REMARKS ON CLIMATE AND SECURITY AT THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL – WASHINGTON DC – JUNE 17TH 2015

          This is the address I gave at the Atlantic Council event Climate Security: The Next ‘Battle Ground’? on June 17, 2015 in Washington DC.                     Security professionals often distinguish between human security issues and national security issues. Of course […]

CLIMATE: National security concerns could spur Hill action — ex-DOD officials?

        This is a report by Environment & Energy Publishing of the panel I spoke on at the Atlantic Council event Climate Security: The Next ‘Battle Ground’? on June 17, 2015 in Washington DC The reporter misheard what I said about America. What I actually said was: ‘Winston Churchill, who had an American mother, once […]

WHAT NEXT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?

                  One useful piece of analysis has emerged from the media froth post-election. Labour lost because they offered nothing to the ‘aspirational middle class’. This is surely right. An awful lot of people were left out of a narrative that posed the […]

CHANGING THE GAME – A PROGRAMME FOR GOVERNMENT

  E3G is publishing ‘Changing the Game’ a 10 point programme for government that will put the environment to work for the economy.       For too long Britain’s environmentalists have asked British Governments to do more for the environment. It is now time to turn the tables and tell […]

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

  This essay argues that the oil industry will lose the battle for the future. The growth it expects will not occur. The key issue is whether the world makes an orderly or disorderly transition to a carbon neutral energy system. An orderly transition preserves both the economy and the […]

Solar is set to transform the global energy market – Podcast – Today Program BBC Radio 07/04/2015

                We have had a very inconsistent approach to renewables and deploying renewables in Britain. We are really starting to miss out and get left behind because of that inconsistency by government. It’s completely incoherent to complain about subsidies as the government did […]

TROUBLE AHEAD

  This piece first appeared in BusinessGreen       #         The political argument for trade liberalisation has always been that it is good for the economy. This argument was losing traction even when what was good for the economy was good for your wallet. Now that […]

OF NIGHTMARES AND PARROTS

  This piece was first published in BusinessGreen       Let me introduce you to the mysterious world of triads. This is not, however, an article about the exotic world of Hong Kong’s ill-famed criminal gangs. This is about the much more prosaic world of managing electricity bills. Triads […]

Tom Burke talks to Comment Visions about the costs and opportunities of climate change

  Talking to Comment Visions about the opportunities and costs of climate change.         Two important things about businesses; first of all for the energy businesses, the high carbon businesses are starting to get increasingly nervous about governments actually being willing to do more as the cost […]

STANDING OUR GROUND

  This piece was first published by Friends Of The Earth here       On a very cold morning forty years ago I got into a bright red Mini outside the FoE offices in Poland Street. Together with John Price, an Australian physics PhD, I was about to set […]