More than two-thirds of Defra staff moved to Brexit-related roles

. Staff redeployed as ex-government adviser says Brexit is bad for environment . More than two-thirds of all staff employed directly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are working on delivering Brexit, according to official figures released by the government. The response to a freedom of […]

Speaking at the UN Economic Commission for Europe meeting on Sustainable Development Goals

. On 22 March, I spoke at the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Europe’s meeting on the Sustainable Development Goals in Geneva, Switzerland. ‘ Thank you for the invitation to share our experience on financing disaster risk reduction in relation to climate change. E3G is a European climate change think […]

HOW TO DEAL WITH A CLIMATE EMERGENCY – IN ADMIRATION OF THE CLIMATE STRIKERS.

Revoke Brexit – that is the single most important thing that a British Government could do to tackle climate change as Brexit is both undermining our ability to make our own low carbon transition but also removes one of the strongest and most influential voices within the EU for higher […]

Mobilising the Public

On March 7th, I spoke at the Belvedere Forum in Warsaw, Poland. I discussed what needs to be done to mobilise the public to support action on climate change, and whether last year’s COP24 in Katowice has kept alive the flame of hope from Paris. . Climate change is a […]

We should be very concerned that the temperature is twice what it should be at this time of year – BBC News

This is twice the temperature that you would expect at this time of year, imagine if this was the summer and we had an extreme event that raised the temperature to twice what it would normally be then people would be very worried indeed, you wouldn’t be able to go […]

Record temperatures set for February – BBC News

What we have got is temperatures that are twice what they normally are at this time of year, well imagine if this was the summer and the temperature was twice what it would normally be, and you really get a idea of how serious this problem could be, and why […]

A CLIMATE OF TRUST

The core argument of this lecture is that failure of climate change policy represents an existential threat to civilisation that will destroy the foundations of trust on which democracy depends. Climate change is a unique problem in human history. Climate policy success demands the local, national and geo-political cooperation that […]

Climate justice and development – The Oxford Forum on International Development

There are three key points I want to make about climate justice and development. The first is that climate change presents humanity with a unique challenge. We have never before faced a problem like this. There is no other problem that will impact on the security and prosperity of literally […]

Hitachi to Halt Work on Wales Nuclear Plant – BBC World Service

Japan’s Hitachi is to halt work on a nuclear plant in Wales amid rising cost concerns. Tom Burke is chairman of the environmental research group E3G, and a former UK government advisor on energy policy, and tells us why the company is pulling out. Also in the programme, ahead of […]

Wylfa Nuclear Power Station

The Board of Hitachi are rescuing the Government from an expensive and damaging mistake. We already know how expensive new nuclear will be because of our experience with Hinkley. For that project to go ahead the Government had to buy all of its electricity for the next 35 years at […]