Boris Johnson cut foreign aid and ruined our chances of Cop26 success – The Independent

On Tuesday the UK parliament voted in favour of setting out conditions for returning to 0.7 per cent aid target. The tests it agreed make it impossible that the cuts will be reversed ahead of the crucial Cop26 summit. Indeed, the UK has not met the key test of returning […]

Is the UK ready to deal with extreme weather? – GB News

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 […]

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 […]

How enthused should we be by what has been achieved at the G7? – Times Radio

We are running out of time to do things, as David Attenborough is telling us. We are not going to scale. I think leaders have got the idea of the urgency, and they have understood that we need to make the recovery a green recovery, and they have understood that […]

DUBLIN CLIMATE DIALOGUES

Session 3: The implications of an accelerated transition to #netzero: This session will explore the implications of carbon pricing, the creation of a Carbon Club of Nations to accelerate transition, and the impact on global trade and investment in a #netzero era. Is a Carbon Club of Nations – a […]

A carbon club?

Now that it is widely recognised that climate change does indeed pose an existential threat to civilisation, there is an accelerating search for new ideas about how best to respond. Not all of them are good. Many of these ideas are well-intentioned searches for ways to accelerate the agonisingly slow […]

Hydrogen kaleidoscope comes into focus

It has now become commonplace for commentators to argue that climate change is an even greater threat to our future wellbeing than the pandemic. This has added to its potency as a factor shaping any forward look at the energy sector. There are now animated discussions in every major capital […]

Have BP got it right about the future of oil? – LBC

I think that BP are right about the future of oil. Amongst the international oil companies, they have put themselves out in front of realising that change is coming. Big change is coming, and they have positioned themselves very well. I noticed that, the other week, BP got praise from […]

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 […]

The Politics of Climate Change

This article was first published by the Oracle Partnership as one of a series of essays on climate change. 2019 is the year the global conversation on the climate changed. The children’s climate strikes, the arrival of Extinction Rebellion, the EU’s Green New Deal and the importance of climate change […]