Yesterday in the Commons I raised the issue of the costs of both the nature and habitats policy we were legislating and the much higher costs of the planned transition to net zero carbon dioxide. I will be saying and doing more about this in the long run up to COIP 26. I will post this morning my two speeches on the Report Stage and Third Reading of the Environment Bill which contain more of the detail.
As the government starts to translate a net zero 2050 target into a set of shorter term and more specific targets we need to explore the impact these will have on jobs, total output and incomes and public spending. My main contention with government is that they can only realistically go for a successful green transition on cars, boilers and the rest as and when there are affordable good products that people want to buy because they offer us something as good or better than what we currently have.
May 27, 2021
The government will tax ice cars and gas boilers to oblivion in order to incentivise the shift.
Perfectly serviceable items will be scrapped. What’s green about that ?
People have already embraced greenism and bought into energy saving devices and biodegradables.
This next step is going to come with a huge amount of pain and resentment.
There will be violence over charging points and over the division between haves and have nots.
You simply cannot take things away from people that have already been taken for granted.
May 27, 2021
Net zero. The whole idea is absurd. Only fanatical zealots support such nonsense. It will destroy our economy. Perhaps that is the real aim of those who advocate it.
May 27, 2021
Germany commissioning Nord Streaming. Can you really see them shutting it down after a few years.
They’re still commissioning lignite fired power stations.
You’re hating a laugh.
May 27, 2021
China and India are laughing their heads off
May 27, 2021
Cynic
Yes, destroy our economy looks like a end result of what is being planned.
If somebody doesn’t start to apply reason and common sense it will all end in tears and the people will take to the streets. The basic question asks. Who stands to make the most out of this?
May 27, 2021
When I hear the zealots advocating population control, then I will believe they mean what they say rather than just using climate as a means of control.
First World countries already can’t afford to breed but the third world can’t afford not to.
May 27, 2021
Your generation may resent it. Mine doesnât. Nor does my childrenâs generation.
All we resent is those desperate to continuing harming the planet to try to prove a political point they lost 30 years ago.
May 27, 2021
How are you making these points to China, India, USA, Germany etc?
Why not go and protest !
May 27, 2021
The new CO2 devil gas religion has indeed taken political hold, but it is clearly duff and bogus science. It is a group think religion of virtue signalling people who simply do not understand any real science. Further driven by a desire in governments to justify even more taxation and by, often corrupt, vested interests. The usual religious con trick âif you are good today, worship our rotating crosses, and pay the church a fortune you will have heaven later and feel good about itâ.
Reported yesterday a UK break through in fusion technology. Once we get practical fusion reactors (as we surely will) we have almost limitless energy and this can be used to give all the fresh water the world needs and could also be used to extract atmospheric CO2 (not that this is needed). It could also be used to synthesise fuel cell fuels, jet fuel and ICU fuels and to grow crops with artificial light anywhere. Wind-farms will surely become as redundant as windmills are now. The absurd carbon religion will logically die, it should never have been born.
But then it will just reinvent itself due to the large proportion of gullible dopes around who will fall for this guff.
May 27, 2021
Doesn’t fusion technology need electricity for it’s magnets (coils etc.) so how much CO2 is produced for that? And what will the electricity cost be KWh? Hope it’ll be reasonable.
May 27, 2021
The Q âenergy gain factorâ is the ratio between the energy produced and that used to sustain the reactor. Since the â50s when the idea of fusion was introduced as a potential source of unlimited energy, various experimental designs in multiple countries have only been able to get to a Q of 1 from micro-seconds to 70 seconds (KSTAR Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) in December 2016. People in the know of those things think that a Q of 5 is required to get a sustained nuclear fusion reaction for âusableâ electricity purposes.
A lot of scientists are working towards that goal all around the world including in the UK.
Given that currently the temperature inside such a reactor gets to 1 million degrees, the recent UK experiment showing a potential to âpositively useâ this incredible heat is certainly a major advance.
The latest âforecastâ for attaining such a goal is now set to end 2030s-beginning 2040s.
May 28, 2021
Yes but it generates far more electricity than is needed to do this once it is fired up.
May 27, 2021
Your generation and your children’s generation?
Would those be the ‘caring’ generations that think it’s ok to go to outdoor rock concerts or hold open-air political rallies and leave behind mountains of detritus because it’s so awesomely difficult to dispose of a bag of rubbish, darling, isn’t it, by taking it home with you?
May 27, 2021
and the take-away rubbish in every town centre, and the white-van man throwing lunch stuff out of his van window, the excess food waste because easy come, easy go attitude of the young or middle aged. The throw away clothes and trainers after hardly being worn….I could go on. but Andy you wouldn’t listen.
May 27, 2021
Bullshit.
May 28, 2021
Why bullshit, or are you unable to elaborate?
May 27, 2021
If your generation doesn’t resent it it’s because they are thinking with their hearts and not their heads. Your children’s generation will pick up the bill butthis time they will blame your generation not mine.
Old Guys Rule!
May 27, 2021
I think you’re mistaking *social class* for *generation*, Andy. (I am 10 years older than you btw)
This will create the most obvious and visible divisions and inequalities since Downton Abbey days and will do so in the timescale of about 5 years.
Most people will be unable to afford the basic things that you will have. They will be impoverished
How do you think that is going to go down ? Have you planned for the expense and inconvenience of having to arrange private protection ?
(My carbon footprint is a lot less than yours.)
