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Tag Archives: Climate Change

The Government’s Pragmatic and Proportionate Approach to Net Zero


Last month, I wrote a blog post detailing the Government’s pragmatic approach to address climate change, considering what people can reasonably afford. I wrote: “We must recognise that we have a choice. We can either reduce our emissions and tackle climate change in a pragmatic and proportionate way, or we can follow Labour and give in to climate extremists who wish to reduce our living standards, overthrow capitalism, and who ignore the very climate science they claim to represent.” You […]

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A Pragmatic and Proportionate Approach to Tackling Climate Change


The new head of the UN’s IPCC climate panel, Jim Skea, has recently said that increases of 1.5 degrees do not pose the existential threat many politically motivated activists often claim, explaining that “the world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees”. I have long argued that the science should be presented accurately, and now implausibly high emissions scenarios should be treated as such. I was therefore pleased to see that the Scientific Steering Committee had taken […]

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The Government’s plan to “decarbonise the transport fleet”


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Following a Transport Committee oral evidence session on Low Carbon Vehicles, I have received a letter from the Minister, Norman Baker MP (no relation). It’s not necessary to reproduce the lot, but I do wonder if car enthusiasts, or indeed drivers generally, realise that: … the Carbon Plan 2011 showed that we need to virtually decarbonise the car fleet by 2050 and new cars by 2040 to meet our 2050 80% GHG reduction target. To have a reasonable chance of […]

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Book review: Popper, All Life is Problem Solving


Karl Popper’s All Life is Problem Solving is a wonderful collection of his speeches and shorter writings in two parts: Questions of natural science and Thoughts on history and politics. I first discovered Popper through The Open Society and its Enemies, a vehement defence of democracy against totalitarianism. Many of the themes he explored there are naturally to be found in this much slimmer book. Two particular ideas are relevant today: the logic and evolution of scientific theory and his […]

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The weather. QE. How can clever people be so wrong?


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As The Telegraph reported, in March the Met Office “slightly favoured drier than average conditions for April-May-June”. Yet we’ve had more rain than since records began. How could clever people be so wrong? Famously, the climate is a complex system. The usual example of how small changes in initial conditions can lead to large changes later is the theoretical hurricane caused by a butterfly flapping its wings. Complex systems can appear chaotic: the way they develop is so sensitive to their every detail […]

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Lord Lawson on Margaret Thatcher’s approach to coal, nuclear and carbon


Via The Australian: Lord Lawson, 79, has long been an outspoken critic of the direction of climate change politics, doubting the ability of world leaders to agree on co-ordinated action, instead favouring adaptation and development of new technologies to replace carbon-intensive power generation. Comments in Australia about Baroness Thatcher’s position as one of the pioneers of action against climate change were “not an accurate portrayal”, he said. “I was as close to Margaret Thatcher as anybody at the time. The fact […]

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Security is the building block of all energy policy


NB: this guest post is by Sophie Hirt, my Parliamentary Intern and the views expressed are her own. Security is the key issue at the heart of the Government’s energy outlook and will impact on all the decisions made by the Department of Energy and Climate Change for the foreseeable future. Security, it must be pointed out, is not just meant in the traditional, physical sense, though of course, this is a top priority. Security in this sense must be […]

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