Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys behind events. Was Tony Blair’s recent intervention in the net zero debate a coincidence or meticulously positioned PR? One thing Blair understands enormously well is spin and if releasing his broadside against net zero just before the council elections dominated by Reform was an accident, then it was unforgivable badly timed.

An emboldened Nigel Farage quickly ‘declared war’ on net zero while Badenoch and the Unite and GMB union bosses seized the moment and pitched in as well. By the end of the week net zero looked like a small arms target. While the TBI thinktank has since issued clarifications, claiming that its words had been misconstrued, the damage was done and the headline that ricocheted around the world was that net zero and reduction of fossil fuel use in the short term was “doomed to fail.”

Coincidence or accident, phrases like “riven with irrationality”, “not founded on good policy” and “unrealistic and therefore unworkable” could hardly be described as helpful.

If I’m indulgent I’d say Blair was trying to publicly pressure Starmer and Miliband to drop their messianic tone on climate change because he believes it isn’t cutting through with voters.

If I’m cynical I’d say he’s been hanging out with too many leaders of fossil fuel petrostates – some of whom also happen to be lucrative clients of his organisations.

Yesterday, The Guardian quoted a Whitehall insider who described Blair as “a serious threat to sensible climate policy.”

A damning legacy - and not, I’m sure - how this elder statesman and previous climate champion would want to be remembered.

But his remarks were surprising. Singling out carbon capture and storage to be “at the centre of the battle” is to promote a nascent technology that’s unproven.

Most global CCS schemes have underperformed and are proving enormously expensive. Even the UK government has rowed back on its 2030 CCS targets, saying: “performance on the scale expected by the Department (DESNZ is far from guaranteed.”

He also hails sustainable aviation fuel which is acknowledged to be up to five times more expensive than conventional jet fuel, has supply chain challenges and is energy intensive to produce, negating some of its carbon benefits.

Just 0.1% of aviation fuel is currently SAF. The report even highlights the difficulties of producing SAFs at scale.

But while he’s right to call for greater investment in climate change, air quality mitigations and the funding of new technology, I wonder if this report – particularly its headlines - will scare away those same investors at a time when the UK should be actively courting disenfranchised green capital from Trump’s America.

The UK was the first country to halve is carbon emission since 1990 – down by 53% – and we’re a major thought leader in global low emission policy.

We’re now the most successful market for electric cars in Europe – up 31% in the first quarter of this year – and functioning without significant subsidies.

And that’s largely because we have consistent environmental government policies along with many NGOs and informed voices supporting a narrative for change.

Not to have highlighted the UK’s significant environmental and climate progress across wind, solar, batteries and electrification of road transport – £300 billion of public and private investment since 2010 – was a missed opportunity.

Where Blair is correct – and I suspect this was the abstract around which the report was based – is that those two words, net zero, are so emotionally charged that they’ve become a political liability.

Net zero has become a rallying cry for the Right and is broadly meaningless to voters, coined by an urban elite in more optimistic times.

Nigel Farage has built a political campaign around net zero. Both Starmer and Miliband urgently need to change the phraseology of the low emission debate to make it more understandable to ordinary people.

All the polls say that most voters want clean air for their children and worry about climate change and the impact on weather.

Blair could have made this point more strongly and argued for a new environmental lexicon – another missed opportunity.

But the greatest damage from this ill-timed and badly phrased report is the gift of intellectual capital it gives to fossil fuel forces who we know bankroll Reform and the Conservatives. They must have burst out cheering at last week’s headlines.

Having such an influential voice as the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change saying that phasing out fossil fuels is a strategy “doomed to fail” gives new and urgent possibilities to their well-funded lobbying.

And lobby they do. Last week, Carbon Brief revealed that in the first four months of 2025 there were more articles attacking Ed Miliband and net zero than in the whole of 2024.

The timing of the TBI’s report couldn’t have been worse. Coincidence or accident? You decide.