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 […]

‘IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID’

                    When the debate on the Fourth Carbon Budget began in Whitehall in 2012 the Treasury had a clear view. No. Meeting its requirements would be too damaging to Britain’s economy. How did they know this? Their model of the economy […]

Tusk – not as bad for climate as it first appears?

  This piece first appeared on the E3G website                     The appointment of Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, to replace Van Rompuy as President of the European Council has provoked jitters within Europe’s environment community. No-one would ever have described Poland […]

THE FRAGILE CITY AND THE RISK NEXUS

                          This is a new short book I have written with leading urbanist Charles Landry. It brings together for the first time two disconnected narratives. The first is about the future of the cities in which half the […]

THE FUTURE IS COMING READY OR NOT

  The following speech talks about the looming collision between $6 trillion of investment in oil and gas over the next ten years and the agreement by governments to keep the rise in global temperature below 2°C. This collision will transform the human prospect. It poses a dilemma for governments […]

MAKERS AND TAKERS

  This article first appeared in Business Green.        The public discourse on climate policy is asymmetric. It has been dominated by the climate makers. These are the fossil fuel industries and their customers. This has led to a badly distorted portrayal of climate policy risk. As a […]

Shale gas: four myths and a truth

                                                Some argue that the solution to rising energy prices and energy security concerns lies not in cutting demand for energy imports by improving energy efficiency whilst […]

Discussing Climate Change and Floods – BBC Radio 2 – 14th February 2014

  Discussing climate change and floods – BBC Radio 2 with Jeremy Vine – 14th February 2014 “A way to think about what we are experiencing now is this; this is the trailer for climate change the movie, if you don’t like the trailer then you probably won’t like the […]

Remarks by Tom Burke CBE – All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG) – House Of Commons

      REMARKS BY TOM BURKE CBE AT THE ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY CLIMATE CHANGE GROUP (APPCCG), COMMITTEE ROOM 12, HOUSE OF COMMONS, WEDNESDAY 27TH NOVEMBER 2013.   There are a number of ways in which climate change is unusual among the problems we face. We know exactly what we need […]