenoch’s claims come after 2024 was found to be the hottest year on record. Climate scientists have warned that global emissions must be cut to net zero by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The UK’s net zero target was introduced in the 2008 Climate Change Act by a Conservative government, and became legally binding in 2019, again under the Conservatives. Polling by the Conservative Environment Network, a group of Tory MPs, in December found that a majority of potential Conservative voters support climate action. 

24 June, 2019: ‘Delighted’ by Net Zero 

At the ARC conference last week, Badenoch described herself as a “net zero sceptic” who stands against the UK’s “terrible” climate targets. 

In an interview with ARC founder Jordan Peterson, posted on YouTube during the conference, Badenoch recalled the 2019 debate in parliament on making the UK’s 2050 net zero target legally-binding. 

“I stood up, I was one of only two people who asked a skeptical question,” she said. “And I said, ‘How are we going to pay for this? Where is the plan?’ And I was dismissively waved away by the minister at the time saying the plans will be forthcoming.” 

Badenoch repeated this claim when speaking to The Free Press editor Bari Weiss at the ARC conference. She said: “We’re going to get to net zero by 2050. I stood up in parliament that day and asked: ‘How? Where is the plan?’ And I was waved away, and told the plans will come. The plans came and they were terrible. They’re not working and they’re making us poorer.”

From this it would seem like Badenoch opposed net zero from the start. However, the record tells a different story.

In the debate on June 24, 2019, Badenoch began by welcoming the net zero target, before questioning the strategy and cost involved. “Many of my constituents, especially schoolchildren, will be delighted by this announcement,” she said, “but others are rightly sceptical about the costs. What steps will the minister take to ensure that the plan will be achievable and affordable?”

At the time of this more balanced statement, Badenoch was a backbench MP and vice-chair of the Conservative Party, having been elected in 2017. 

From 2020 on, Badenoch was given ministerial posts – and swung towards championing the government’s pro-net zero agenda. 

2020 – 2022: ‘Green’ Badenoch Backs Net Zero

While she now claims there was no credible plan, Badenoch repeatedly spoke in public hailing Boris Johnson government’s detailed plans to achieve net zero, including the low cost of doing so. 

In December 2020, as exchequer secretary to the Treasury, Badenoch was quoted in the official press release for the government’s first interim Net Zero Review on its “next steps to a green transition”. 

“We are determined to achieve a cleaner, green future, and cutting our emissions to net zero by 2050 is crucial to this,” Badenoch wrote. 

“We are already making good progress and have set out billions of pounds in green investment, including decarbonisation and greener homes, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, walking and cycling infrastructure, flood defences and backing enough offshore wind to power every UK home by 2030.”

On September 6, 2021, Badenoch told parliament: “We have set out ambitious plans about the net zero target and published the energy White Paper, the industrial decarbonisation strategy, the transport decarbonisation plan, which has not happened anywhere else in the world – we are the first country to do a transport decarbonisation  plan – and a hydrogen strategy. We will publish the heat and building strategy in due course.”

She even chided the MP who had asked her about this, adding: “The government have (sic) been busy setting out plans on net zero, and we would appreciate it if opposition parties took some time to read them.”

In the same debate, replying to a question from anti-net zero MP Steve Baker, Badenoch said net zero would cost less than two percent of annual GDP. 

“We will put affordability and fairness at the heart of our reforms to reach net zero”, she said. “Our latest estimates put the costs of net zero at under two percent of GDP – broadly similar to when we legislated for it two years ago – with scope for costs of low-carbon technologies to fall faster than expected.”

This was roughly in line with estimates by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the government’s advisory body on net zero, at the time. In its Seventh Carbon Budget published this week, the CCC revised this down: “We estimate that the net costs of net zero will be around 0.2 percent of UK GDP per year on average in our pathway,” with most of the investment expected to come from the private sector.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the government’s spending watchdog, has said “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero”.

October 2022 Leadership Bid: Kemi Criticises Net Zero 

Badenoch changed her tune on net zero in 2022, when she was running to replace Johnson as Tory leader and Prime Minister. During the leadership campaign, Badenoch repeatedly said that the net zero plan she had championed in government did not exist, or was not properly considered or costed. 

