Most people do not believe there is a climate emergency

Most of us accept the science that says CO 2 is a greenhouse gas, and accept manmade CO 2 is an influence on the climate. Clearly, however, most people do not think there is a manmade CO 2 driven climate emergency, because if they did we would see jet travel plunging, car use falling, meat diets disappearing, heat pumps flying off the shelves and many other behavioural changes.

Instead polls tell us people are against dearer fossil fuel energy. They oppose higher petrol taxes, oppose schemes to make it more difficult to use  cars and vans, oppose wind farms and pylons near their homes and are angry about climate protesters trying to block roads and attacking petrol companies.Only a small minority buy all electric cars.

Many voters would like government to limit UK CO 2 by enforcing a major reduction in migration numbers. We would like more home grown food to cut the food miles  rather than wilding schemes to boost imports. We support promoting fuel efficiency.

Some say in a temperate climate like the UK a possible average rise of temperature of say 2 degrees might help agriculture, as would some increase in CO 2.There have been many changes in climate during earth history. Some think adaptation is a more affordable and practical response as and when change occurs. It is self evidently true that unless China, India and the US reduce their CO 2 output nothing we do can stop more rises in world CO 2. It is also obvious importing instead of making and growing at home usually increases world CO 2 so it is not a win. The Green party who promote climate crisis as their lead issue never get out single figures in the polls.

 

 

 

145 Comments

  1. Lynn Atkinson
    May 6, 2024

    That’s it in a nutshell. Why the political class are intent on displaying their total lack of common sense, obduracy and hysteria is beyond me. They lack judgement, seem confused by the simplest things and have no guiding philosophy.
    Why do they think, individually, that they should govern?
    China has the means to impose the most qualified into positions of power. I don’t like their means, but in effect their best are pitted against our pretty mediocre. This can’t continue because we will be defeated economically, politically and intellectually, if not militarily.
    We need the current political class, with obvious exceptions, to stand down and THE PEOPLE must freely choose those they want to represent them in our great Parliament. If there are ‘not enough quality people’ then the assemblies, quangos, mayors, and fellow travellers, the politically appointed House of Lords must be disbanded so the best are concentrated where it matters, in the House of Commons, from which the Government is drawn. Every constituency should look for a person they would be content to see as the PM.

    1. Peter D Gardner
      May 6, 2024

      Lynn, that would require a degree of patriotism that we can only dream of. Patriotism is a dirty word.

      1. Ian wragg
        May 6, 2024

        It should be named Climate Hoax. Hopefully Trump will win and bring down the whole house of cards.
        The public has started to waken up to the scam and when they realise that it’s going to cost an arm and a leg there’ll be big trouble.

        1. Lifelogic
          May 6, 2024

          Climate fraud and mass murder, not merely a jovial hoax it will kill millions if they really do go for net zero.

          Like Chairman Mao policy, that killed about 40 million.

          1. David Cooper
            May 6, 2024

            Then, the Great Leap Forward. Now, the Great Leap Backward.

          2. Everhopeful
            May 6, 2024

            Population reduction the main objective!
            Too many carbon units.
            We are stardust
we are carbon.

        2. Guy+Liardet
          May 8, 2024

          We are now into the fourth day wherein our hugely expensive windmills have produced less than two gigawatts against a demand of c. 30. What is the CCC with its six figure salaries and skin in the game going to do about this not unusual weather. And don’t give me Interconnectors (you haven’t checked their capacity have you?) nor Europe help because you haven’t looked at the isobars, have you?

          1. Guy+Liardet
            May 9, 2024

            Further to as I write on Thursday evening windmills are producing oh point eight three per cent of our electricity. And it’s gonna last til Saturday. How is Starmrr or anyone gonna decarbonise generation ? Or Aviation? Or road haulage? Shipping? Agriculture? Sack the CCC. Grow up and do the math. Don’t buy an electric car. It is fuelled by coal and gas.

      2. Ian wragg
        May 6, 2024

        Yesterday my post vanished, 40gw of windmills generating only 0.43gq an all time record low.
        Germany paying power companies to keep old coal stations on for 5 more years. We dynamite our last one in September no doubt to cheering politicians.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          May 6, 2024

          I saw your post yesterday.

        2. Lifelogic
          May 6, 2024

          I saw it and replied that more energy than that will be wasted in the backup needed as that makes the gas plant run less efficiently and in the far more complex and extensive distribution system for wind turbines. The has to be able to carry full power but is only carrying 1% here and typically circa 15%

      3. Lynn Atkinson
        May 6, 2024

        The patriotic have been silenced, but they are there – look at their vote for Brexit and remember that many patriotic people were fooled in that election by the combined forces of the State, the super-State and even the Obama.
        Have faith, we are here, left right and centre.

      4. Mike Wilson
        May 7, 2024

        It doesn’t require patriotism at all. Wanting the country you live in to be well governed is not patriotism. An idiotic ‘love of my country’, a foolish belief that ‘my country is better than your country’, etc. is patriotism.

    2. PeteB
      May 6, 2024

      Agree Lynn. Sir J has set out the idiocy of the UK net zero goals in a couple of paragraphs. Why do so few other MPs understand this obvious truth? Politically Sunak is a dead man walking, however a rapid change on the UK net zero stance may salvage something in the next election.

      1. James1
        May 6, 2024

        Even a manifesto promise to hold a referendum might be enough to tempt a substantial part of the electorate back to the so-called conservative party. It seems that a referendum on the subject is the only thing that will at a stroke quell the utter nonsense we are experiencing.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          May 6, 2024

          I would agree except that they have proven that they refuse to accept the direct and unequivocal orders of their true Sovereigns, the People.

      2. Everhopeful
        May 6, 2024

        +++
        Haven’t leaders in the past publicly torn up documents?
        He should do that firmly and dramatically to the NZ parchment
in Parliament.
        And then do a sort of liturgical dance around the benches, sprinkling the shreds.
        Instant zoom up polls.

    3. David Andrews
      May 6, 2024

      Agreed. Most of the current crop of MPs
      come across as knuckleheads when they talk about man made climate change and their supposed “remedies”. They are destroying the UK as a viable country.

    4. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      Sir John I made a mistake a day or two ago. I said the Agent when Richard Holden won North West Durham in the last election was now campaigning for Reform. That is wrong, he is Bridgen’s agent, and of course Bridgen is now an independent.

  2. Lifelogic
    May 6, 2024

    And most people are right.