May 27, 2021
It’s probably why he harps on about losing freedom of movement so much. He hopes to leave if soon it gets dangerous and difficult
May 27, 2021
Exactly. The whole policy is insane economically, environmentally, in energy engineering terms and politically! It will cost ÂŁ Trillions and achieve nothing but harm.
You say – “Perfectly serviceable items will be scrapped. Whatâs green about that ?” what indeed. If you keep an old ICE car rather than buying a new electric one you actually save C02 in nearly all cases by not causing a new (rather impractical for most) electric car and expensive battery to be produced. You still have to produce all the electricity to charge them too.
May 27, 2021
Agreed, and old ICE car which does less than what is called average miles per year is far, far greener than a new electric one that does similar mileage.
I forecast that government will however be using penalising taxation on petrol and diesel fuels, as well as many so called low emission zones to try and force people into submission. Motoring will only be for those who can afford it !
After losing an estimated (it is reported) ÂŁ35 Billion a year ICE fuel tax income, what will they do then, tax electric charging points, or simply put up the cost of electricity, when there is no other option.
Has the government actually done any calculations on the comparable efficiency of heating a house with a modern gas boiler against electricity. No I guess not, otherwise they would forget the idea of electric power.
May 27, 2021
Lets be honest – only the rich can afford to be GREEN
May 27, 2021
They may be able to AFFORD it but their actual lifestyle is NOT green.
May 27, 2021
Youâre correct Fedupsoutherner. I should have written â âonly the rich expect the working class to go GREENâ
May 27, 2021
Lifelogic
How many of our politicians actually realise or care about the child labour abuses to mine the raw earth necessary minerals?
You could count them on your two hands if your lucky.
May 27, 2021
Yes. I wonder if Andy worries about those children Turbo. He’s always going on about his children’s welfare. Don’t other children deserve protection from harm?
May 27, 2021
+10
May 27, 2021
UK Net Zero is going even further than the EU proposed. So much for the âBrexit Dividendâ and itâs supposed economic benefit. And all this because our carbon emissions are just 1 percent of the global total with Net Zero making no impact at all on the climate – which is after all a global phenomenon. You couldnât make it up.
May 27, 2021
Weâre on this journey because of a special advisor call Carrie
May 28, 2021
It seem so. It will be far worse than the poll tax (at least 10 times the cost per year). Once people realise what it actually means and what it costs and all for zero benefit it will be a disaster politically, economically and achieve nothing.
May 27, 2021
“You simply cannot take things away from people that have already been taken for granted”
ICE vehicles are “perfectly serviceable” only because the fuel is available.
So, which of our children and grandchildren will we be sending to the many wars as competition over the relatively easy hydrocarbons heats up?
You are taking for granted that all the materials your products require are inexhaustible or will always be sustainably and cheaply accessible – which they are not.
May 27, 2021
The peak oil theory predicted several times in th 20th century that oil would run out.
It never happened.
In fact we are awash with oil in 2021
May 27, 2021
“We” are not “awash” with oil, it is elsewhere and the people who control where it is are not necessarily friendly or will remain so.
Do you know where our oil and gas come from now?
Do you think competition will not increase, or will you simply ban aspirations to a Western lifestyle in developing countries?
Oil and gas are not the only issue, other resources do not have an endless supply.
May 27, 2021
dixie,
That isn’t correct, oil reserves are greater now than ever.
Greens have been predicting oil would run out every decade for the last 50 years.
Every doomsday prediction has failed.
The Middle East’s power has diminished as America recently became self sufficient.
The price of a barrel of oil on world markets shows you are wrong.
May 27, 2021
Friendly big oil find off the Falkland Island; another big oil find off Bermuda and a big shale gas find in UK
May 27, 2021
@ Peter2 what isn’t correct?
And what has peak oil to do with it? In 2019 our major sources of oil were Norway, USA, Algeria, Russia, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia I don’t see the UK North Sea in that list.
May 27, 2021
Dixue
You originally said fossil fuels would run out.
Despite many false predictions over decades here we are with no shortages in sight.
With numerous competing suppliers very happy to sell to the UK.
May 28, 2021
@Peter2
I didn’t say “run out” and you are misinterpreting the close to last thing I said, not the first.
We’ll see how happy people are to sell us stuff at economic leves as our currency is devalued and competition for resources heats up.
BTW, lots of other resources are getting harder to find and our government hasn’t even figured out what our strategic material requirements are, they are well behind everyone else so I have no faith in them putting in the appropriate planning or provision for anything at all really.
May 28, 2021
There is a well established global market for oil.
Nations with are keen to sell it because it provides them with their main or only source of income.
Attempts to use oil as a weapon against America and the West by restricting supplies, as was tried in the 1970s wouldn’t work today due to America being self sufficient and a bigger supplier of gas and oil than even Saudi Arabia.
There are now huge oil reserves with huge new deposits being discovered.
There is however a greater chance of it happening with rare minerals needed for electric cars
May 27, 2021
No Longer Anonymous
+1
May 27, 2021
Good morning,
Thank you Sir john for your efforts but, I am afraid they will be in vain. You see, there are powers much higher up that are driving this train and no amount of reasonable thinking is going to change the direction of travel. Certainly not while there is big money to be made.
May 27, 2021
Mark, correct. I said this with the fight in Scotland over the saturation of landscapes with wind farms.
May 27, 2021
Some truth in this and almost all political parties, the BBC, many well funded so called âCharitiesâ and most large businesses are backing all this group think insanity.
