GOVERNING THE CLIMATE

We live in turbulent times. Some eight billion of us live in an increasingly connected world. The pace of technology-enabled change is accelerating. This can be both exhilarating, as new opportunities and experiences become accessible, and intimidating, as familiar places and relationships are transformed beyond recognition. This accelerating pace of […]

An Essential Alliance: Climate Change and the Law – UCL

The fate of the climate and the future of the law are intimately entangled. The rule of law is a crucial precondition for the success of climate policy. Climate policy failure is not inevitable but it is imminent. Avoiding failure means an end to the burning of fossil fuels by […]

DEMOCRACY, LAW AND THE ENVIRONMENT – UKELA ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2021

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 […]

THE FUTURE HAS BEEN CANCELLED

This coronavirus has caused three shocks. There is a health shock the worst of which should be behind us by the end of this year if governments manage it well. There is an economic shock which will last for far longer. There is a psychological shock which we will never […]

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 […]

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 […]

ON THE BREAKING OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROMISES

  There are a great many champions of the environment in Britain. Between them, our environmental bodies have several times the membership of all the political parties in Britain combined. They probably know rather more about the will of the people than the political leaders who somehow managed not to […]

BBC News – What can the energy price review achieve? – 06 Aug 17

    BBC News: The government has asked for and independent review of the energy market, just days after British Gas announced it is putting up its standard electricity price by twelve and a half percent. Theresa May did pledge to cap energy prices in the conservative manifesto, but the […]

Socking The Puppet – The decline in the legitimacy of Britain’s political parties

                  The Government is increasingly seeking to constrain dissenting voices from civil society organisations by limiting their ability to inform the electorate, constraining their role in the planning system and closing off access to judicial review of government decisions. This is a […]