    A bit more CO2 and even a bit warmer is a net good.
    The policies being pushed by government (EVs, heat pumps, wind, solar, public transport, walking, cycling
save no significant CO2 anyway they just export it and the jobs at best.
    EV vehicles and burning wood at Drax actually increase CO2 – far better, far cheaper and far more practical to keep your old car.
    Net zero is vastly expensive with zero net benefit. Rather like the Covid lockdowns, Covid Vaccines, HS2
 adaptation to climate changes and weather is far cheaper and far preferable.

    If you want to stop flooding in say Gloucester or Carlyle is it better to put flood relief schemes in or cut our CO2 assume the rest of the world will too, wait 100 years and see if this works
 clue it won’t?

    DOMINIC LAWSON in the Sunday Times. The electric car crash will rival the dotcom bubble. The problem for ministers is that most consumers just won’t buy EVs.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 6, 2024

      Sunak, Starmer and the LibDims, Greens, Plaid, SNP are totally wrong on Net Zero and most other topics (tax levels, size of the state, over regulation, the Windsor accord, the vast low skilled net cost immigration levels, lack of fair competition in energy, schools, healthcare, housing, banking, Covid vaccines, lockdowns, the WHO treaty
)

    2. Dave Andrews
      May 6, 2024

      To say that EVs are good for the environment over ICE vehicles is just deceit. If you want to travel green get a bicycle. Good for the world, wallet and waistline, yet strangely so few choose it. A look outside our front window at the busy main road any time of the day will tell you people have little concern for green issues; the traffic is almost entirely ICE vehicles.
      Then they tell us green policy is what people want. Give me a break.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 6, 2024

        Well bikes are fuelled by human food which needs load of fossil fuels to grow, butcher, process, chill, freeze package, cook
 so not actually good in CO2 terms unless you live off porridge or similar. Bikes better than walking though. A full car is better in CO2 terms.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        May 6, 2024

        It’s 5 hours by car from Northumberland to our family in Surrey. You think we should cycle?

        1. Lifelogic
          May 6, 2024

          Five people cycling (if on a typical UK diet) produces more CO2 than sending them in a small car. Plus they will all need a hot shower and clean clothing on arrival and perhaps a hotel stop or two! Walking is about three times worse still and even slower.

          The government website still lies that walking and cycling produce no direct or indirect CO2 per mile so are the authors lying or just rather ignorant art graduates?

          Much cycling is hobby cycling like the ones racing round regents? park that resulted that elderly woman’s death. So they did. it even get anywhere with their food fuel.

          1. Lifelogic
            May 6, 2024

            they did they not even get anywhere, just back where they started! I meant.

    3. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2024

      Re flooding
      Or learn from the past.
      Ancients did not build where they knew it was going to flood.
      They had good drainage systems and kept them silt free. ( Every year “Hedging and ditching”)
      But that was because they cared about the land, their objective was not to prove calamity by omission.

  3. Lifelogic
    May 6, 2024

    CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas but even a doubling from the current levels would cause trivial extra heating even if all the many other factor remained the same – they won’t. It is not even the main greenhouse gas which is water vapour. See the sensible physicist Prof. William Happer on this. We have had far higher temperatures and far higher CO2 levels in the past.

    1. Peter D Gardner
      May 6, 2024

      Indeed. The periods of advances in human development and civilisation have all been warm periods. In cool periods humanity stays still. The longer interglacial cycle of around 100,000 years is about to enter a period of cooling towards glaciation.

      1. dixie
        May 6, 2024

        If we are about the enter a period of cooling then the last thing we should do is repeat that last decades and allow foreign owned companies to extract what remains of our oil and gas for the sole benefit of foreign companies and governments. Wouldn’t it be better to leave it in the ground for when we cannot import energy …

  4. AncientPopeye
    May 6, 2024

    All too true Sir, but they are not listening, there is money to be made by scaremongering?

    1. Lifelogic
      May 6, 2024

      There certainly is also in pushing net harm vaccines, PPE contracts, HS2 contracts, boat people’s “hotels” and legal aid
 crony capitalism and follow the money seems to be the rule.

    2. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2024

      And they are fulfilling the main reason for their “placement”.
      Keep the narrative going
keep the plates spinning.

    3. MFD
      May 6, 2024

      +1 I agree that Net Zero ( so called ) is a money scam

  5. Corky
    May 6, 2024

    Our social species has evolved powerful instincts to recognise seller’s hype. Green lip service costs nothing but now people realise they are forced to have skin in the game.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 6, 2024

      Indeed that is why polling people asking “do you want more clean, green energy” or “to pay more taxes to reduce NHS waiting lists” get a very different answer when you actually have to choose a government. People in Blackpool knew their vote in the recent by-election would change nothing much.

      Rather different at a general election. But alas Sunak is just aping Labour’s mad socialism and promising the same tax to death, big gov, net zero lunacy. Give people a real choice the people want the complete reverse of the deluded Starmer/Sunak agenda.

  6. Peter Gardner
    May 6, 2024

    A very fair and balanced summarĂż. I eould also say, having spoken with people involved in climate research, that the science does not contradict this cautious view. The science is very uncertain. Therefore it is grossly irresponsible of governments to assume certainty in their policies when doing so is proving so costly and damaging. There is no scientifically grounded foundation for Net Zero.
    What there us justification for us further research that us unbiased. So far there us enormous brass in government funding around the world I favour of supporting CAGW. It is much harder to get grants for research that might show there is no cause for alarm. The government’s attitude is that if there us no cause for alarm, then the research is not important so the funding goes elsewhere.

  7. DOM
    May 6, 2024

    It’s ceased to be a matter of personal belief. This is an issue of power and control over our how we live our lives without interference.

    Let’s hope those who conspire to construct a web of adherence and compliance step over the line of acceptability triggering a widespread public fightback and an outburst of collective anger ala 1989, East Germany. I believe this will be the eventual outcome.

    1. Peter Wood
      May 6, 2024

      We’re now in the age of ‘social control’ – and these are the experimental attempts to see what can be accepted by the populous. The schemes tactics are: scare the masses, offer possible solutions leading to utopia. The cost will be your freedom to think, live, move and eat what in the way you want. Remember, Starmer prefers Davos to Westminster,
      Quote. ‘But Starmer did not dissimulate. He said he preferred Davos. Westminster, he said, was a talking shop, a place of conflict where nothing got done. Davos — which is really like a global party conference — he considered to be less a waste of time, a place in which the talk is at least pointed towards some kind of action’. Evening Standard. A rare moment of honesty from the leader of the opposition.
      When he gets in, be ready to be controlled ‘for our own good’.