Allister Heath today:- Covid could yet destroy the PM, but not in the way Cummings expects
A looming health, social and education catastrophe caused by the pandemic is the real threat to Boris
He is right and this mad and pointless war on plant, crop and tree food a further insane catastrophe piled on top of these issues (by Carrie?). Put the ÂŁtrillions into fusion and other nuclear R&D, fracking and other sensible R&D not the enforced & insane roll out of duff, premature, ineffective, limited, hugely expensive & intermittent technology.
May 27, 2021
Mark,
you are so spot on.
And to think that talk of such was dismissed ( deleted even) as conspiracy theories not long ago!
They answer to higher masters who promise more!
May 27, 2021
Mark B
Oh how I remember those halcyon days when Agenda 21 was nonsense and speculative doomsday crap. The UN far outreaching their original purpose and mandate. Told I was being stupid listening to such conspiracies
Yea right. It is beginning to look all a bit different now. You are so right about powerful forces at work. This agenda has been planned for years.
May 27, 2021
” Oh Lord make me chaste but not yet “.Bozo loves a jolly undertaking doesn`t he, promises now, abstinence later. Hose country with borrowed cash and let the next guy pick up the bill, promise a magic N Ireland border…… hope to wriggle out of it later. This is called a “pattern of behaviour .
That pattern is repeated with the endless sanctimony gushing into the public domain on the environment .Big..I said BIG promises . In terms of real progress road transport in the UK releases the same amount of greenhouse gases as it did in 1990 and Johnson`s intention to spend another ÂŁ27bn on roads show that savings the planet is some way beneath having breakfast, on his to do list. Every airport has plans to expand!
So why so gung ho on cars …well if I had just destroyed the automotive industries future a good wheeze might be to make the rest of us play for a new one and greenwash the whole disaster and ( you guessed it ) leave the problems for the next guy.
(Sir John, less wrong than usual overall which , ranks with ‘Mussolini is my least disliked Axis leader’ , as a faint praise.)
May 27, 2021
The last (at least) 3 Governments have left ‘ the whole disaster and ( you guessed it ) leave the problems for the next’.
May 27, 2021
Really, one wonders how things were allowed to come to such a pretty pass.
Looking back though, has any government ever delivered much more than 15 years of stability?
And what of happiness?
Self-serving, liars.
May 27, 2021
I think it’s more to do with his partner’s influence.
May 27, 2021
N L A
You may be right. The man is a kipper and all his fillets are following him. Two-faced and gutless. When I look at those members banished to the backbenches with far more experience and ability it just makes me weep, not for me but this country.
May 27, 2021
Your main and final contention is absolutely correct. The alternative which government are persuing will destroy industry and jobs by closure or the emmigration of industry. Politically it will cost them dearly.
Not many in the UK are against a cleaner healthier land in the widest sense of the words. However they will be very unforgiving if the solution is dictated by a scientifically and engineering illiterate bunch of politicians in Westminster driven by a desire to placate an equally illiterate cabal in other parts of the World. China must be laughing all the way to the bank, knowing they will predominate by default.
The extreme direction in government is driven by the same thinking as the Green Party, who when exposed to the electorate produce one MP. In effect they will produce the same political vacumm as existed before Brexit. Politicos of all colours saying how wonderful the EU was and the electorate thinking the opposite. That vacumm will get filled by people who believe in the more measured approach as indicated in your last paragraph. The ERG of common sense that needs to begin spelling out the reality and folly of current government , now.
May 27, 2021
The government is enagaged in a lemming-like dash to and over the cliff edge. And it is all based on dodgy data.
May 27, 2021
Oldtimer
+1
May 27, 2021
Its another âhockey stickâ event
May 27, 2021
Before the CO2 fuss, I always thought exhaustion of oil fields would be what would bring to an end the oil economy. In those circumstances, I supposed there would be wars cropping up as countries fought for what was left, with the US particularly doing “whatever it takes” to secure supplies so Americans can fill their cars with gas(oline).
I never imagined the western world would precipitate the calamity willingly. I suppose it’s a good thing that alternatives to oil are being explored, which needs to be done anyway.
May 27, 2021
I think the rush to electrification IS about oil; it will run out sooner or later and so we have to redirect humankind to develop other forms of energy production before it does. We’ve been persuaded that climate change (a natural process) is man made by burning fossil fuels. Perhaps; the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, at about 0.04%, is up from 0.028% in the 1750’s. Well, IF somebody can prove a 0.012% change in our atmosphere will have any measurable effect I’d like to see it.
May 27, 2021
The cost of going green is big.
The cost of not going green is bigger.
May 27, 2021
Both baseless slogans.
May 27, 2021
The cost will be several ÂŁtrillions, but it is not green and will do far more harm than good. There are millions of better ways to spent this money than on EVs, wind farms, battery material mining, heat pumps, replacing gas boilers … the agenda is totally mad. Many way that save millions of lives now see Bjorn Lomborgâs book.
Extra CO2 is actually greens the planet very nicely, it is after all plant, crop and tree food and the source of the oxygen we all breath. There is no Climate Emergency at all a little extra CO2 is actually a net benefit on balance.
May 27, 2021
Trillions spent to reduce the average annual temperature by perjaps half a degree.
May 27, 2021
Look out the window….the weather climate cycle hasn’t changed in my life time
May 27, 2021
You won’t be paying the full price of going green, Andy.
How I love being lectured by someone who buys a 70k electric car and snipes at me for recycling a 2.5k 1000cc zero tax 5-year-old petrol and keeps it on the road for 10 years.
