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 […]

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 […]

Climate Change and the Extractives | RAW Talks with Tom Burke

Climate change is a hot topic, and Tom Burke has been at the centre of the debate from the beginning – he coined the term ‘Green Growth’ already back in the 1980s. In this interview, we talk to Tom to explore the link between climate change and the extractives. RAW […]

Financing Decarbonisation of the Global Energy System

Energy and Systemic Risk There will soon be eight billion of us sharing this planet. All of us looking to live prosperous and secure lives in which to enjoy the extraordinary benefits that knowledge and technology are already making possible and could do so even more in the future. We […]

Warning that climate change could cause the collapse of civilisation – Sky News

There’s no doubt at all that we have the technology, and if we wanted to, we could deploy it in time to avoid the kind of outcomes that David Attenborough was talking about today. So it is within our technological capacity to do it, and there is no doubt at […]

The future of nuclear power in Britain

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to this conference. Phil and Andy have done something very important in picking up an overlooked aspect of the public conversation on the future of nuclear power in this country. British Governments have become skilled in recent years at concealing their policy intent […]

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 […]

Speech to The Global Engineering Congress at the Institute of Civil Engineers – 24 October 18

REMARKS BY TOM BURKE CBE TO THE GLOBAL ENGINEERING CONGRESS INSTITUTE OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, LONDON WEDNESDAY 24TH OCTOBER 2018 Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today at such an important and timely event. I am particularly pleased to be asked to speak about financing decarbonisation. When I […]

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 […]