      Thank you PCP, you’ve driven the nation into the hands of a totalitarian incompetent, because you couldn’t use what common-sense you were given at birth.

  8. GaryC
    May 6, 2024

    Most including me, however it’s politicians of all colours that are telling us we should install heat pumps and drive EV’s. If only they would put the same effort into sorting out the mess they themselves have put this country in.

    1. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2024

      Agree.
      But they have put a great deal of purposeful effort into creating the mess you mention.
      Do they see it as a mess 
or as a bonkers strategy?
      “Order out of Chaos” ( first creating the chaos) or something equally cruel and unnecessary?

  9. Old Albion
    May 6, 2024

    Hurrah! and welcome to the real world.

  10. Simon R
    May 6, 2024

    Unfortunately i think the group-think on the climate change emergency is far more contrived than the west realise and it is being used as a tool by China to deindustrialise the west and make it so dependent on imports for all critical things we could easily be blockaded and starved into submission. How else can you explain china continuing to build coal fire power stations to ensure it has cheap energy production whilst the west is closing everything down and they are not properly held account for it. The eco-salt is then being truly rubbed into the wound as China is then using their cheap energy to build all the kit for renewable energy to then sell to the west and is therefore even profiteering from the west’s decline. And even if China are not behind this self inflicted decline, they must be laughing constantly at our stupidity.

    1. James1
      May 6, 2024

      A number of our eco-eccentrics seem to feel that the UK must be the world leader in leading the way on net zero, and that other countries will copy us. They are not going to copy us, they’re too busy laughing at us.

      1. Timaction
        May 6, 2024

        +1

    2. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2024

      Generally
if you are in hock to someone you do what they tell you to do.
      And usually your actions benefit that entity.
      Round here there used to be loads of small factories which had been there forever.
      Raincoats, pickles, sweets, small engineering parts etc etc 
all gone thanks to govt. idiocy!

    3. Original Richard
      May 6, 2024

      Simon R :

      Correct.

  11. Rita
    May 6, 2024

    I am one who agrees with those saying the above, Sir.
    I view the path to Net Zero to be ruinous for individuals and the country and would like to see those who govern question the narrative more forcefully and informedly.
    Would also like to know, definitively, if geoengineering is happening and, if so, whether it’s impacting the whole climate change issue in a negative way?
    Most independent scientists do repudiate most of the claims made around green issues/climate change.
    We need more independent facts to give us the real picture in order for people to make informed choices.

    1. Jim+Whitehead
      May 6, 2024

      Rita, +++++

  12. Richard1
    May 6, 2024

    But it seems most people do plan to vote for parties of the left at the general election – Labour, LibDem, green, snp. These all have the same policies more or less on climate policy and all are full signed up to the catastrophist view.

    The clever thing the green blob has done is to contrive to avoid any public scrutiny or debate on their agenda. As with the covid policies of lockdown etc, any dissenters, however eminent and well qualified, are silenced, cancelled and denigrated. Politicians then mouth vaguely catastrophist platitudes and an exceptionally damaging and expensive direction of policy continues.

    1. Roy Grainger
      May 6, 2024

      It is not that long since the SNP’s entire economic policy was based on exploiting “their” oil reserves. Now they want to close down that industry. Irrational.

    2. Original Richard
      May 6, 2024

      Richard1 :

      The Conservative Party is also “fully signed up to the catastrophist views” as evidenced by Tory PM May putting 100% net zero by 2050 into law and Tory PM Johnson unleashing the Net Zero Strategy upon us with the banning of ices brought forward by 5 years earlier than the EU etc etc.

      The lack of debate is down to the BBC making a unilateral decision to not allow any discussion on climate to take place on any of its channels. A highly illiberal policy rigorously applied and used by authoritarians through history from 17th Century Catholic Popes to past and current Communist regimes and which must be inexplicable to those who previously thought the UK was a democracy with freedom of speech. Not that our Conservative Government has attempted to amend this BBC policy.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        May 6, 2024

        No Parliament can bind it’s successors.

      2. Richard1
        May 6, 2024

        It is clear from recent moves that the Conservatives will be marginally better than Labour on this.

        1. Original Richard
          May 6, 2024

          Well, I suppose Labour with Ed Miliband as the SoS for DESNZ, could ramp up Net Zero and ruin the economy even quicker. Such as with his plan to force all FTSE 100 companies (as a start) to ensure their companies are aligned with the goal of keeping the average global temperature below 1.5 degrees C above the pre-industrial level. If the Chinese believe that CO2 causes global warming then this legislation should ensure they burn even more coal even if they don’t need the energy!

          However, the difference may be tiny as the Conservative Government has just lost a court case for failing to make its net zero plans “sufficiently detailed” and as such is unlawful under the CCA. Note that at least one of the groups that brought the action to the High Court is funded by the Government, aka us, the taxpayer, showing us just little the current Government cares for the country and its people.

      3. Your comment is awaiting moderation
        May 6, 2024

        The aboloition of the TV Licence is the first brick that needs to be removed from the wall of plutocratic globalism
        The Uniparty is complicit

  13. BOF
    May 6, 2024

    CO2 is a green house gas. But at an historic low of .04% this minor trace gas can have negligible effect on climate.

    As an essential gas for the maintenance of life it is downright dangerous to spend billions for CC&S, which in any event is bound to fail!

    Most people are getting wise to the fact that the whole CC, GW tall story is in fact a scam being used to advance control of people, property, money, energy and food through UN Agenda 2030.

    1. Dave Andrews
      May 6, 2024

      CO2 alarm is a distraction from the real environmental danger – pollution. Look at the filth washing down far east rivers into the oceans.
      We can make a difference in this country by stopping immigration. Less people, less pollution.

      1. Northern Lass
        May 6, 2024

        Best comment yet. I agree entirely.

      2. Enigma
        May 6, 2024

        You are so right Dave Andrews. The real environmental danger is pollution.

      3. MFD
        May 6, 2024

        I agree, that is correct and we need to get people to realise they are being lied too!

  14. Nigl,
    May 6, 2024

    Frankly I am bored with the subject and not informed enough to comment objectively and have better things to do with my time.

    I will do what I have to do when some one convinces me what is right or enforces something. Until then I will leave the blogs ( Including this one) etc the the shrill on both sides of the argument who having nothing better to do than repeat their views ad nauseam presumably on the basis that the more and louder they spout the same old stuff, the more ‘truthful’ they become.

    Some of these people seem to have not much more in their lives. Sad.

