Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), most countries are treaty-bound to avoid “dangerous climate change”. Countries who signed and ratified the 2015 Paris Accord then had to produce nationally defined contributions (NDCs) to meet the decarbonisation targets. As the twenty-fifth annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP) begins in Madrid,…
British Steel, an icon of the industrial heritage of the very nation that initiated the Industrial Revolution is on the brink of collapse. Its decline since the 1970s has been precipitous and it is now facing the closure of its last plant in Scunthorpe. Carbon taxes have been squarely blamed for driving up costs that…
Carbon taxes are a much discussed mechanism for using market mechanisms to incentivise a transition to a zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels, exploiting the innovation and flexibility that markets can provide. However, detractors cite potential economic harm to those on low and middle incomes as a reason to avoid such action. Many such detractors turn…
This week (27/28 Nov 2018) I attended two conferences in London: the New Zealand High Commission event on the Impact of Climate Change in the Pacific and the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) Net Zero conference. I was photographed with Michael Liebreich, one of the panel members on shipping at the CEN conference (above). A heartfelt video…
Did a shaft of light just break through the media eclipse of Brexit? A brief moment when Earth’s destruction became a mere 12 stories behind the flimsiest thoughts of newly-promoted Tory cannon-fodder? Yes. I hope you caught it. Credit for this brief anomaly goes to Extinction Rebellion (XR), a new civil disobedience outfit responsible for…
Our campaign to galvanize Parliament in advance of the recent UN climate negotiations (COP 23) in Bonn – which has just ended – has resulted in a surge of action and some splendid results. The numbers tell just a small part of the story. CCLUK members have been talking up our policy up and down…
When evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe is asked ‘do you believe in climate change?’, she answers, ‘no’. You’d be forgiven for thinking she’s just another religious climate denier. But you’d be wrong. Canadian-born Katharine is a professor of atmospheric science, number 15 on this year’s Fortune World Greatest Leaders list and scientific adviser to Citizens Climate…
In my last post, I wrote about how we would be more inclined to fight climate change if we focused on an immediate threat we could see: pollution. However, acting to reduce consumption only on obviously polluted days is just not enough to make a meaningful dent in UK emissions. In reality, the air in…
How can we make people care about climate change? Do we show them polar bears perched atop wobbly icebergs? Do we warn them about melting glaciers in Greenland? This seems to work, at least while we’re having the discussion. But then, they forget. They go back to their old ways. Ultimately, humans simply don’t have…
Investment company, Goldman Sachs’ recent research forecasts renewable energy to be cheaper than other forms of power by 2020. Alberto Gandolfi, from Goldman Sachs Research said, What started as a decarbonisation process – thanks to better technology – is about to become a process driven by costs and the economics. This sounds like more proof…
