Tomorrow I will give my lecture at All Souls College Oxford on net zero policies at 11 am.
If you would like to attend in person or by on line link please contact the College at  https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/event/long-road-net-zero
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February 24, 2022
By accepting the political aims of the Net Zero narrative suggests you’re either ideologically captured or lost touch with what is real, true and practicable.
NZ is about State politics and control over the private sector not about protecting the environment. It’s a scam and we all know it
February 25, 2022
How I agree. Your lecture will of course cover present scientific opinion that CO2 has a negligible effect on climate and UKs contribution to global carbon dioxide (not âcarbonâ for godâs sake) is just over one per cent and therefore the whole agony – Lotd Lawsonâs âunparalleled economic calamityâ is utterly pointless.
February 24, 2022
Good morning – again.
Ah ! A topic that I actually care about rather than a country I know little or have any interest in. And that is not meant as a dig bytheway.
Well we know the long road to Net Zero is going to be hell. It seems higher prices are here and that we will all, except the very rich, will have to start tightening our belts over the coming years. Travel is set to rise in London, energy, food, Council Tax, insurance and so on. This is going to have a very negative effect on the remaining productive (non-governmental) economy and add more woes to embattered private sector. Coupled on to this a greater tax grab for the State in the form of ENIC and Corporation Tax rises.
Like our kind host and others I predict that the government will, over time, receive less and less revenue as it slowly throttles the life out of the economy. I said a long time ago, and others here and elsewhere are now saying the same, it feels more and more like the 70’s. All we need now is for flare trousers, winged collars and platform shoes to come back into fashion to complete the picture.
February 24, 2022
Plus parking charges on private (employer owned) property. Yet another tax on going to work.
February 24, 2022
Even in the backwater I live in, youngsters are wearing flares.
February 24, 2022
Mark B : “I said a long time ago, and others here and elsewhere are now saying the same, it feels more and more like the 70âs.”
Regarding standard of living I think we’re more likely to be ending up in the early 1950s with rationing.
February 24, 2022
Mr Sunak has already told us weâll have to get used to higher energy prices and Mr Johnson âthereâs nothing wrong with being wokeâ. Welcome to a prosperous and progressive future under Conservative government.
February 24, 2022
There is a problem with Woke. It comes from universities. It has no idea of the realities of life. It is an ideal which states that black is white and to dare question it now risks livelihood, employment, cash flow and even liberty.
Woke is where competing female swimmers have to smile benignly on the second and third podiums at the male who has just beaten them and set new records or else lose their place at the top American university that hosted the race and blight their futures.
This is coming to real world sport and is already manifesting itself in toilets in public buildings where unisex loos (for the sake of a tiny minority) have women having to sit on wet seats and men having to queue while people do their make-up. (Our new theatre.) Mark my words. Weeing standing up and urinals will be banned in the near future.
We are told that Putin is the threat to global peace and liberty yet he is hemmed in by China on one side and EU/Nato on the other – a movement into territory either way will result in a nuclear backlash. The “Putin must be stopped or he will take over Europe” line is a lie told by the same people who made us reliant on his gas and his London roubles. The vote-ignoring EU took itself up to his borders without mandate and now complains about “our back yard” Can no-one see the irony ?
Putin does not have an ideology that a megalomaniac needs to take over whole power systems. The West most certainly does. It is called Woke and we see its worst boot-on-neck manifestations in New Zealand and Canada of all places.
February 24, 2022
Have you ever been to a University? I mean, ever? Everything you describe comes direct from the online pages of the Mail and Express. It has not the slightest relationship to anything happening in a British University, ever. And by the way the EU is on Putin’s borders because the people of the relevant states (Romania, Poland, Estonia, latvia, Lithuania) freely chose by democratic vote to join the EU – if you don’t think that’s a mandate, then no, I don’t think you do see the irony, nor do you understand freedom
February 24, 2022
This is the ridiculous concept that because you have a degree and you don’t, my opinion trumps yours.
If you were at graduate intelligence level Gary you would realise that is a very silly idea.
February 24, 2022
The online pages of the Mail and the Express say take Putin on. I most certainly don’t.
Woke is coming from Western universities. The Ivy League Championships is the sporting event I allude to.