Your hypocrisy is going to become very visible to everyone in the next 5 years or so – I hope you’re ready to live a gated life because what you and Boris are advocating is social inequalities the likes of which we’ve not seen for generations.
You’ll be a ‘Have’ in a world of ‘Have Nots’ and will not be able to show your face.
Lead by example. Go Zero Carbon and not ‘net’ Zero. Share the austerity with us. Show us how it’s done.
May 27, 2021
Spot On
May 27, 2021
All based on a one degree rise in earths temperature over the last 100+ years …………….
May 27, 2021
One degree C represents a really tremendous amount of heat that has been absorbed by our planet.
Below is a NASA website link with interesting facts about this phenomenon
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
May 27, 2021
and which countries are to blame, and must immediately correct their behaviour?
May 27, 2021
Good Morning Sakara,
You haven’t yet answered my question on the rise in sea level consequent on the Arctic ice pack melting.
I wouldn’t believe everything you read about Climatology if I were you but if you want some balance have a read of Ben Pile’s Blog.
Have a nice day.
May 27, 2021
Sakara Gold.
All the information is fed into computers and depending on who is controlling the whole process they can make it come out with whatever they want. Dodgy data in dodgy data out.
Mother earth will do what it wants but even she is controlled by the sun.
May 27, 2021
Big deal, Sakara. ‘The Medieval Warm Period was approximately 1 °C warmer than present’ also (K.M. Cuffey, in Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, 2nd Edition, 2013). That was a time of increasing population and prosperity after the Dark Ages that preceded it. People seem to have coped pretty well.
But then again, there was no Internet or social media at that time…
May 28, 2021
SK
A hundred years is a geological blink of an eye.
Do you think the average global temperature has remained static since this planet started?
May 27, 2021
Which is entirely within normal variation and much of it due to measurements taken in the naturally hotter new urban heat effect areas.
May 27, 2021
As obviously is the case of buoys moored in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array, isnât it?
Oops, sorry, I had forgotten that you are the Know-It-All in all scientific things, scusi.
May 27, 2021
Cut some of Dido Harding’s completely useless Test and Trace ÂŁ38 billions to pay for it. The tremendous costs associated with doing nothing in response to the climate crisis that is upon us would be far, far worse.
May 27, 2021
Doing nothing and spending the money on sensible things instead is hugely preferable. There is no climate emergency. CO2 is not some world thermostat, just one of millions of factors that affect climate most are not even know or knowable or predictable. CO2 is not even the main greenhouse gas!
May 27, 2021
ÂŁ1 million spent now on a red group of about ten sensible climate realists, physicist, energy engineers, nuclear power specialists… to debunk the obviously bogus group think âscienceâ & the mad climate alarmist religion would save about ÂŁ2 trillion. That is rather a brilliant investment a 100,000,000% return. It seems however that they really do want to piss this ÂŁ2trillion + down the drain.
May 27, 2021
LL, donât worry, much more than that has already been spent by the Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, George Marshall Institute, Americans for Prosperity to finance the âGlobal Climate Coalitionâ and the âGlobal Climate Science Communications Action Planâ. And thatâs only for the USA.
May 27, 2021
Sakara,
38 billion is trivial.
Greens want trillions spending.
May 27, 2021
Both environmental policy and the devolution issues raised yesterday seem to be fixtures that no amount of questioning or criticism will change.
When SNP replaced Labour as the main party in Scotland then devolution became a central aim that will not go away despite the referendum.
Environmental issues are driven by global agreements that British politicians are unwilling to challenge.
Meanwhile the focus was on Dominic Cummings yesterday, though I get the feeling that Boris Johnson, with a large majority and a weak Labour Party, will survive the various accusations.
May 27, 2021
For an aspergic, tunnel-visioned, obsessive, Cummings was surprisingly inconsistent. And because he was up before a remainiac committee of political rivals, his inconsistency wasn’t tested. For example, on borders, which he thought should have been slammed shut in January: he praises up Vallance, Raab, and Sunak, again and again, yet they were all in favour of keeping the borders open. He doesn’t once mention the Home Secretary who wanted them shut. If he had got his way, then 4 million or more British people would have been shut out of the country. How long for? A year? Two years? And the old and frail among them – what would have happened to them? Just imagine the fuss in the media if a whole lot of British Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Africans had died of the plague through being shut out of Britain, or died of something else through lack of treatment.
It became clear, as we already knew, that the PM sees all the ramifications and Cummings does not. No wonder they didn’t agree.
Another inconsistency in Cummings’s evidence was his treatment of Hancock. Cummings said correctly that the system of government does not make for good government, especially in an emergency, because ministers are not able to hire and fire the permanent staff, and there is a culture of risk aversion. But then he goes on to lacerate Hancock as if he had control of the D of H which he does not. Nor can he control the hospitals, the 26,000 NHS managers, or the ten thousand private nursing homes under the supervision of local government, let alone the ones in Scotland which had the highest death rate from the coronavirus in the whole of Europe. Cummings said, correctly, the DoH was a smoking ruin. What was Hancock supposed to do about it? Only by setting the 100,000 target could he get it to wake up. Gove and Priti Patel have taken on their departments. Gove got moved on and Priti Patel is facing the sack from a judicial activist. Hancock took the irenic path, which most ministers do, of trying to work with the department and defending it, which in effect means a certain amount of covering up.
When Cummings mentioned the inadequate preparations inherited from the past – which would have been interesting to hear about, Hunt speedily shut him up and embarked on a quick character assassination of Cummings as a diversion. It worked.
