Climate Security: The Next ‘Battle Ground’? – Atlantic Council event – June 17, 2015

I will be speaking at the Atlantic Council event Climate Security: The Next ‘Battle Ground’? on June 17, 2015 in Washington DC.             As the international community heads to COP21 in Paris this December, much of the public discourse focuses on the relationship between climate and the environment. […]

G7 fossil fuel pledge is a diplomatic coup for Germany’s ‘climate chancellor’ – The Guardian

  I was quoted extensively in an article in The Guardian by Karl Mathiesen on why the plan outlined by the G7 on Monday to phase out fossil fuels by the end of the century is, for some member countries, not quite as ambitious as it sounds.       Tom […]

SOMETHING UNDERSTOOD

  This article first appeared in BusinessGreen       The politics of climate change is changing. Astonished listeners at a recent conference in Paris heard the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, announce ‘one of these days we are not going to need fossil fuels’. He went on to make […]

Revealed: BP’s close ties with the UK government – The Guardian

  I was quoted extensively in a piece The Guardian wrote on the extent of BP’s influence on government policy and how their intimate relationship is at odds with UK commitments to reduce carbon emissions.     “About 1.5% of UK pension industry money was invested in BP shares, which […]

SQUARING THE CIRCLES

  This piece was first published by the Energy and Carbon Blog     Amber Rudd’s appointment as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate has been welcomed by environmentalists. This is partly out of relief. There was a real risk that DECC would be abolished by an incoming Conservative Government. […]

WHAT NEXT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?

                  One useful piece of analysis has emerged from the media froth post-election. Labour lost because they offered nothing to the ‘aspirational middle class’. This is surely right. An awful lot of people were left out of a narrative that posed the […]

CHANGING THE GAME – A PROGRAMME FOR GOVERNMENT

  E3G is publishing ‘Changing the Game’ a 10 point programme for government that will put the environment to work for the economy.       For too long Britain’s environmentalists have asked British Governments to do more for the environment. It is now time to turn the tables and tell […]

How to break the political silence on the environment

  This piece was first published in the Guardian       A YouGov poll published last week found that 40% of voters wanted to hear more about the environment. They also wanted to hear more about education, pensions, foreign affairs and Europe. They have been disappointed. It is too […]

CLIMATE CHANGE : WHO TO CHOOSE?

  This piece was originally published by Greenpeace EnergyDesk       The next government will decide four critical matters that will determine the role it plays in the global effort to keep the climate safe. First, it will choose how to spend £25 billion a year on vital infrastructure. […]

TTIP: Climate Change Catastrophe? – Speech given at PIEL UK 9th Annual Conference – April 2015

  Here is a video of the speech I gave on TTIP and climate change the PIEL UK 9th Annual Conference.     Speaker: Tom Burke CBE (Chairman, E3G) 26:52 Q&A Moderator: Professor William Howarth (Professor of Environmental Law, Kent Law School)   You can watch the rest of the conference here […]