Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t M; “I will say very pointedly and adamantly: We’re behind. We do not have the luxury of jiggering with the 2050 right now”
John Kerry’s British Election Meddling
The U.S. climate envoy offers his usual bad advice to U.K. Tories.
By The Editorial Board
July 25, 2022 6:45 pm ET…
Climate policy is an issue in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson as Tory leader and British Prime Minister after Mr. Johnson’s green ambitions wreaked so much economic damage. Green levies and hostility to domestic oil-and-gas production contributed to a 54% rise in household energy costs in April, with another 40% increase expected in October. One of Mr. Johnson’s worst fumbles was a plan to force households to abandon the natural-gas boilers they use for hot water and central heating, and to spend thousands of dollars installing heat pumps instead.
No wonder Mr. Kerry is worried the Tories might have second thoughts. “I will say very pointedly and adamantly: We’re behind. We do not have the luxury of jiggering with the 2050 right now,” the Biden Administration’s jet-setting climate envoy admonished the Tories on a BBC radio program this weekend. He was speaking of the ambition to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
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Mr. Kerry wants to lecture the world on a policy he can’t even sell to the U.S. Senate.
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Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-kerrys-british-election-meddling-u-k-prime-minister-boris-johnson-liz-truss-rishi-sunak-conservative-party-11658765732
I can’t find the interview where Kerry says “jiggering”, but Kerry was a busy boy last weekend. Other weekend Kerry BBC climate content is available here and here. If anyone has the stomach to listen to more recordings of Kerry, please post the link to the referenced interview in comments.
I understand Kerry’s concern about British climate backsliding. All mainstream British political leaders and candidates claim to support Net Zero for now, but that support seems to be wavering, just a little, in the face of voter anger at monstrous electricity price rises, blackout threats, and cost of living hikes.
If the coming British winter proves to be the food shortage gas shortage electricity blackout horror show we all fear, by next Spring it might be difficult to find any British politician who remembers ever giving unqualified support to hitting Net Zero.
Update (EW):- Thanks to Roger for courageously sitting through 15 minutes of the BBC kissing John Kerry’s butt. The “Jiggering” reference is at 15:04 in https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019jvb
Lurch has been on the wrong side of every issue for as long as he has been in politics. The thought of his almost being President is depressing.
Lurch is a human 💩
no more depressing than the fool as pres right now is
Why is it that American politicians are horrified by the merest hint that another country might be attempting to influence the internal politics of the USA yet see nothing wrong with coming to the UK in a blatant attempt to do exactly the same thing to our internal politics. And why has it never occurred to Biden, Obama, and now, Kerry that their attempts usually have exactly the opposite effect as intended.
I am more worried about 2069 when I will be almost 100.
I forget, was it Lurch or Gory who said the N Pole would be ice free by 2007(8, 9,10…)?
Right after Guam capsizes.
The next UK prime minister will be Liz Truss or Kemi Badenoch (yes you read that right, Rishi Sunak has next to no chance at all), If KB then she will tell John Kerry exactly where he can stuff his ideas. If LT maybe she will do the same. I hope so. The British people deserve better than the carp that they have had to put up with for so long.
Kemi Badenoch is already out of the contest.
Neither Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss will take on the Green lobby. It would mean the end of theor leadership rapidly.
The Green Lobby on the UK consists primarily of the BBC and SkyNews with a little support from ITN.
That’s virtually all the news sources that those old enough to bother voting actually hear.
What if the party members tell their MPs to stuff their two choices somewhere well away from the light of day, because the one they want is Kemi Badenoch. OK it’s a long shot, but right now KB looks a better bet than Rishi Sunak. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Possibly you have a blank spot about British politics. Let me clarify for you: MPs have zero regard for their constituents except for a notional tip of the head when an election approaches. Even if they did listen, there is no time and no intention to change the rules that govern the current contest for leader of the so-called Conservative Party and hence the Prime Minister.
Yes, it ain’t over till it’s over, BUT, except for simultaneous death or dementia of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, there is ZERO chance of Kemi Badenoch becoming the next Prime Minister, even though all polls show that she is far more popular with conservative members and, indeed with the voting population.
Sad, but a fact!!!
“[T]here is ZERO chance of Kemi Badenoch becoming the next Prime Minister, even though all polls show that she is far more popular with conservative members and, indeed with the voting population.”
***********
How did KB get eliminated from the race if she is popular? If she is popular, why would she not get enough votes for the next PM among the Conservate Party members? Don’t the party members vote for the next PM?
Voting so far has only been by Conservative MPs. They whittle the final contestants down to two, hence Truss and Sunak.
GB News is a breath of fresh air. They present both sides of the story and question everything.
Really, the leaders of other peoples governments should tell him to go pound sand. Really, Americans should tell him to go pound sand. Everybody should tell him and Al Gore to go pound sand.
Dang! What did sand ever do to you? Seriously tho, why haven’t the Brits kicked him out of the UK for interfering in their election, even if it’s just the Torys at the moment?
In my opinion the Tories are going through a bad patch, an end justifies the means philosophy. They don’t seem to trust the electorate. David Cameron “heir to Blair” was in my opinion their attempt to copy their caricature view of Blair, the master of spin. I’ve had old party faithfuls approach me at events and explain they can’t really tell the public what they believe, because nobody would vote for them – but its important they win, because they have to take care of a public which doesn’t know what is best for them.