May 27, 2021
Strange that Cummings never mentioned the floods and never mentioned Gove. After about seven hours someone asked him about Gove and he managed to give an unmemorable answer.
May 27, 2021
The point of this (or at least the way Cummings’ outpourings will be used) is to imperil Freedom Day.
The CV-19 crisis is a commie’s wet dream come true.
They don’t want the vaccine to succeed. The refuseniks can be largely defined on minority lines and the use of infection rates as opposed to miniscule death and hospitalisation rates will be weighted on race and accusations of racism. The accusations that Boris said of bodies ‘pile ’em high’ will be used to make him bottle out of freeing the general population.
Boris is tainted. He needs to go.
But then he’s an election winning dream for the Tories and the survival of that ghastly party trumps the survival of society and our way of life itself.
May 27, 2021
Remind us all again why exactly do people vote for your party?
Ever since 2010 you have taken the urine out of Tory voters by offering a free-lunch before every GE and then ramming through progressive and authoritarian policies when in government (with the vote unable to oppose them) to placate and appease every lobby group that poses a threat to the reputation and brand identity of your party. If that isn’t rank and sneaky deceit then I don’t know what is
On every single issue from the environment,. racial issues, immigration, progressive poison (‘we intend to rub the Tories nose in diversity’), religion, green nonsense.
Every Tory initiative has been sneaked through AFTER a General Election. This is deliberate and deeply offensive
And now the Obama-Harris puppet Biden’s upping the pressure on this most vacuous PM regarding further oppressive policies on decarbonisation it seems we have to be exposed to the vileness and bigotry and the grotesque Democrats who have become so extreme in their politics that it defies belief that they have become a threat to our very being
I see China, India and Russia aren’t embracing this Green bullshit
When Gove said ‘Greta Thurnberg is our conscience’ I was nearly sick. She’s a 15 year old child for god’s sake that has been groomed by a vile international cabal of parasites. That’s how far your party has fallen.
The problem is that your party now believes in the square root of NOTHING except protecting your party from harm and passing on the cost onto the people in higher taxes and racially infused authoritarian poison
thanks Mr Johnson for nowt
May 27, 2021
Thankfully there are more snd more articles getting into the mainstream narrative challenging the prohibitively high costs and the impractical net zero.
And if what I read some months ago is true, that Chinese scientists are concerned about a Solar minimum due sometime in the next 30 or 40 years⊠wonât we be in a good place to cope with cooler temperatures? But China will be, and Russia and Germany all who are increasing their coal fired capacity of energy power.
May 27, 2021
We are already in the solar minimum where sunspot activity is rare – hence the snowy weather that has fallen in so many places along with a chilly spring and ice caps that are growing, can be attributed to the lack of warmth from the sun.
All we get from the media who want to tell us our planet is heating up, are high temperatures when they are often not in sight.
Many crops are being ruined by unseasonal snow – something we should see being planned for as the solar minimum will be with us for years – If only we did have global warming, it would really help now.
May 27, 2021
Good Morning Sharon, you make a fair point. Examination of ice cores and other Geological factors have apparently produced evidence of temperature fluctuations on our planet over thousands of years, all before the industrial revolution and some even before the existence of Homo Sapiens.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with recycling non bio-degradable materials. There is nothing wrong with reducing pollution and assisting the natural world to flourish. None of this requires slavishly following the insane cult that is ‘Climate Extinction’ or ‘Nett Zero’.
There is no Climate Emergency!
May 27, 2021
+1
May 27, 2021
+10
May 27, 2021
@Sharon – How else are China, Russia and Germany going to be able to replace the commodities the UK needs?
May 27, 2021
Quite right: rather than breaking ourselves to puff the CO2 cult, we should be preparing for climate change, both warmer and cooler, and especially wetter. We should be preparing especially for flooding. This means not bringing in millions of extra people, not building on flood plains, but pulling people back from the coast and maintaining our defences as the Dutch taught us to do in centuries past. When the next ice age comes along, as it surely will, we won’t be able to stop it. Nor can we stop the sun doing what it does.
May 27, 2021
I remember in the 70s being told there was going to be another mini ice age. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
The UN climate alarmist are saying in todays paper we only have 5 years to save the world. That’s on top of the previous 10 and the 10 before it.
May 27, 2021
+1
Indeed – we’ve had that old record playing so many times it really is badly scratched
May 27, 2021
Something Iâve just heard on the radio reminded me that the green agenda always seems to be a socialist approachâŠ. being told what can be done/used to achieve net zero.
With China funding some of the green activist organisations- weâre being played!
May 27, 2021
I think the key words in todayâs topic are
Affordable good products
Many times Iâve commented that CO2 reduction can only realistically be achieved through new technology engineering and science. This allows an evolutionary move from fossil fuels to non fossil fuels.
Off topic if I May
Gov special advisors are appointed for their skills they have a contract.
They are professional people in their own right and this profession comes with responsibility.
Many things are often said in closed meetings and itâs essential to be able to speak freely. This is not Gov policy decisions itâs simply exploring all options.
Certain information has been drip fed to the media prior to a select committee meeting so in effect influencing the agenda and questions prior to the meeting.
Whistle blowing is one thing
Sweeping generalisation statements are some thing else.
There are many aspects of Gov that I disagree with. However any one who works or has worked in Gov has a code of conduct both in and out of Gov.