February 24, 2022
Simply unhinged nonsense.
February 24, 2022
In other words NHL doesn’t agree with you NLA but will not explain why
February 24, 2022
What is unhinged nonsense is that Putin (with 100,000 troops) is a new Hitler about to rampage through Europe.
Such hot headed nonsense as this will lead to nuclear conflaguration.
It is reasonable that Putin should ask for a buffer zone between the EU/Nato. Whether people voted to join the EU/Nato or not – what on earth did we expect when our power system reached Russia’s back yard ?
February 24, 2022
Correction 190,000 troops.
Hitler waged conquest with 13.6 million.
February 25, 2022
I don’t have a problem with your analysis here.
February 24, 2022
Or as I see it:
Nobody has attempted to define what this final destination will be like for the average person, but let’s extrapolate what we know and what we’ve been told:
Please explain how this will not happen.
February 24, 2022
Soft-power doesnât work, appeasement doesnât workâŠ.when will this woke government realise that high tax, high energy cost, net-zero and its green revolution also doesnât work !
We’re not Russia…how about asking the people
February 24, 2022
This is a socialist government, not a conservative one. Just read last year’s Queen’s Speech to see what’s in store for us with all the Globalist Build Back initiatives laid out. This doesn’t match the manifesto voters voted for. Johnson says people want better funded public services. This isn’t true, people want lower taxes and value for money. With the freezing of tax allowances, new and increased taxes, net-zero costs, energy cost increases, mass immigration, this government is hurting the very people it is supposed to represent.
February 24, 2022
Spot on Christine, I agree with every word you’ve said
February 24, 2022
How can we fight Putin either economically or militarily whilst our arms and legs are tied and bound by our adherence to NetZero and the Climate Change Act?
February 24, 2022
Perhaps you should go off and fight Russia, Richard, and then tell us what works.
February 24, 2022
Correct – Just imagine a command post, with a climate crusader telling the battle group commander that heâs achieved his carbon footprint for that day….so stop advancing
February 24, 2022
ban nuclear
ban coal
ban oil
ban gas
ban plastics
ban meat
etc.
how about creating something.
why is banning such an acheivement
February 24, 2022
Banning things is communist social engineering
Creating things is capitalist liberalisation of society
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
We didn’t ban the horse when the steam engine was invented
We didn’t ban the steam engine when the internal combustion engine was invented
So why are we banning the internal combustion engine now that the electric car has been re-invented
February 24, 2022
Unless weâre saved by science and technology developing nuclear fusion, then the current Net Zero Strategy to produce all our power from the North Sea winds (a plan which BTW does not even include any significant nuclear fission for baseload energy) will inevitably mean that power will be dependent upon unreliable wind and consequently intermittent with very volatile pricing.
This scenario, where instead of supply matching demand, as it is at present, we will have demand matching supply, is openly admitted in the HoL Industry & Regulators Committee meetings on the subject of Ofgem and Net Zero.
Every user will have a smart meter so that their power usage and electricity prices can be controlled remotely and, although not yet discussed, it is clear there will be a need for someone to determine who can have energy and who must suffer a blackout.
This will have such a big effect on our lives that I think it is necessary to have a referendum to make the country aware of the implications of the Net Zero Strategy and for it to decide if the unilateral sacrifices planned are worth our 1% of global CO2 emissions.
February 24, 2022
Best response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine would be for Johnson to get up and scrap the Net Zero Climate Change policy , tell the country our energy security is vital and as such he is giving the go ahead to fracking and the coal mine that is bogged down in planning enquiries.
February 24, 2022
+1
February 24, 2022
Hear Hear
February 24, 2022
+2, Iain
I hope, Sir John, that as an experienced investor â even if not prepared to examine the science and therefore still convinced of anthropogenic climate change â you might still be prepared to revise your text in the light of overnight developments and their likely effect on this country.
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Disappointed to see the lecture will going out only on ‘Teams’ and not in a form I can see. (How long will it last: one hour or thirteen? Some-one ought to tell the college there’s no such thing as 12 p.m. Perhaps they’ve all faithfully departed!)
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February 24, 2022
It’s getting too late for fracking as tens of thousands of new homes have been built on the proposed fracking sites.
