Environmentalist
We are world leaders in the sense that we have probably done more in this country to decarbonize our economy than has happened anywhere else in the world. So in that sense we are world leaders. We made the Climate Act, we set up the Climate Change Committee, and they […]
These extreme weather events could become a lot more volatile and deadly. We are now experiencing the effects of a rise in global average temperatures of about 1.2 Degrees. If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, then by the middle of the century, we will be living in a world […]
It is really important to understand that people want to do the right thing. We have seen that throughout the covid pandemic. Most people in this country when they see that there is a problem, and boy people are they seeing that that there is a problem with the climate, […]
We can stop burning fossil fuels. That will stop the climate changing as fast as it is changing. If the climate stopped changing then we would have less of these extreme events taking place. If we continue building houses in coastal zones, and we continue building houses on flood planes, […]
The Saudis, the Russians and others are not willing to agree to a phase out of coal as one of the outcomes of the COP, so we are still fighting that battle. So, what we are seeing in Naples is a small leap for man, and not the giant leap […]
We will know quite soon how much of this extreme weather we are seeing can be attributed to climate change with what scientist call attribution. Our understanding of climate science now is sufficiently good for us to be able to say when there is an event like this, what is […]
The government is under real pressure to do something in advance of the Glasgow COP26 to show that is it walking the talk on climate change. There are an enormous range of things being discussed in Whitehall about how we do that. Obviously one of the key questions is what […]
The government is under huge pressure in advance of Glasgow to say how it is going to deliver, and so there are loads of ideas being discussed in Whitehall, most of which will never see the light of day. I suspect that this is one of those ideas. If you […]
Environmentalist Tom Burke considers why undermining the democratic rule of law would be destructive for the environment and all who want to protect it. Joni Mitchell wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ in 1970, the year the first Earth Day launched the modern environment movement. The song’s refrain – Don’t it always […]
This is a speech I gave at the UKELA annual conference 2021. In summary, I argue that the rule of law will not long survive a failure to maintain the ecological foundations of the economy. The climate is the foundation in the most imminent danger. The ecological foundations of the […]