Environmentalist
We are world leaders in the sense that we have probably done more in this country to decarbonize our economy than has happened anywhere else in the world. So in that sense we are world leaders. We made the Climate Act, we set up the Climate Change Committee, and they […]
We will know quite soon how much of this extreme weather we are seeing can be attributed to climate change with what scientist call attribution. Our understanding of climate science now is sufficiently good for us to be able to say when there is an event like this, what is […]
The government is under real pressure to do something in advance of the Glasgow COP26 to show that is it walking the talk on climate change. There are an enormous range of things being discussed in Whitehall about how we do that. Obviously one of the key questions is what […]
I think people are building a mountain of speculation on not very much in the way of fact about what is actually being proposed…The government really needs to get beyond consulting, and actually get on with coming up with a policy to deploy these boilers, there is huge support for […]
The most important thing that the government can do is focus policy on energy efficiency, on wind and solar, and on storage of electricity and the management of the grid. At the moment it’s a bit of a “Boris blunderbuss”, there are a huge range of marginal things, rather than […]
Climate Policy failure is what David Attenborough was talking about. If we fail to keep the increase in temperature below 2 degrees centigrade, then what we are threatening is food, energy and water security, and if you can’t maintain food, energy and water security then you can’t maintain internal stability, […]
There are quite a small number of big things, like changing the transport system, and changing the energy system, where we need the state and business together to do big things for us. But there are a huge number of small things, none of which on its own makes a […]
I think that is a bit of an overstatement. It amounts to a to-do list for getting a green industrial revolution. But it doesn’t actually set out the pathway by which all of these ideas are going to be delivered to us. So hopefully in the budget and in the […]
I think the Prime Minister is right to recognise the enormous potential of offshore wind in the UK. It will be very good, not just for climate and for consumers, but also for the economy as a whole. But he does need to be careful not to overpromise. The wind […]
The Prime Minister’s speech last week was an underwhelming contribution to the green recovery. The credibility of this promise, and much else, depends on what the Chancellor has to say in his speech on Wednesday. Here are four tests the speech must pass if it is to fill the hole […]