  15. Javelin
    May 6, 2024

    Remember climate change is either (1) a graph that has been going up slightly since the last ice age. The North Sea used to be land until 8000 years ago (2) climate computer models written by the same 3rd rate academic programmers as those that wrote the covid and treasury models.

    Plus there is plenty of evidence that any acceleration in temperatures is driven entirely by man made adjustments.

    Climate science is an multi billion industry that has been telling us for decades the world is going to end in the next decade.

    If you believe their fraud you need to examine why your mind believes a repeated failure before you believe it.

  16. `Peter Lawrenson
    May 6, 2024

    Good morning, Sir John. Your diary comments are a well reasoned. Unfortunately you are one of very few in the current parliament who have that view. The current government is determined to win the race to penury; ÂŁ60bn for CCS Carbon Capture and Storage, massive subsidies to wind powered electricity (ÂŁ1.6bn for AR6 as well), the likely move of the renewables taxes from electricity bills onto gas bills or general taxation so that ASHP look economically attractive, the ÂŁ680m pa of subsidy to burn American trees at Drax. Taxpayers cash for a rich few to install ASHP or buy EV’s, etc etc. Then we hear about SSES (we will switch you off because we don’t have enough electricity).
    How do we get this government – and the next – to ensure that the UK – as a result of this net zero scam – end up in poverty whilst China and India (1bn tonnes of coal anyone) continue unabated.

    I make one final point; Africa generates 626 Kwh per person of electricity, the UK 4830, China 6206. Very soon Africa will demand power. And no amount of pontificating bt the IPCC abd the UN and the CCC will stop them. Electricity means progress and wealth creation.

    1. IanT
      May 6, 2024

      Watching Palin’s ‘Nigeria’ tour recently, I was struck by the fact that their population was currently about 220 million and forcast to grow to 375 million by 2050. This country (just part of the African Continent) will be the third largest nation by population apparently – alongside the continent-countries of India & China. I wonder what their carbon footprint will be then?
      There are clearly vast inequalitites within the country, with the corruption being briefly touched upon but quite apparent as Palin moved around. I also noted that whilst he went to Badagry (The Point of No Return) he didn’t visit the statue of Efunroye Tinubu in Lagos, which still hasn’t been tipped into the sea by the Nigerians. Maybe the Brazilians and Portugese pleaded her case…

      1. Peter
        May 6, 2024

        Nigeria puts me in mind of the dedication after the ‘Sanders of the River’ film:-

        dedicated to the “handful of white men whose everyday work is an unsung saga of courage and efficiency”.

        I doubt Palin mentioned that. It is not in the spirit of today. From a time when civil servants and those working overseas on behalf of the government used to actually do a bit of work for their salary. Paul Robeson might disagree.

  17. Hat man
    May 6, 2024

    Sir John, most people would not have believed that a cold virus was a reason to shut down schools, the economy, and social life for months on end. But they did, or at least they accepted the government messaging. If you line up enough bought-and-paid-for ‘experts’ pumping out the same repetitive content via synchronized media day in and day out, you will get mass compliance. That was the point of Project Covid, as a test of public obedience. Now that’s been demonstrated, it doesn’t matter whether people want to buy heat pumps or EVs, or are happy with restrictions on travel opportunities. What counts is whether they will accept it when the government tells them they need to, because otherwise they’re killing the planet (not granny this time). And they will, as long as alternative voices, such as those of Judith Curry and other climate realists, are kept out of their media field of vision. Just as those of the Oxford evidence-based medicine people were prevented from reaching a wide public audience during Project Covid.
    My concern is that the climate alarmists haven’t even properly got started yet, with their attack on society as we know it.

  18. Bloke
    May 6, 2024

    A two degree rise in ambient UK temperature would reduce the amount of space heating needed in homes, offices and factories. Showers and baths would need less heat to raise them to operating temperature. Water used in cooking would need less heat even to simmer. Drinking water would consume less electricity to raise it to boiling point.
    Many folk would feel more comfortable walking about in the open, needing less clothing and the production it consumes to make and be delivered. If people are the main cause of climate change, maybe they should relax, live in comfort and not interfere.

    1. MikeP
      May 6, 2024

      Spot on Sir John, what a shame it is that those in our Government aren’t strong and single-minded enough to call out what is at worst a scam and at best very poor science and modelling.
      Politicians run scared of brassing off the the vociferous, activist minority and the received ‘wisdom’ of the “scientific consensus”. We need someone in power who has the wit, the vision and the strength to appeal to the silent majority on this and many other contested issues.

  19. Robert Pay
    May 6, 2024

    There is an emergency – the policies we are being subjected to which will beggar us. Thanks for persevering with it!

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      +1 the fire in the Berlin metallurgic plant, burning for the past 3 days, has put more CO2 into the atmosphere than their idiot Green Party activists (is Holbeck the ‘real’ chancellor, and Annelina Baerbock (famous for allowing on Putin to make a 360 degree turn đŸ˜‚đŸ€Ł) have managed to save by allowing the USA to blow up Nordstream.

  20. Mick
    May 6, 2024

    The Green party who promote climate crisis as their lead issue never get out single figures in the polls.
    I’ve been saying this all along that’s why they only have one MP in parliament, this climate crap is run by global corporations who what to scare the people into thinking the world is coming to a end , but I’m sorry Sir John that’s it’s a bit to late for your party to do anything about it , someone else is going to have to pick up the mantra to stop all this greenhouse/climate rubbish

  21. Rodney Needs
    May 6, 2024

    With respect I disagree with your view. It’s about money electric cars cost more and lack of investment in charging points. Underground cables cost more money than pylons. Solar is a way forward we are building all these houses why is it not a requirement to fit solar on all roofs generated were its used with a surplus. Taking good land for solar farms is not the answer. Heat pumps expensive get bad press and it’s not just about the pump in most cases you need to upgrade radiators etc. We should not worry about China and India just do out bit. I could go on it will effect me as a grey haired senior citizen but we need a good way forward for the grandchildren

    1. R.Grange
      May 6, 2024

      Is it a good way forward for the grandchildren to deprive them of the standard of living you had, Rodney, in compliance with how billionaire-funded climate alarmists want them to live?

      1. MFD
        May 6, 2024

        Well said Sir! With our loss of industry we have lost the ability to even defend our families

  22. James Morley
    May 6, 2024

    A shallow and spurious argument. Such are the consequences; I do not have to believe the scientific projections for climate change to support action now. I would have to Know that the projections are incorrect. What is your plan “B”?

