Net Zero & Statism Deliver Stagnation: How Interventionism Undermined Growth in the UK & Canada
2nd June 2026
Governments are terrible at picking winners and even worse at choosing losers. Net zero and interventionist “Keynesian” policies in Canada and the UK have proven that government intervention has created a worse outcome than anyone would have expected. The result is higher costs, distorted incentives, and weakened productivity growth, with increased dependency on fossil fuels to attend to peak demand, exactly what Austrian economists predicted.
What has been sold as a recipe for prosperity and “green growth” has in practice eroded affordability while failing to deliver stronger, sustainable expansion.
It is not surprising to see that the world’s examples of green interventionism, the UK and Canada, have become economic failures. Years ago, some argued that these policies needed time to prove their success. Now, it is not even debatable that the stagnation and recession in the UK and Canada are self-inflicted.
Net zero in Canada and the UK is not a single policy but an entire regime of targets, regulations, limits, subsidies, and new bureaucratic requirements.