Hello and welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman. This week, the government

commits to a green target of net zero emissions by 2050, but how costly will meeting it be?

And stateside, with the Mueller report showing the extent of Trump's meddling should Democrats

try to impeach him. And last, our modern fathers taken for granted. First up, in her last

attempt at a legacy, Theresa May committed the government to meeting the climate change committee's

2050 target this week. But it's not just the outgoing Prime Minister who is turning green.

Across the Conservative Party, from Tory leadership contenders to backbench MPs, a green wave

is washing over. Boris Johnson has marvelled about wind farms and solar panels, while Sajad Javid

has declared that fighting climate change ought to be like fighting terrorism.

Since when were Tory so concerned with the environment and other new environmentalists being truthful about the costs of tackling climate change?

I'm joined by Lord Peter Lilly, a trustee for the Global Warming Policy Foundation,

a climate-sceptical lobby group, and Sam Richards,

director of the Conservative Environment Network,

the Independent Forum for Climate Conscious Conservatives.

So Sam, do you think the Conservative Party is being greenwashed,

or at least seems to be getting greener in its perspective?

I think it definitely is getting greener, and I think that there are, well, I mean, first it's important to say that there is a long tradition of conservative environmentalism, right, that stretches back past Margaret Thatcher's seminal speech on climate change to the United Nations all the way back to Edmund Burke and his concept of intergenerational fairness, leaving the planet in a good state for our children.

But I think it is getting greener now for three main reasons.

One, that the science on climate change, that the science on the impact of air pollution

and our children is so much clearer.

So the moral duty to act is so much stronger.

Two, the economic case is so much stronger. Renewables are now much cheaper than they used to be

...