At her campaign launch event in July 2022, Badenoch said: “Too many policies, like net zero targets, set up with no thought to the effects on industries in the poorer parts of this country. The consequence is simply to displace emissions to other countries – unilateral economic disarmament. That is why we need to change and that is why I’m running to be leader.”

The same month, Badenoch expanded her claim that there was no plan for net zero, telling The Telegraph: “I think that it was wrong of us to set a target without having a clear plan of the cost and knowing what it would entail. Setting an arbitrary target like that is the wrong way to go. I am not someone who doesn’t believe in climate change. I can see. But there is a better way of going about these things.”

Despite this rhetoric, there was confusion about Badenoch’s position. On 19 July 2022, at a hustings event with the Conservative Environment Network, Badenoch reportedly confirmed that she supported the 2050 net zero target. 

But later that same day, in what the Guardian called a “double climate U-turn”, Badenoch appeared to contradict this, telling Talk TV: “Yes, there are circumstances where I would delay it. What I want to see is what is the reasonable plan to get to net zero and to solve the climate change problem.”

She added: “I believe there is climate change and that’s something we do need to tackle, but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t bankrupt our economy. We’ve got to take people with us. What would happen if we moved it to 2060 or 2070? We’re not going to be here. Let’s be realistic.”

2022 – 2024: Kemi Backs Sunak’s Diluted Net Zero

After losing the leadership contest, Badenoch served in Liz Truss’s short-lived government as trade secretary. In October 2022, when Truss attempted to lift the ban on fracking for shale gas, Badenoch voted against the move, along with the majority of her party.

As trade secretary under Rishi Sunak, Badenoch hailed the government’s investment in “low-carbon sectors”, telling parliament in November 2022: “At the green trade and investment expo earlier this week, we showcased the best renewable energy technologies and innovations that the UK has to offer.”

In the same session, Badenoch claimed that the UK’s plans for new oil and gas licences “are consistent with our transition to net zero”, citing the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which does not recommend energy policy. 

In  September 2023, Badenoch supported Sunak’s delays to several specific net zero targets, including on gas boilers and electric vehicles, but justified them in terms of reaching net zero. 

In an interview with the Times, Badenoch said: “If we bankrupt ourselves trying to get there, we won’t achieve net zero. We will also be in a worse position in terms of tackling climate change.” 

In May 2024, Badenoch reaffirmed her support for net zero, telling the House of Commons: “Electric vehicles are one way that we will hit our net zero target, and this is an area that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is focused on and that I support in Business and Trade.”

Badenoch stood for election in July 2024 on the Conservative Party’s manifesto pledge to “deliver net zero by 2050” and its detailed policies to do so.

July 2024 – March 2025 (present): Kemi Goes Anti-Net Zero

After the Conservatives lost the July 2024 general election, Badenoch ran for Tory leader calling herself a “net zero sceptic”. 

She told her party conference that net zero is “making energy more expensive and hurting our economy”. She claimed that as business secretary she “had to work hard to push back against the green lobby”, and that: “I did not become an MP to deliver an agenda set by Ed Miliband”. 

During the campaign, Badenoch accepted donations and use of an office from Neil Record, chair of Net Zero Watch, a campaign group which casts doubt on climate science and campaigns against renewable energy. 

In her first big speech as Tory leader in January 2025, titled “rebuilding trust”, Badenoch listed net zero as one of the Conservatives’ three big mistakes in office, along with leaving the EU without a “plan for growth” and failing to cut immigration. 

She said: “We made it the law that we would deliver net zero by 2050, and only then did we start thinking about how we would do that.”

‘Net Zero Sceptic’? 

It is possible that Badenoch privately opposed net zero from the start. But the record shows that Badenoch said things in public which are counter to what she claims now, and that she championed affordable net zero plans she now says did not exist or were “terrible”. 

This is hard to square with the image she is selling her new friends on the U.S. right of a “straight-talking” conservative who took on the “green lobby” in government. 

In any case, Badenoch’s position ignores the established science on the urgent need to cut emissions and limit climate change. 

“Britain’s households and businesses are suffering rising harm from climate change and are being crippled by high energy prices due to our reliance on fossil fuels,” added Bob Ward of the LSE’s Grantham Institute. 

“The only responsible position for any serious politician is to be seeking for the UK to lead a rapid but orderly global transition to net zero emissions in order to stop climate change.”