Ditching Net Zero

John Stossel on Aug 26, 2026

What a difference a few years make.

Not long ago, politicians said climate change was going to kill us, so we must move to "net zero" emissions.

This is theoretically possible. Since vegetation removes carbon, we could get to net zero by burning fewer fossil fuels.

Governments everywhere pledged to do just that.

President Joe Biden and European leaders promised "net zero by 2050."

For a while, it seemed like it might happen. Spain invested billions into its solar power grid. Germany and Spain claimed to get most of their power from renewables.

But now they realize that they made a mistake.

European businesses closed as electricity costs rose, and last year, Spain's electricity supply shut down for 16 hours.

It was a wakeup call for the green dream.

"The power outages are the starkest illustration of bad electricity policy," says Alex Epstein, author of "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels," in my new video. "You can avoid power outages with these bad policies. What you can't avoid is scarcity and rationing and poverty."

On top of that, net zero's push also left people more vulnerable to climate extremes.

There were 10,000 excess deaths during a heatwave in June, notes Reuters.

"These places in Europe can't keep cool in the summer," marvels Epstein, "even though we've had this technology for a hundred years called air conditioning!"

A majority of Americans have air conditioning, but only about 20% of European homes have it.

In Britain, some homeowners were even ordered to tear out air conditioners under climate laws.

"This is just the pure religious nature of the climate catastrophist movement," says Epstein. "It has one commandment: 'thou shalt not impact nature.' They just think that everything good is a happy climate god and everything bad is a vengeful climate god."

"Why aren't wind and solar enough?" I ask. "The solar panels keep getting cheaper. Batteries last longer."

"Because the electricity grid has to be built around the worst day," he replies.

When there's no wind or the sun doesn't shine, countries need reliable, steady power to back up renewable power.

Now, countries like Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom are walking back their net-zero push.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz now says rules must "better align climate targets, market realities, companies and jobs."

He also said, "It was quite simply a strategic mistake to phase out nuclear energy."

No kidding.

And here in America, I hear less climate fearmongering.

The Washington Post reports, "analysis of lawmakers' appearances and posts on social media show they are going quiet on climate."

"It's very surprising to many people," says Epstein, "how unserious the climate catastrophists were about net zero, and the way you can see this is what's happened with the rise of AI."

Tech companies now report increases in emissions, even though "five years ago, they were all telling us: 'climate change, existential crisis, got to go net zero!'" Epstein laughs.

Microsoft's CEO had promised, "By 2030, Microsoft will be carbon negative." Since then, they increased emissions, without apology.

Google once said it would be "the first major company in the world to run on carbon free energy by 2030."

They've since removed that pledge from their website.

Bill Gates, who once wrote a book about "climate disaster," now writes, "We should measure success by our impact on human welfare more than our impact on the global temperature."

"The fact that (Gates) has taken the new position publicly to me is a sign that we're in a much better intellectual environment," says Epstein.

"It would be nice for one of these tech executives to say, 'You know what? I kind of lied and I advocated some policies that screwed over everyone, including myself, and I'm going to change,'" says Epstein. "But nobody has done that. They've just acted like their past self didn't exist."

Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of "Government Gone Wild: Exposing the Truth Behind the Headlines."

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