May 27, 2021
“…we need to explore the impact these [targets] will have on jobs, total output and incomes and public spending…”
Not forgetting the impact they will have on the cornerstone factor, quality of life. It is my preference to append “aka the Great Leap Backward” to the phrase “Net Zero” for that very reason.
May 27, 2021
Almost every day we are being told we will have to endure some privation for climate change, not heat our homes, not drive cars unless you can afford a ludicrously expensive electric one (though it has the same carbon foot print ) , can’t eat meat, should eat insects , it is as if some out of control Puritans have got control of the British state and intending to make our lives as miserable as possible. On the other hand we have an immigration and asylum policy that makes out we have unlimited resources to accommodate unlimited numbers of people.
Being a simple soul I do not see how these policy contradictions can add up, eking out resources like a miser one moment, telling everyone in the world to come on over the next.
May 27, 2021
“The costs of environmental policies”
It would appear to be a Government Policy to export UK Industry and Jobs, then re-import the finished product from those countries that are not chasing these romantic left wing dreams. Or in other words the UK economy is not our problem we the Government can earn revenue by increasing taxes for the millions of the State Employed.
May 27, 2021
The economy of 67million people has to furnish a ‘Green World’ for the 7 Billion. Cloud Cuckoo Land is here in the UK, a Metro Dream World by a PM frightened of the people and needs to punish and control to keep them in Check.
Yes Folks welcome to 1984.
May 27, 2021
I think you mean a sequel which is way, way more alarming than the original?
It would frighten Eric Blair who wrote it.
May 27, 2021
I believe we have more to fear from natural causes. Mankind will be wiped out to be replaced by other creatures who survive some cataclysmic event. Yellowstone erupts every 600 years and cuts out sunlight for 3-4 years.
There is a massive meteor out there with our name on it.
So relax and enjoy while we can.
May 27, 2021
Should be 6000 years
May 27, 2021
The biggest problem is that there is no effective opposition querying the Green Crap agenda.
Whenever all political parties are signed up to a policy, you get bad outcomes. In this case, the voting general public have not yet grasped the full cost of what is proposed, particularly for home heating and power. WHen they do, they will not take it up willingly. So, will any government be brave enough to increase taxes on petrol, diesel and gas to enforce a switch to technologies that are both inconvenient and unaffordable for the average family ?
Cars can wait : most people will make sure they have a decent petrol, diesel of Hybrid car in 2035 so they will be safe until at least 2040 by when fuel cell and/or battery technology might hopefully have caught up with our expectations.
Home heating is quite another subject as all the alternatives are either grossly ineffective, or require hugely expensive and unwelcome changes to older homes.
May 27, 2021
it is a complete nonsense to be supporting new industrial processes here, like battery production, which have significant pollution and environmental challenges, when we have already forced other broadly similar pollution challenges production to move abroad with our crazy overly expensive anti pollution measures. its not joined up thinking.
we forced optical fibre production to move abroad, for instance, and now we want battery production here? its hypocritical and ill thought through. social manipulation by politicians who have not got a clue.
May 27, 2021
Sadly, I think you will be wasting precious breath.
They will take no notice of sanity but choose the route which brings about maximum hardship, chaos and misery. Not to mention jobs and vast profits for the boys.
They are unredeemable…look at them now.
May 27, 2021
âThe basic rate of income tax will be raised to 30%. As will VAT, in order to pay for green projects.â (Budget 2022)
Letâs hear some honesty.
The case has not been made for any of these green initiatives – not one.
May 27, 2021
These fanciful dreams by an out of touch out of control Government, would gather credence if in the first instance all State Controlled vehicles and transport went ‘Green’. Followed by all people receiving taxpayer money in what ever form, went ‘Green’ with their own modes of transport. Then add to the list of ensuring all State buildings, their heating and lighting went ‘Green’. Again followed by all those being paid or subsidised by the taxpayer reacting and for filling the Government wish list in their own homes, this should happen before the population at large are even asked. With the overriding principle that none of the expenditure should hit the ‘taxpayers’ pockets.
The problems are we are not all in this together. We have a Government that because of the war on Covid had to go outside the norms of freedoms and democracy, now wants to continue with this ultimate power and re-shape the Country to fit its Metro Left Wing ideology.
The UK as a whole is punished by an ideology and cost that was never voted for, by a Government that panders to the few.
May 27, 2021
We don’t need to read the
to know that it will be a disaster for the average person – This is based just on what green dogma now passes for government policy.
It seems the government is intent on us bearing the cost of their heavy handed and utterly mistaken policies, no matter that they have gotten this alleged emergency totally wrong!
They want to impose heat sinks on every household at a huge cost to the householder while making energy ever more expensive – This will result in ruination for many, never mind the expense associated with electric cars.
What are they trying to do to us? They treat us like cattle.
Rather than global warming we have cooling, thanks to the sun going into a quiet period — The government would be far better off planning for a lack of food as the cold weather will inhibit plant growth – and then we will need all the Co2 we can get to keep the Earth producing our food.
May 27, 2021
You are operating under a false premise – “… can only realistically go for a successful green transition on cars, boilers and the rest as and when there are affordable good products that people want to buy because they offer us something as good or better than what we currently have.”
But what if the materials and resources availability dwindles and that you can no longer have the products that are available now or better, or that the competition/cost is too high.
It is simply not good enough to beat your chests and whine that petrol/diesel cars simply must not be banned while easy and secure access to oil resources is dwindling. What are you going to do about it.