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      If you don’t KNOW yet, when will you KNOW?
      For instance, The King has been saying, since his 20’s that we had 10 years before there would be no snow on the ski slopes. He’s still skiing. He’s 73! He gets to the slopes by aeroplane. He’s not worried about his CO2 footprint. If he BELIEVED that the world was on the brink, he would have stopped flying, stopped heating 14 massive homes, stopped driving, he would have ditched his beef cattle and become vegan.
      So HE DOES NOT BELIEVE HIS OWN MANTRA.
      How much more proof do you need?

      1. glen cullen
        May 6, 2024

        All very true Lynn, ….also when do we say ‘job done, we don’t need net-zero anymore, we’ve altered climate change’ ….there’s no success criteria, its will continue until ….well who knows ?

      2. Lifelogic
        May 6, 2024

        Exactly is it really 14 massive homes do you have a list? Still he does claim to run his Aston Martin off cheese and wine derived fuels! This is doubtless far worse in CO2 terms than using petrol. Not very affordable for most people either I imagine. What does the cheese and wine “petrol” cost, how is it delivered and how much energy is used to make it and to convert the Aston to use it. All for this I am green PR stunt?

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          May 6, 2024

          The Aston is brought on a trailer to within 2 miles of the destination ‘for the show’.

          Buckingham Palace
          Clarence House
          Kensington Palace
          St Jame’s Palace
          Windsor Castle
          Frogmore
          Royal Lodge
          Bagshot Park
          Balmoral Castle (100 bedrooms!)
          Dumfries House
          Birkhall
          Craig Owen Lodge
          Sandringham
          Amber Hall
          Highgrove
          Ray Mill

          I have left the smaller ones out, as well as the Official residences in Scotland (Holyrood) and Northern Ireland etc!

    2. Original Richard
      May 6, 2024

      JM :

      I would suggest please that you go and check the data yourself. Just Google the data on various weather events such as hurricanes. In 2009 the BBC said there would be no Arctic summer ice by 2013. Well, it’s still there. In 2021 the BBC said the Great Barrier Reef was dying because of global warming. Well it’s in the best health since records began. The irony is that most of the world’s coral species are in the coral triangle where can be found the warmest waters anywhere on the planet. How much longer are you going to believe the BBC? We don’t need a plan B,

      Or alternatively ask the Chinese as they do not seem to worry about increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere…

  23. Roy Grainger
    May 6, 2024

    The climate alarmists usually say on the one hand UK should lead and set an example to the world by aggressive Net Zero policies but on the other hand since Brexit UK has given away all influence and is an irrelevance on the world stage. Which is it ?

    1. Original Richard
      May 6, 2024

      RG :

      Isn’t both possible?

  24. Narrow Shoulders
    May 6, 2024

    Many people have been bombarded with fearmongering about Carbon dioxide and have been soaked with information about manmade CO 2 being an influence on the climate. Clearly, however, most people do not think there is a manmade CO 2 driven climate emergency,.

    Most people understand that the sun’s activity is a greater contributor to the weather we experience on this planet.

    Follow the money

    1. MFD
      May 6, 2024

      ✔right!

  25. Kenneth
    May 6, 2024

    I know a lot of people who regularly fly back to their families in Eastern Europe and Asia. More immigration means more use of aeroplanes.

    Climate predictions are based on modelling and conjecture and people don’t trust the media on this issue as it has been crying wolf for many years.

  26. David Cooper
    May 6, 2024

    Of course we do not believe there is a “climate emergency” (what comes next: apocalypse? armageddon?). We step outside our front doors. We note the fact that our winters have not turned into our former summers. We note in turn that our summers have not gained Saharan levels of uncomfortable heat. We note the absence of hospital wards, morgues and indeed our streets being piled with the dead and dying in consequence of such uncomfortable heat.
    Then we ask why we are being browbeaten into giving up our quality of life as we know it, and all of its trimmings, simply in the hope that future politicians can boast that an arbitrary target has been fit, despite the fact that the target has not been framed as “reduction of surface temperature in the UK by two degrees” or anything similar.
    Other than a self appointed globalist elite and its fellow travellers, who really benefits?

  27. Bryan Harris
    May 6, 2024

    Most people do not believe there is a climate emergency

    I would rephrase that because that makes it sound like a religion, which it is not to sensible people: Most people have worked out for themselves that there is a NO climate emergency.

    The facts are that co2 is vastly over-rated as a greenhouse gas. Co2 is vital for growing our food, which will be useful as governments are closing down farms, but it is still only makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere, which is less than water molecules.

    There are vital links missing from the theory that the Earth is going up in flames, and much deceit. Earth has been much hotter in past times, but then Man couldn’t be blamed.

    Let’s face it, some people are taking advantage of the general ignorance of science and history to impose themselves and their anti-science, anti-future agenda on us.
    We are overdue for some ‘important person’ to stand up and tell us that we only have 10 years to save the Earth.

    Talk about smelling a rat – the stench is widespread across MSM and government. THAT is why people are not being persuaded to go along with the scam of a lifetime.

  28. dixie
    May 6, 2024

    I don’t see how you can use the qualifier “most” when the general public is simply never asked such questions and polls are not a reliable indicator.
    The last time a specific question was asked a specific question turned out very badly for the politicians and PTBs at the time – that was 8 years ago and government still have not delivered.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      You can deduce from the Green Party support, that 98% of people do not accept the ‘Green scam’.

      1. dixie
        May 6, 2024

        Based on your deduction, a very large chunk of the 98% of people don’t support the Greens but do support the Conservatives, Labour and LibDems .. who have been actually responsible for what you call the “green scam” for decades.
        By that measure your 98% do actually accept the “scam”..
        Except, 98% of people have not expressed an opinion one way or the other as we have not been asked .. was there a 98% turnout at one of the general elections? In any case the local elections don’t indicate anything like 98% intention – Wokingham for example elects by thirds.
        BTW – According to Sky News after 102 of 107 results were in the Conservatives had lost 446 seats while the Greens had gained 67, compared to “Other” at 106 which includes the alternative proper Conservative parties – so the picture is no so clear as you might suggest.
        I am not a Green supporter, merely a voter fed up with politicians and the pretence that they pay any attention to what the electorate might actually want or believe.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          May 6, 2024

          The main parties do not list the ‘Green Scam’ as a major policy in their manifestoes. We get that as a packaged deal that we can’t avoid.
          Of course when one says the Greens get 2% OF THE VOTE – that does not include the million who don’t bother to go and vote at all, much less for the Greens. If they were concerned about the end of the world, they would!
          UKIP, The Lib Dem’s and the Greens have long been the ‘dustbin’ that people threw their votes on to send a message to the main parties.
          The electorate need to learn that the job is to create the party you want with the candidates you select and trust. Democracy is like capitalism – you create your own and others jobs in capitalism and enterprise. You don’t have to take a job, you can go and create your own – you are not owed a job!
          You are sitting about whinging because you fellow citizens have not created the party for which you want to vote.
          Get off the sofa!

