Discussing Syria, conflict and climate change on Sky News

      Climate Change is a threat multiplier, and when you have an already stressed situation as you had in Syria, and then you add the extra stress caused by climate change, in this case the very prolonged drought that drove about a million and half people out of […]

What can we expect from COP21? – BBC World Service – Newshour

                    It’s just under a month before the start of COP21, the Paris climate change conference, at which global powers will try to achieve a universal and legally binding treaty to limit Green House Gas emissions. What can realistically be achieved? […]

Why nuclear is a bad deal for Britain – BBC Politics Today – 21 October 15

    Nuclear is the cuckoo in the nest it squeezes the others out of the energy market.  The reason why we are doing what we are doing, making so many policy changes in energy efficiency and renewables, and eliminating billions of pounds of investment, is to make sure that there […]

Why Hinkley is a very bad deal for Britain – BBC News

    Here at Hinkley Point alongside existing reactors is where George Osborne wants to build a new nuclear power station in Britain. It will be built by EDF, a French state owned electricity company, and will cost 24 and a half billion pounds, that’s more than Crossrail and the […]

Nuclear Cost – Letter to The Times, October 19 2015

                  The Times, letters, October 19 2015 To slash and burn renewable investment for the sake of costly support for new nuclear plants is unwise Sir, George Osborne assumes that energy demand will increase (“Nuclear deal with China is threat to UK […]

REMARKS BY MR TOM BURKE CBE – AT THE WORLD ENERGY COUNCIL ENERGY DAY – BERLIN – OCTOBER 1ST 2015

    The speech on Tuesday by Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board is a game changer for climate change. Whatever you thought about the politics or economics of climate change yesterday is now outdated. The world really did change, […]

Energy Transition Commission – some considerations

  Shell and McKinsey have just launched a global initiative called the Energy Transition Commission. Doubts have been raised about whether the Commission as currently constructed has the integrity to make a positive contribution to the debate on how to keep the climate safe. There is a risk that this […]

WHAT’S IN A WORD 3

        John Hutton is Chairman of the Nuclear Industries Association. On August 24th he told the Radio 4 Today audience that  “The nuclear programme is going to be built without any state funding at all”. Sitting next to him in the studio I nearly fell off my […]

Sky News – Obama gives Shell the go ahead for Arctic drilling

      Obama is going to Alaska because Alaska is on the front line of climate change, and it is where we are seeing the impacts of a changing climate on human beings really dramatically already, right now. Obama wants to draw attention to the fact that it is […]

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE

  This piece first appeared in Business Green.       Environmentalists have long been vulnerable to their own passions. At times this can make us sound shrill and self-righteous. On other occasions it can blind us to political traps. The oil industry is now busy setting a big one […]