What are you doing to enable and facilitate any work and development necessary on alternatives – it can take 20 years and more to take concepts from lab to economic product so where are the support, investments, programmes and projects, eg on carbon capture and utilisation to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels?
May 27, 2021
Youâre working on the assumption that the current co2 level is the problem and that the only solution is to ban anything fossil fuel relatedâŠ. What if your assumption is wrong ? and that the current co2 level isnât a direct factor in verifiable global rising temperatures
May 27, 2021
You are confusing me the AGW greenies, I have said nothing about CO2.
May 27, 2021
I stand corrected
May 27, 2021
Please impress upon your colleagues, particularly those outside your echo chamber, of the need to address some key questions.
How will we meet the dramatic increase in demand for electricity to charge EVs and air/ground heat source pumps, particularly at night and when the wind is too light?
What will be the cost of upgrading the electricity conductor infrastructure to convey the significantly higher wattages necessary to substitute the loss of gas, coal, oil and petroleum?
May 27, 2021
We donât trust you
Environmental policies and social engineering via the backdoor
Little one liners in manifesto, schedule change, virtue signalling, appeasing the media, the green party and lobby groups
By all means create the opportunities for a better, cleaner environment but a blanket bans on cars and heaters is just anti Conservative, anti British
The cost will be dramatic in terms of social divide between the rich elite, idealistic middleclass and the rest of the public who are just try to get through the day â not writing papers about saving the planet or coming up with bright ideas of what to do with potato peel (while driving a new ÂŁ60k eBMW)
May 27, 2021
If, as our government suggests, the public are 100% behind the new green revolution, why arenât people already buying electric cars and electric heat pumps ??? (without subsidy)
There shouldn’t be any need for a BAN if this switch to all things electric and all things green is so good ???
The Conservative Party was once about choice, competition, market forces and capitalism
May 27, 2021
Me thinks the Conservative Party needs more of it membership to be National Trust members! đ
May 27, 2021
Both Russia and the UK are members of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
1.Why is ECHR quoted on the first page of the new Environmental Bill 2021
2.Why are we members of such a pathetic organisation that allows Russia to be a member
May 27, 2021
Tens of thousands dead needlessly.
A prime minister who is unfit to serve.
Exactly what Iâve said for a year.
Mr Cummings now agrees.
Cummings is a charlatan – but on this he is not wrong.
Tory MPs – do your duty to your country.
Remove this failed PM and his corrupt government.
May 27, 2021
Andy at least we agree on something.
May 27, 2021
I actually agree that this government and Boris have failed the voters on brexit, immigration and climate changeâŠâŠbut the jury is still out on covid-19 â thereâs a difference between incompetence and outright failure
May 27, 2021
but still a catastrophic state of affairs.
May 27, 2021
andy The
PM is still way ahead in polls versus Starmer or Davey.
The last you gov poll gave the Conservatives an incredible 18 point lead.
Many other previous polls have shown a 10 point lead.
At mid term when normally the Government is at its least popular.
May 27, 2021
Maggie was also ahead in the polls in 1990, it did not prevent her from being ousted. So a very weak argument, E2P2. At the time (22/11/1990, Hansard) Sir Eldon Griffiths pointed out that seen from the USA the approval rate of leaders were: Gorbachev 74%, Bush 75%, and Mrs Thatcher 94%. And then, then ⊠six days later she was out of 10 Downing Street.
Any further comment?
May 27, 2021
Weak you say hef.
Over 80 polls show that trend.
Quite an unusual set of data.
Especially mid term.
Today a poll shows a 5.5 point swing away from Labour after Cumming’s performance.
May 27, 2021
E2P2, what I am just hinting at is that the âdangerâ for Mr Johnson might not come from Labour but from people in his own party. It happened in the past, it could still happen.
May 27, 2021
I will conceed that a few months is a long time in politics Hefner.
But these polling results are remarkable for a government mid term
May 27, 2021
Well giving us Freedom Day might lead to redemption but otherwise…
PS, the counting of deaths by CV-19 has been wilfully dishonest (in order to exaggerate) and my proof is that today (with very low deaths) we are still not being told deaths ‘with’ or ‘of’ CV-19. Surely there are now the resources and knowledge to tell us exactly what a person died of instead of the “within 28 days of infection…”
How many people are being killed by lockdown ?
You don’t care, do you Andy !
May 27, 2021
If the stated incubation period is 10-14 days why oh why are deaths recorded within 28 daysâŠ.there just isnât any logic to it apart from artificially increasing the figures
May 27, 2021
What about 10-14 days of incubation, then two weeks with light or not so light symptoms leading or not to death? Why oh why is it so difficult to figure out something so simple and straightforward? Do I have to start to despair of my fellow Brits!
May 28, 2021
We cannot be as clever as you Hefner
It is impossible.
May 27, 2021
Andy,
Latest poll today shows a 6 point swing to Conservatives versus Labour after Mr Cummings performance.
Seems not every voter thinks like you.
May 27, 2021
Interesting to read recently that the population in Democratic California has been dropping for the last 5 years as the increasing number of Socialist, Green, and Woke policies have been starting to really take hold, and where the cost of living is rising much higher than in most other States
People it would appear are moving to other States where the Republicans are in control.
Indeed due to population drop there is now one less representative for California in Government.
A lesson to be learn’t ?
May 27, 2021
Vehicle smog (emission) regulations in California now preclude the older high emission vehicles from being driven on the roads at all, even if the emissions are in line with the original manufactures limits.