          1. dixie
            May 7, 2024

            “We cannot avoid the package deal” – precisely.
            The electorate do not select the candidates, that is what the political party chieftains do.
            I have “got off the sofa” a couple of times thank you, including canvasing in the Brexit referendum which was the only worthwhile instance.
            Even then, just like in general and local elections the politicians ignore the electorate until the next elections – Democracy only operates as long as the election lasts then it is shelved.

        2. Philip P.
          May 7, 2024

          In Wokingham borough all council seats were up for election this time, Dixie, not just a third. The Green Party got 2.3% of the vote. Around 50,000 people voted. A significant election pledge by the local Green party was for 20mph speed restrictions ‘where people live, walk and cycle’. That means all built-up areas, which means reducing all 30 mph roads to 20 mph. No other party advocated that policy. The voters gave it the finger.

          1. dixie
            May 7, 2024

            You are correct and I was mistaken – not so long ago there was a referendum to decide whether we keep the thirds or switch to vote for all seats each time with a longer period between elections. As I recall the result was against changing from thirds but the PTB ignored us yet again.
            Every day in every way politicians and government demonstrate reasons to not trust them.

          2. dixie
            May 7, 2024

            BTW We never received a Green party leaflet so whatever they were offering did not play a part as seems the case in several wards.

          3. hefner
            May 8, 2024

            As for not receiving a leaflet from the Greens it is hardly surprising given that they only had 8 candidates for 54 positions and that they only targeted a few wards. It was the same for the ‘Independent’ (1 candidate) and the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (2 candidates).

  29. oldwulf
    May 6, 2024

    Over 1600 scientists claim that the climate emergency is a myth

    With our hosts permission: https://thefederalnewswire.com/stories/649656011-over-1-600-scientists-claim-that-the-climate-emergency-is-a-myth

    At the very least, I believe we should pause and think ….. and and have an open debate …. to consider whether the expensive disruption of society is really the right way to go.

  30. Iain Hunter
    May 6, 2024

    Sir John,

    You might like to research the work of scientists like Kevin Kirchman who has a proof that the greenhouse theory is wrong because it doesn’t accord with the laws of thermodynamics. http://www.climatesciencejournal.com

    Many people don’t just want migration reduced. They wanted it stopped and reversed.

    The whole climate business is a fraud and a scam. It is beloved by the left as a means to destroy the West’s economies and redistribute its wealth globally.

    CO2 does not influence the climate and there is no historical link in geological time between CO2 content of the atmosphere and global temperatures.

    There is no climate emergency.

  31. glen cullen
    May 6, 2024

    Net-Zero is still the top policy of this tory government

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      Oh no. Replacement is the top policy of this Tory government.

  32. RichardP
    May 6, 2024

    +1 Sir John.
    The question is which party will have the courage to put scrapping Net Zero in their manifesto. I think I know the answer!

    1. MFD
      May 6, 2024

      Reform UK has that in their policy Richard

  33. Original Richard
    May 6, 2024

    “Clearly, however, most people do not think there is a manmade CO2 driven climate emergency

.”

    Neither do the IPCC’s Working Group 1 (“the science”) who never use the words, “emergency” or “crisis” or “boiling” and have concluded that a signal of climate change has not yet emerged beyond natural variability for the following phenomena : River floods, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, landslides drought (all types), severe wind storms, tropical cyclones (includes hurricanes), sand and dust storms, heavy snowfall and, ice storms, hail, snow avalanche and coastal flooding. The IPCC can only find some slight warming leading some melting of ice and snow. See Table 12 in Chapter 12.

    Or the UN who only have ‘climate action’ at position #13 on their list of ‘sustainable development goals’

    The “emergency” is all driven by politics.

    1. Original Richard
      May 6, 2024

      The IPCC calculates that doubling CO2 will increase surface temperature by just 1.2 degree C (Happer & Wijngaarden 0.7 degrees C). This is because there is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere for the CO2’s main IR absorption band to absorb all the IR radiation available to it as described by the Earth’s Planck curve and consequently adding additional CO2 to the atmosphere makes negligible difference, a feature known as IR saturation. The IPCC then invokes feedbacks, mainly from water vapour, to produce a “best guess” of 3 degrees C of warming. However, not only is water vapour also IR saturated but if wasn’t then additional warming would be accompanied by increasing water vapour in the atmosphere. But no such increase is noticeable.

      Furthermore, the IPCC writes on P978, concerning all feedbacks:

      “It is virtually certain that the net climate feedback is negative, primarily due to the Planck temperature response, indicating that climate acts to stabilize in response to radiative forcing imposed to the system”.

      So the evidence is that the Le Chatelier Principle applies to our climate and the IPCC does not support the idea that increasing CO2 emissions from burning hydrocarbons will cause a climate tipping point that will lead to a runaway climate emergency.

      1. hefner
        May 8, 2024

        Le Chatelier Principle applies to a chemical system in equilibrium. Following a perturbation it defines how the system moves to another equilibrium.
        1/ The Earth system is not in equilibrium as it gets continuous input of solar energy,
        2/ It is not only a chemical system but also a physical, biophysical and dynamic system.
        Therefore LCP does not apply to the Earth’s climate and certainly cannot be used as an ‘evidence’ that the resulting net feedback is negative.

        The paragraph p.978 following your quotation on the Planck temperature response completes and contradicts the original statement. Interestingly you use only one sentence out of a 2409 page report. Nice sampling effort.

  34. Bert+Young
    May 6, 2024

    We are insignificant in this world today in so many ways – climate control is simply one aspect of this . Unless it was possible for all nations to comply with an agreed approach we can only stand and watch the consequences . People can drown , suffer drought and die in so many resulting ways from climate conditions ; crossing fingers is the individuals only hope .

  35. Bill Smith
    May 6, 2024

    Sir John

    this seems to reflect your own personal opinion than the people of the UK

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      The Green vote (2%) proves it is the opinion of the people of the U.K.

      1. glen cullen
        May 6, 2024

        Correct

      2. Bill Smith
        May 7, 2024

        not the case other opinion pools say diffferently

  36. Everhopeful
    May 6, 2024

    The biggest clue is that they changed the name from “global warming” to “climate change”.
    People tend to notice when the weather is hot
or more likely not.
    So now we must fret about perfectly normal events like storms ( each one named !!) and snow and rain etc etc.
    They always said that in England the main topic of conversation was the weather.

