How a thinktank got the cost of net zero for the UK wildly wrong

Traffic on the M25. The Civitas report claims to offer a ‘realistic’ £4.5tn estimate of the cost of reaching net zero by 2050 – much higher than the figure from the government’s official climate adviser, the Climate Change Committee. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Imagine demanding an “honest” debate over the cost of net zero in a report full of errors that even a schoolboy would be embarrassed about. Then imagine getting coverage of your report in the Sun, Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Spectator.

Sound impossible? Well, let me tell you how Civitas, one of the thinktanks housed at 55 Tufton Street in London, did exactly that, and nearly got away with it.