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Moral Maze · BBC Radio 4

Is ‘net zero’ a moral pursuit?

September 11, 2025·57 min·4 clips
Giles Fraser challenges Net Zero Watch's Maurice Cousins: isn't morality precisely about sacrificing your own interests for others?
The consensus is coming apart. Moral Maze uses net zero as the case study, then moves fast from bills and party politics to moral duty. Economics does not get the final say. The opener weighs Britain's emissions record against charges that the country imports fuel, exports industries and jobs, and calls the whole thing organised hypocrisy. Kant shows up early. Is net zero a categorical imperative, the kind of aim that survives even when the consequences get messy? The panel wants that tested in real life. One exchange asks whether certainty about climate action should feel uncomfortable when the public argument is not being won. The witness does not blink: no discomfort, because the world keeps warming without net zero, whether the target lands in 2050 or later. Trade-offs are admitted, then pushed back. Ordinary citizens, the witness argues, will take the hit from a warmer world, including health effects in the UK and beyond. Then the panel asks the sharper question: does certainty become deafness? The witness says critics are her favorite people to talk to. Tony Milligan changes the temperature. As a virtue ethicist at Sheffield, speaking from Glasgow, he brings in the difference between consequences and duty. The final stretch turns to sacrifice, humility, progress, and the things society once accepted before deciding it did not want them anymore, like lead and asbestos. The episode does not settle net zero. It shows the argument underneath: restraint as prudence, virtue, hypocrisy, or an unaffordable luxury.

As heard by us

A sharp Moral Maze debate on whether net zero is a duty, a costly tradeoff, or both.

Moral Maze takes net zero out of the usual policy ledger and asks whether the 2050 target is a moral duty at all. The setup is pointed: Reform and the Conservatives want to scrap the central target, critics accuse Britain of cutting emissions by importing fuel and exporting…

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Why you'd press play

Hear net zero argued as a moral duty, not just a policy target.

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