    1. Diane
      May 6, 2024

      E: Not forgetting Climate Crisis, Climate Breakdown, Era of Global Boiling (UN) , Fast Track to Disaster (UN) A Burning Planet ( Dubai COP 28 ) There is plenty that we can do & are doing and should do of course but this borders on hysteria. Not healthy for the minds of many no doubt.
      Not entirely unconnected – just happened to look at minutes on a UK/EU meeting Oct 2023 ( Updated 12/01/24 )
      Minutes: Trade Specialised Committee on Level Playing Field for Open & Fair Competition and Sustainable Development under the EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: third meeting … Includes some UK/EU Climate Policy updates.
      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/trade-specialised-committee-on-level-playing-field-for-open-and-fair-competition-and-sustainable-development

      1. Everhopeful
        May 6, 2024

        Oh dear.
        “Powering Up Britain”
        U.K. promising to be good and come up with cheap energy using sun, wind and wood!
        Much Lol
        Plus flipping cheek. We are perfectly self sufficient or were until they started accidentally on purpose letting our reserves run down.
        Now if only we had coal
.
        “The UK noted its interest in the Net Zero Industrial Partnerships proposal.”
 oh yes
well it would wouldn’t it!
        Utter despair!

  37. Ian B
    May 6, 2024

    And this Conservative Government is virtually alone in the World seeking retribution, control and punishment on a whole nation just to disguise its contempt for the UK and its People.
    8.1 billion people on this planet, yet just 70million have had draconian laws to punish, had their economy, their ability to respond, their security, their resilience removed by order of their Government.
    It is not just about whether there is science or not for the actions of this religious cult, the Conservative Government. Where is the level playing field? Why are the Conservative Government punishing the people of this country, while all the time encouraging, even paying, somewhere in the region of 7.8 billion people elsewhere to create profit and grow at the UK Citizens expense.

  38. Ed
    May 6, 2024

    I have got a good idea.
    Why don’t the proponents of net zero practice what they preach.
    Go to an island somewhere off the grid, and live for one year without ANY of the benefits or products of fossil fuels.
    Then come back (if they are still alive) and tell us all how much they enjoyed it.

    1. dixie
      May 6, 2024

      Whilst I agree the proponents should be striving to minimise their ecological footprint ..
      .. Net Zero does not mean Zero, the clue is in the name.

    2. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2024

      +++
      Great idea but they need to do it HERE and continue “working”.
      No glasses, no shoes, no clothes, no paper, no laptops.
      Nothing at all except maybe a few leaves
but how would they keep them on? Spit maybe?
      How far is Westminster to the nearest cave? How long to learn how to spark up a fire?
      Where are the flints anyway?
      I could go on for hours
.
      T’would be bliss to observe!

  39. Bjorn
    May 6, 2024

    @JohnRedwood, I would argue the behaviour you comment on is based on the same thinking you yourself have suggested several times, that it doesn’t matter what the UK does in this regard (cutting co2 emissions) because other nations (US, China) emit so much more.
    Maybe an analogy could be that the UK should not have ended slavery, because other nations were still using slaves on a much larger scale than the UK was?
    An no, of course I don’t think the UK should have continued with slavery, it was wrong, and the government of the day eventually ended it. But at a huge cost. Because all the slave owners of the day were compensated using government funds.
    So I wonder. If people back then had had the choice between buying, say, sugar from a slave owning sugar plantation, or a non-slave using plantation (probably costlier), would most people have chosen the cheaper sugar from the slave plantation? Sometimes governments have to make unpopular decisions if it is for the greater good.

    1. hefner
      May 6, 2024

      B, Who is to define the greater good? Which generation(s) in particular? Those with possibly 10-15 years in front of them, or those with 60-70-80 years?

      1. Bill B.
        May 6, 2024

        Those with 60-70-80 years experience of the world, Hefner. Not those with 10-15 years experience of the internet.

        1. hefner
          May 7, 2024

          07/05/2024 Thanks for Justine Greening ‘Tories must face hard truths: Reform-like wreckers like Braverman are why the public just don’t like us’.
          Not something that would reach you Bill B.?

        2. Bill Smith
          May 7, 2024

          <Bill B

          Wrong it is the younger who should be making the decisions, like the vote for Brexit would not have been a disaster had the young voted more as a group

    2. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2024

      Rich 18th century bankers, merchants etc did sometimes give up sugar in support of abolition but of course giving up slavery was very much like giving up carbon. You hand an immediate advantage to your competitors.
      Still, it wasn’t a problem because as soon as we had abolished slavery the Industrial Revolution really took off and whole armies of new slaves were herded into British towns and cities to a dark and unfamiliar life of toil and hardship.
      And strangely enough the bosses were not scared of their new charges
or at least not for a century or so and as soon as that happened ( I suspect) they had to go too.
      They are now shutting down everything and it is not for any greater good!

  40. Ian B
    May 6, 2024

    From the MsM
    The rise of Reform UK could hand Labour a majority at the next general election, Professor Sir John Curtice has suggested.
    We know Curtice is a self-publicist attention seeker and probably distorts his headlines to get notice.
    Everyone know it is not Reform that is the problem. Sunak and his Conservative Government have deserted all Conservatives, have deserted the middle of the road of UK Society – this strange cabal of his has disenfranchised the majority in the UK. Just as he imposes NetZero punishment on the UK while the rest of the World takes a different view – it moves forward, prospers and creates wealth that causes an assured future. He and his government want maximum punishment, maximum taxes, maximum State, more and more uncontrolled Quangos etc, then demonstrates contempt by dishing out tax payer money with no controls, no return, accountability or responsibility even asked for.
    Curtice is wrong its this Conservative Government that will hand Labour a majority, a massive majority – how else can we get rid of Sunak and his collective Cabinet?

    1. Ian B
      May 6, 2024

      As was said by a former minister over the weekend the Tory’s always win elections when they ‘work with’ the people, when they listen, when they hear the majority.
      Just on NetZero alone they prove they have a total disregard for the people of the UK. They don’t even follow the Worlds(99%) masses on this religion. The whole World is moving forward, growing and creating wealth – Sunak has cancelled that for the UK. Why is this Sunak Government rewarding the Worlds big polluters, sending the UK taxpayer money in some instances just to ensure the UK cant survive?
      If global warming through human activity was a thing and NetZero was a needed. Any sane government would first and foremost want to create the wealth, the economy to fund the changes. Taxing more is not funding. Only a government seeking retribution, malicious punishment on its people would curtail a people’s ability to have the funds to respond.
      Only a government intent on destruction would fail too not only listen but hear.

