Prior to the start of COP26 British actor Lawrence Fox made this seven-minute video on net-zero and the bypassing of democracy. Successive UK governments have sought to take a leading role at COPs in persuading other governments to a global emissions-reduction deal, in the hope that the rest of the world will follow Britain's lead in living without fossil fuels. Since 2008 the UK politicians have adopted the net-zero agenda without explaining to the public what the resulting commitments mean to them. Instead, they have promised that the climate policies will create jobs, economic growth, and equality.

At first these policies affected large industries and electrical generation, and so people didn't notice them. Now the politicians are proposing abolition of the gas boiler for home heating and hot water, in favour of air-sourced heat pumps (much more expensive, less effective and requiring upgrading of building insulation.) Sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned, forcing low-income drivers out of their vehicles. Cost of all this: £3 trillion. Rather than creating new jobs and industries, these policies will destroy them. UK manufacturers of wind turbines, unable to afford high energy costs, are being forced to buy components from China. Failure to plan for times without wind and global gas supply shortages forced closing of food manufacturing plants.

UK governments expected that they would not have to seek the consent of voters for their climate policies. Instead, they hoped to take authority from global agreements and resulting institutions, thereby binding government policy. In this way the UK government has sought to bypass democracy. Any critics of this process have been banned from the media. The result of the net-zero ideological agenda will be rising energy bills, more shutdown of industry, more jobs lost, freedoms like driving and flying made unaffordable, forced changes in diet.