Causing a problem now for the Classic car market, as the cars have to be transported in a trailer or lorry if they need to be moved from show to show, the Lorry of course gives out even higher emissions than the vehicle it is carrying, but that is OK as lorry emission limits are higher.
That is the lunacy of some regulation and its unintended consequences.
May 27, 2021
Correct â the lunacy continues in the name of health & safety and the environment in the militaryâŠ.e.g. youâre no longer allowed to sit on the floor of a troop transport vehicle, so the military had to purchase double the amount and fit extra roll cages, and every field exercise can only go ahead once port-a-loos are situated on that training area, so extra vehicles are need to transport the big âplasticâ boxes
The lunacy goes on and onâŠ..but weâve ticked the GREEN box
May 27, 2021
Not just people moving from blue states to red, but whole counties trying to do it. Five have voted to leave Oregon for Idaho and more may follow suit.
The trouble is, so many of these refugees then carry on voting blue when they arrive in the new state. Red states are turning blue because of this. How perverse.
May 27, 2021
I’ve despised the concept of “Global Warming” since I saw the University of East Anglia e-mails and looked at the “simple” experiments recommended by Michael Manning and Al Gore to “prove” global warming exists. Anyone with any knowledge of physics can see that said experiments are laughably wrong and are faked.
No politician dare try and explain how “zero carbon” can possibly work, let alone price the cost.
A scientist I much admired, Richard Feynman, once said that if someone can’t explain in simple terms how a process works, they are displaying their ignorance, not yours.
Trying to learn something from the pandemic has surely proven that Obamas’ concept of “accepted science” is false. If it were true, then NASA would still be using Newton’s Laws rather than Einstein’s and sending their spacecraft to the wrong places.
May 27, 2021
Well, if you call all the money spent a “cost” then of course you can make things seem like bad news.
We’re talking about a restructured economy.
You could have called all the money that people spent on cars hitherto a “cost” too if you liked, but that is simply representative of demand.
The same will largely be true of the new products to comply with new rules as the old wear out and need replacement.
May 27, 2021
But we’re not talking about things merely wearing out. We’re talking about incentivising people to ditch working items and living austere lifestyles by taxing and charging them to buggery. That is how it will be done.
This will hit BAMEs and the working classes harder than anybody.
It will bring very real social inequalities, the type of which you are not meant to like, MiC.
May 27, 2021
You say “We” SJ but should not the Government itself be investigating ALL of the pros and cons before diving in feet first?
Such is the problem when career politicians and old-school career civil servants are put in charge of a very serious project. Scientists, engineers, manufacturers and industrialists would be fully objective before committing their business to such an expenditure. Unlike Government, they would put the future of their companies before any of their own personal opinions.
For starters, there are over 38 million vehicles registered in the country, how much money will be required to replace all of them with either electric or H2 power? And who will pay for the switch? Who will pay for the destruction of millions of associated jobs? The tax payers of course, as always.
It’s time this country adopted the democratic principles of the Swiss whereby the people have to give their consent via a Referendum to the Government, to institute policies that affect their lives and their cash. We did not elect a Government to burn OUR money as they have been doing and to exacerbate the ensuing problems with yet another hare-brained scheme, is going to be more than the economy can bear. And what a dire legacy that will leave for our off-spring.
In fact, why do we need to do anything? China makes up 30% of the GLOBAL carbon emissions against our own insignificant 2%? Furthermore, China, India and the USA emit more than 50% between them, so why is this little country sacrificing itself and its future to please them and/or satisfy the whims of those who shout the loudest?
Put ALL of these huge projects (HS2 and Irish Sea bridge included) into a referendum for the very people who will end up paying for them (and their mistakes), to decide. That’s democracy working.
May 27, 2021
While there has been some progress on electric cars I think domestic heating boilers are clearly another decade at least behind the curve.
As for a solution, nothing looks cheap or viable for existing houses. A new house can be fitted with electric storage heaters that store wind and other power generated overnight. Retrofitting these are expensive, although I have despaired of the reliability of modern gas boilers especially compared to modern car engines !
May 27, 2021
I’m sure the cars work … but what about the cost of them, the power generation and the charging points ???
How are people living in flats and driveless terraces going to do this ?
May 30, 2021
You say “We” SJ but should not the Government itself be investigating ALL of the pros and cons before diving in feet first?
Such is the problem when career politicians and old-school career civil servants are put in charge of a very serious project. Scientists, engineers, manufacturers and industrialists would be fully objective before committing their research/business to such an expenditure. Unlike Government, they would put the future of their companies before any of their own personal opinions.
For starters, there are over 38 million vehicles registered in the country, how much money will be required to replace all of them with either electric or H2 power? And who will pay for the switch? Who will pay for the destruction of millions of associated jobs? The tax payers of course, as always. Pensioners included!
It’s time this country adopted the democratic principles of the Swiss whereby the people have to give their consent to the Government via a Referendum, in order to institute policies that affect their lives and their cash.
We did not elect a Government to burn OUR money as they have been doing and to exacerbate the ensuing problems with yet another hare-brained scheme, is going to be more than the economy can bear. And what a dire legacy that we leave our off-spring!
In fact, why do we need to do anything? China makes up 30% of the GLOBAL carbon emissions against our own insignificant 2%? Furthermore, China, India and the USA emit more than 50% between them, so why is this little country sacrificing itself and its future, to please them and/or satisfy the whims of those who shout the loudest?
Put ALL of these huge projects (HS2 and Irish Sea bridge included) into a referendum for the very people who will end up paying for them (and their mistakes), to decide. That’s democracy working.