  41. ChrisS
    May 6, 2024

    All common sense but nobody in politics is listening !

    Unless Starmer takes the climate change brief away from that beefburger idiot, Ed Miliband, things are likely to get a whole lot worse. In this case, the public is far more sensible than 80% of politicians but it is always dangerous when all the parties in Westminster are of the same opinion. We need an effective opposition on reducing emission. However, the problem is far wider in that all over Europe politicians seem to share this climate hysteria.

    We can only hope that the general public all over Europe take to the streets in their yellow jackets and insist that politicians do as we want.

  42. Ralph Corderoy
    May 6, 2024

    ‘Only a small minority buy all electric cars.’

    As a thought experiment, consider all electric cars could not be distinguished from petrol ones apart from their higher purchase price, awkward refuelling, and how much they were ‘saving the planet’. They’d sound the same, not have unique makes and models, etc. I would not be able to tell if my neighbour, my colleague, or a tailgater had an EV. Now, how many of that small minority would still have bought an electric car to sit along their normal car, kept for proper journeys.

  43. Ian B
    May 6, 2024

    “Most people do not believe there is a climate emergency” Don’t they? Or are they asking why is this Conservative Government virtually alone in a World of 8.1 billion people, where at worst the UK could be reasoned to contribute to the situation is less than 0.04%. Do the rest of the Worlds people have a government seeking revenge against their electorate? Or are they just trying to hide their 14 years of constant failure behind a barrage of subterfuge, plots and scare mongering.
    This Conservative Governments plot falls down when virtually no one else is actually following their draconian malicious punishment first measures. They then contradict their own diktats by allowing all those that are said to be the problem free access to UK markets.
    The Conservative Government are the high priests of fear creation they have off-shored UK production then force us to import, and pay more for what they have banned us producing. They are banning the UK excitants behind a smoke screen of a climate emergency.

    Double Standards, double talk form people that have lost their way.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 6, 2024

      Actually Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and most of the European Union have governments attacking their native majority populations. The British population have done quite well in comparison to the populations of many of these other nations. Our politicians have some doubt as to whether we will put up with them.
      We need to remove that doubt.

    2. Original Richard
      May 6, 2024

      Ian B : “The Conservative Government are the high priests of fear creation they have off-shored UK production then force us to import, and pay more for what they have banned us producing.”

      Yes, and haven driven all UK production offshore they’re about to implement CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) to make imports even more expensive. Remember that it is planned that we are to rely totally on the Chinese for all our energy infrastructure – wind turbines, solar panels and cabling as well as heat pumps and evs.

      Now why would this seem to be a good idea to Ed Miliband, the creator of the CCA?

  44. Derek
    May 6, 2024

    For the sake of Britain, our economy and our destiny, can the Government, at least, push the ‘Pause’ button on the crazy net-zero objective? At least until the big emitters of the world get a strong grip of their own output and prove they really are, “doing their bit”?

  45. Paula
    May 6, 2024

    Well if there is a climate emergency it’s too late to turn it around. Instead of trying to reverse it we should be doing all we can to survive it – taking away our heating, our transport and our food isn’t going to do that.

    The BRICs aren’t interested in net zero so what’s the point of us doing it ?

  46. John Hatfield
    May 6, 2024

    Life-time Conservative, no longer.

  47. henry curteis
    May 6, 2024

    CO2 is great for plants. The UN, WHO and WHO operate a vicious depopulation agenda. They won’t want food producton to be assisted by CO2.

  48. Original Richard
    May 6, 2024

    “The Green party who promote climate crisis as their lead issue never get out single figures in the polls.”

    Could this be because all the existing Parliamentary parties and the BBC are signed up to CAGW? They’re not needed to push Net Zero and I see from the recent council elections that the party has moved on to another anti West issue.

  49. Christine
    May 6, 2024

    Net Zero is only for the little people and it’s all about control.

    There was an article in Guido Fawkes last week about travel expenses racked up by staff at the Bank of England “Carolyn Wilkins, external committee member and former Mark Carney deputy at the Bank of Canada, has racked up an eye-watering 107,537 in travel expenses, mostly on business class flights, since her appointment three years ago. That’s somewhere around 7,844% of what the average Brit spends on flights.”

    Just proves there is no climate emergency.

    1. glen cullen
      May 6, 2024

      Why is our government going along with this madness ….its time for a net-zero referendum, lets have it with the next general election

    2. Bill Smith
      May 7, 2024

      Christine,

      This proves absolutely nothing

  50. forthurst
    May 6, 2024

    The Tories have been in power for 14 years; if they want to do just one thing to redeem their record of abject failure, they would repeal the Climate Change Act.

  51. Linda Brown
    May 6, 2024

    What is the use of us making ourselves poverty stricken thanks to Ed Milliband and the like when the main culprits are China, USA (our best friends so are we going to tell them?), Russia and the rest. We are a tiny little place which does not matter at all so why make us suffer so that politicians can get their faces in the press and on TV. I wish they would just shut up and we could put them on a plane for Ruanda if we cannot get rid of the illegals.

  52. Mike Wilson
    May 6, 2024

    An interesting historical comparison. In the 1950s our cities, London particularly, suffered from terrible smog as a result of almost everyone burning coal to warm their homes. We didn’t get rid of the smog by companies providing consumers with solutions they, the consumers, adopted by their own choice. We got rid of the smog because the government made it illegal to burn coal and insisted on smokeless fuels – which were more expensive.

    Reply No, we got rid of smog by people buying gas central heating which was so much better than an open fire in one room!

    1. Mike Wilson
      May 7, 2024

      No, we got rid of smog by people buying gas central heating which was so much better than an open fire in one room!

      Not so. The change to smokeless fuels after the Clean Air Act of 1956 caused a virtually immediate effect. The yellow, sulphur laden smogs stopped almost at once. It took a couple of decades before gas central heating became widespread.

  53. Mike Wilson
    May 6, 2024

    The title of today’s article is exactly wrong. Most people DO believe there is a climate emergency. But there isn’t much they can personally do about their own carbon footprint. They can’t afford an EV or a heat pump. They do what they can. They recycle and turn the thermostat down. And in the meantime, they see the Davos attendees taking private planes everywhere and think ‘blow it, if it’s good enough for the preachers, I’ll take a plane once a year for my holiday.

  54. Atlas
    May 7, 2024

    Agreed, Sir John.

Comments are closed.