February 24, 2022
Ofgem, at the HoL Industry & Regulatorâs Committee meeting on Ofgem and Net Zero dated 30/11/2021 say they are âvery clear that they see Net Zero [Strategy] as fundamental to their existing duty, given that it is to protect current and future consumersâ.
Since Ofgem have taken up the remit to deliver Net Zero, is there anybody protecting the consumers â existing or even future?
Note that at the same meeting Ofgem also gave rising gas prices as a justification for pursuing Net Zero (transition to wind energy) and this of course would explain the Governmentâs desire to not develop our own sources of gas and would prefer instead to see rising gas prices.
February 24, 2022
Ofgem are expecting there to be 10-14m evs by 2030. This means that if 10m evs were connected in the evening to a 7KW charger the power required would be 70GW.
Although it will be natural and battery efficient behaviour for an owner to connect their ev to a charger each evening, the connections will fortunately not be all at the same time and the average charging time is unlikely to be all night long.
Even so, bearing in mind that the installed offshore wind power is planned to be only 40GW by 2030, which BTW is the absolute maximum power, not the average power, then there is going to be needed some very fancy ways developed for all these evs to have a fully charged battery by the following morning, never mind dealing with grid balancing issues.
Except note that ev batteries are also intended to be used for grid balancing and storage so an ev owner connecting his ev overnight may find he has instead a flat battery in the morning if the wind dropped and the power was needed for more important users.
Note that each charge/discharge cycle degrades the battery.
February 26, 2022
See https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero-stories/can-grid-cope-extra-demand-electric-cars
“There is definitely enough energy and the grid can cope easily.”
I guess these guys know.
February 24, 2022
JR: “Net zero”
Well, thanks to the administration you support, and it’s incompetent energy policies, I’ve just been notified that my energy costs have risen by 100%
Not only is this government a totalitarian dictatorship, it’s also utterly incompetent. If I had wanted an incompetent bunch of facists in power in this country, last election, I would have voted Labour.
February 25, 2022
Vote Tory get CONmunism
February 24, 2022
Great comments from David Starkey on GB NEWS tonight.
February 25, 2022
I have booked some time ago for your lecture on Fri 25 Feb 11.00. All Souls had not sent out the link to join by Team as of Thurs 24th so I have booked again just now. I hope that the Link to join by Teams will be sent out on Friday 09.00. The website page doesn’t say when the college will send it out – you may be able to check on Friday morning that they have done it 1-2 hours before you start. And advise them that some attendees have booked twice hoping this will ensure they do receive the Teams Link !
February 25, 2022
Correction – I have seen in your earlier entry on 20 February on your All Souls lecture the advice that “For those attending virtually, Microsoft Teams meeting links will be sent out 1 hour beforehand.” I will await that.
February 25, 2022
An interesting talk, Sir John, but it was a shame that no questions were taken from those of us watching online. I wanted to say this: “You began your talk by saying that global action had to be multilateral, and you pointed out that China was the biggest emitter of CO2. But given that China is NOT cutting its output, which you only briefly touched upon, surely that makes everything else you said, and everything that we in the UK are doing, utterly POINTLESS.”
And that leads to my supplementary question, which is: “At no point have you given us, or shown that the UK government has undertaken, a COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS to demonstrate the value and benefit to the British people of making all these changes, especially in a scenario where China does not cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Has such a calculation been done and if not isn’t any government action completely irresponsible?”
reply The rest of the lecture highlighted bad policies in the U.K. to reduce our CO 2 which boost world CO 2 or do not reduce CO 2
February 25, 2022
Many thanks for the talk. Whilst I’m not seeing the data supports your view, the talk was interesting all the same.
Many thanks.
February 25, 2022
Germany Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing, who recently spoke during an informal meeting with ministers from other European countries near Paris.
âWe want to allow combustion engines even after 2035,â he said, however, there’s one very important detail and it’s that Germany should allow sales of new combustion cars “only if the cars can be powered exclusively with synthetic fuels.”
February 26, 2022
Perhaps better to comment after actually hearing what Sir John said.
It was not justifying net zero rather the cost and practicality.
A very informative presentation and unbiased for or against CO2 being the cause of climate change.