It’s been a dramatic few weeks. Climate Emergencies were declared by the Scottish, Welsh and UK parliaments last week (and the Irish Parliament this week) whilst, last Thursday, the government’s own Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published a report recommending the UK have a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The last few…
In a new paper the IMF estimates global subsidies for fossil fuel energy implied by the underpricing of supply and environmental costs at a staggering $5.2 trillion in 2017, or 6.5 percent of world GDP
That may sound like a stupid question, but when governments are failing to price carbon pollution at anywhere near the cost of the damage caused to society, it’s a question worth asking, though maybe it would be better to ask the reverse question: why aren’t we are pricing carbon? Why are we effectively subsidising fossil…
Wiltshire produces more solar-electricity than any other county in the UK but we’re joint 190th for wind energy. In fact, we produce about 6000 times more energy from the Sun than we do from the wind. That’s quite a contrast and we could do better. Of course, many people find wind farms ugly and don’t…
A House of Lords sub-committee (recording above) grilled Rt Hon Claire Perry MP (Devizes) Constituency, Robert Jenrick MP (Newark) and the Treasury on plans for carbon pricing, post-Brexit, on 27 Feb 2018. If we have it right, here’s the Government’s position: – they are committed to tackling climate change regardless of status in EU. – to…
This week has been hugely exciting in the fight to combat climate change. A CCL UK contingent sat down with civil servants, journalists and energy companies on Wednesday (10 Oct 2018) to hear the hotly anticipated launch of Policy Exchange’s ‘The Future of Carbon Pricing’ report. In the same week, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on…
The Nobel Prize for Economics has been won by carbon pricing advocates, William Nordhaus and Paul Romer. This week has been a seismic shift in the fight against climate change and for CCL across the world. In the same week as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we had to move much more…
Big step forward in fixing climate change! An exciting report has just been released, recommending ‘an independent carbon tax with dividends’ – which is the Citizens’ Climate Lobby preferred solution to climate change and air pollution. As we understand it, Policy Exchange, widely viewed as Britain’s leading think tank and the author of the report,…
In a speech on 22nd March at the European Commission conference on sustainable finance in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron argued for a higher carbon price plus carbon tariffs at Europe’s borders. He said that the successful transition to a low-carbon economy requires financial market reforms to drive investment into clean technologies. Though this was…
Priti Patel MP, former International Development Secretary, has criticised the big multilateral development banks for refusing to allow UK taxpayers’ money to be used to support energy projects that are not classed as renewable, pointing out that just over a billion people are still without access to electricity. renewables are important, but the reality is…
