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 […]

Energy Transition Commission – some considerations

  Shell and McKinsey have just launched a global initiative called the Energy Transition Commission. Doubts have been raised about whether the Commission as currently constructed has the integrity to make a positive contribution to the debate on how to keep the climate safe. There is a risk that this […]

Climate Security: The Next ‘Battle Ground’? – Atlantic Council event – June 17, 2015

I will be speaking at the Atlantic Council event Climate Security: The Next ‘Battle Ground’? on June 17, 2015 in Washington DC.             As the international community heads to COP21 in Paris this December, much of the public discourse focuses on the relationship between climate and the environment. […]

G7 fossil fuel pledge is a diplomatic coup for Germany’s ‘climate chancellor’ – The Guardian

  I was quoted extensively in an article in The Guardian by Karl Mathiesen on why the plan outlined by the G7 on Monday to phase out fossil fuels by the end of the century is, for some member countries, not quite as ambitious as it sounds.       Tom […]

What environmental issues does the next government need to address?

              What environmental issues does the next government need to address? With representatives of the main parties set to outline their green agenda, this week we look at the key policies and areas the environmental community want them to look at. Rob Comba spoke […]

After you Claude

                    Britons only generate 1.42% of the world’s carbon emissions. No-one else is doing much to reduce their emissions. We are doing a lot and should not do more until everyone else joins in. This is the facile, Treasury inspired, argument […]

‘Events, dear boy, events’ have put climate change back on the agenda

  This article piece first appeared in The Guardian on Wednesday 26 March 2014 The decline of climate change on leaders’ agendas has been reversed – not by new analysis, but two years of extreme weather                   British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, […]

Shooting Labour’s energy freeze fox

                    You could not make this up. In order to cut energy bills the government has just announced it will cut one of its top policies to, uh, cut energy bills. Of course, that is not what it is saying. But […]