Environmentalist
The fate of the climate and the future of the law are intimately entangled. The rule of law is a crucial precondition for the success of climate policy. Climate policy failure is not inevitable but it is imminent. Avoiding failure means an end to the burning of fossil fuels by […]
This announcement by China, that it will no longer finance coal projects abroad, is certainly a very important development, even more so because it was a bit unexpected. I think is has helped to change the tone of the conversation ahead pf COP26. It was getting to be a bit […]
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 […]
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 […]
One of the hardest truths about the pandemic which so abruptly cancelled everyone’s future plans is that, even now, we do not fully understand what this means. Despite a colossal global effort we are still some way from being confident of being able to ensure public health as we release […]
One of the things that has become very clear, in the last five years or so, is that we have a serious problem, not just with bees, but with insect life in general. We are seeing massive declines in insect populations, and they are extraordinarily important because they play a […]
If what you want to do is to get your economy to recover really fast, what you have got do to is restore purchasing power. That is your top priory. That means putting people back into jobs right away. The quickest and best way to do that, is to improve […]
Civilisation is the thin film of order we build around the chaos of events. Courtesy of a coronavirus we are now getting a chilling reminder of just how thin that film is. It would have been inconceivable a few weeks ago that a microscopic assemblage of lipids, proteins and ribonucleic […]
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 […]
I did an interview for LBC on Saturday 12th October with Clive Bull. The discussion was “Are Extinction Rebellion protesters just annoying, or are they informing, and making a point?” Here are some excerpts from the interview: The protesters are doing a good job of getting people’s attention, which is […]