I'm Hello and welcome to you the edition.

Each week we look at some of the most important and intriguing issues in the week's

magazine with the writers behind them.

I'm Laura Prendergast.

This week, how expensive will it be to get to net

zero? Plus, our international PCR test a new racket. And finally, is the American dream dead.

First up, in our cover story this week, Ross Clark looks at the financial viability of one of the

government's main proposals

getting to net zero. And it's fair to say he isn't convinced by the sums. He joins me now,

along with James Kirkup, who also writes in this week's magazine in defense of net zero,

and says that the costs involved are worth it. Ross, you write in this week's magazine about

net zero and you make the argument that it isn't

really worth the cost. Can you start by setting out your argument? Well, first, I mean, the background

to this is the result of the Climate Change Act 2008, Britain had this some legally binding target to

reduce carbon emissions by 80% on 1990 levels by 2050.

Then in the dying days of the Theresa May government in 2019,

the government suddenly increased that to net zero,

i.e. zero emissions by 2050,

which might not sound a lot, just take this of 20, remaining 20%

of carbon emissions, but in fact, it does have a huge implication because there are some

industries which are just extremely very difficult to decarbonise. It's really a question of, now, when that vote was held,

I mean, it wasn't a proper parliamentary bill. It was just an adjustment to the existing

...