WHAT THE MID-TERMS MEAN FOR THE CLIMATE

The mid-term elections in the US are widely seen as having been something of a referendum on Trump. If so, despite his protestations to the contrary, he lost. There was much media commentary on election day and immediately after about the non-appearance of the forecast Democratic wave. As is becoming […]

Nuclear costs have always been unmeetable – ITV – Border TV

Nuclear costs have always been unmeetable, in comparison with renewables, in comparison with energy efficiency, and other ways to meet energy services, so the whole prospect for this program has never been sound.

Climate change is happening faster, and it is nastier than we thought – Sky News

I remind people that climate change is a disease, in a way it’s a bit like diabetes, it can be without symptoms, but it gets progressively worse if you don’t do anything about it. Every time the scientists get together a consolidate their view of what is happening to the […]

Extreme weather events and Climate Attribution – Sky News

Significant weather events are becoming more frequent, and you can see in the records that extreme weather events are happening more often than they used to happen. Now we are beginning to be able to read the climate signal, that’s the bit that we can attribute specifically to climate change, […]

Tom Burke remembering his friend Lord Peter Melchett who has died at the age of seventy – Radio 4 – Last Word – 7 September 2018.

What Peter really did was take Greenpeace into the big league. He was an extraordinary person who combined a deep analytical intelligence with a very profound moral clarity. He was a leader, he wasn’t a manager, and he lead the organisation extremely well. He had a really good political instinct […]

Tom Burke – E3G – One Planet Summit – Channel 4 News – 12 Dec 17

    What’s going to make the difference in people’s lives, is what happens in the real economy. What we’ve seen is the financial community getting into this game because they have understood the level of risk if we don’t deal with climate change, and they are beginning to see massive […]

SMALL BITES NO.3

  On November 23rd, Financial Times Energy Editor, Andrew Ward, wrote, ‘energy consumers face paying £30bn above market prices for electricity for Hinkley over the 35-year life of the contract’. He was in error. The actual additional cost to consumers is £59bn. In his defence, Mr Ward can fairly claim […]

China’s increased emissions – BBC World News Business Report – 15 Nov 17

    I think what matters about the suggested increase in emissions this year, is whether it is a blip, or whether it is an actual change in the trajectory. The trajectory has been ahead of what is needed to get us on to the right path, to stay below […]

SMALL BITES NO.2

  Matt Ridley is almost always wrong about the environment. His regular column in the Times is a mishmash of misinformation and malice. He dislikes environmentalists and hates their influence on public policy. His criticism, in yesterday’s column, of Michael Gove’s proposed new ‘independent’ body to ensure a post-Brexit Government […]

There is a catastrophic gap between promises to cut carbon emissions and the action need to deliver those cuts – BBC World Service

    There is a catastrophic gap between promises to cut carbon emissions and the actions need to deliver those cuts. That is the verdict today from the United Nations, a new UN Report says amounts pledged in the Paris Agreement amount to just a third of what is needed […]