So they try to be everyone’s friend, and rarely take a strong stand against people like Lurch.
“they can’t really tell the public what they believe, because nobody would vote for them” – how unbelievably stupid can they get. Simply telling the electorate that net-zero is destructively potty would be enough to win any election in a landslide. Oops – maybe the politicians don’t even believe that.
Try attending a few association meetings, Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, it doesn’t matter which. You don’t have to be a member to attend. If your local is a large and powerful association, after a few visits you’ll hear all sorts of stories I can’t print.
The only people I met who were unashamed to show genuine idealism were UKIP, but they were like cats in a bag, all had their own opinion – rarely pulled the same direction. Farage was a genius to organise them even a little.
I once visited the house of an acquaintance who turned out to be a hardcore BNP supporter. He was an idealist in his own way, but his views were beyond racist. I left quickly and never returned. Nevertheless I believe Britain is in a great deal of trouble if they don’t get this electricity situation sorted, in times of severe hardship desperate people listen to all sorts they normally wouldn’t give the time of day. It isn’t only the cream which rises to the top.
The UK politicians and their expert advisors, all cheered on by the climate activists and media, refuse to give those dissenting from the alarmist narrative a fair – if any – hearing.
A handful of scientists, engineers and other professionals in the UK are careful and clear in their statements. These are filled with common sense – or perhaps better “uncommon sense.”
“What the UK might do in terms of CDE (Carbon Dioxide Emissions) reductions has been undone, one hundred times over, for the last 20 years and almost certainly the next twenty, by the development of fossil-fuelled energy systems in underdeveloped countries.” Michael Kelly: DECARBONISING HOUSING The net zero fantasy 2020
Nearly 200 coal-fired power stations are under construction in Asia, including 95 in China.
Of the 0.87% that the UK and 0.09% that Ireland contributes Google suggests half comes from “anthropogenic emissions.” So politicians in these countries would destroy their economies and agriculture for less than 0.5% and 0.05% to reduce total world emissions – and that while Asia is replacing this a hundred fold. I have never heard anything more ridiculous and immoral.
https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/country_profile/WORLD
I should have added that Asian countries produce close on 60% of the total world emissions. Having completed the 200 coal power stations why would they not build more because coal is relatively cheap?
Do these green ministers and politicians know and understand any of these facts? It is high time we begin to hold our politicians accountable for their climate folly.
“Do these green ministers and politicians know and understand any of these facts?”
They are, and will remain, deaf to them. Impending catastrophe is taken as read. Being politicians, it will take a massive loss of votes to change their minds, but this will require large-scale switching to a party or parties that aren’t currently represented in Parliament, because all current parties tow the CAGW line. And it’s very difficult in UK politics for an alternative party to make such a breakthrough.
It sounds much like Ireland. I told two politicians who knocked on my door for votes that all they could offer was fifty shades of left. The media echo the government line and drown out any dissenting voices. Perhaps strong grassroots movements would help.
Between 2000 and 2020 coal powered generation in the World doubled.
Currently there are c.700GW of coal fired power stations 0-9 years old, 650GW 10-19 years old, 200GW 20-29 years old and 500GW over 30 years old (including 120GW over 50 years old).
Then there are all the new coal powered stations being built in China, Japan and Indonesia.
Coal powered electricity is going to be around for a very long time no matter what griff says.
I was reading somewhere that peak renewables was in 2017! Germany has been decommissioning an old air turbine farm and there was some thoughts that they didn’t have enthusiasm for replacing
it. A score of fairy dust power companies have already gone broke and investors aren’t showing interest.
The crazed demand for oil, gas and coal with the Johnny-come-lately, would-be totalitarians suddenly realizing that their constituents were going to perish this winter and fossil fuels were actually life and death essential.
When generating electricity, something has to spin. Too bad for the UK it’s always politicians.
I have been in organizations where the “cream rises to the top”. That is rare but great when it happens. In politics, however, the septic tank analogy seems to be more consistent with reality where the froth or scum raised to the top. One can hope for better results but I’m seeing a lot of “septic tank” results recently.
“Bad patch” is a bit of an understatement
Bring back Churchill, I say
The political elites hate the ordinary voter
They can’t be relied on to vote the right way….
If only someone could come up with an electronic voting machine that could be programmed 🤔
Just a small correction, the Tory leader i.e. the next PM is voted for by the Tory party only, not the populace at large.
Our head of state is still our Queen
You can’t go wrong by ignoring John Kerry’s advice.
All this coming from a dork that wants to take all of the carbon out of the atmosphere
Lurch is a moron.
Totally agree
He’s worse than that.
What… Lurch is telling torries not to “jigger”…??
Oh boy, what a Frankenstein Monster.
In Australia a jigger is a device (illegal) used on horses to make them go faster. Surely he should have encouraged the jigger,
The other side of the world, thank you for the insight (Lurch beating horses, that would be a sight).
It is an electric device.
battery actually basically the same as a shock collar for dogs or a much lower voltage cattle prod
How would you know which was which?
A jigger is also a type of railroad hand car.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23142840
I can imagine how the expression “jiggering about” might have come from this type of jigger.
Kerry joggers and jaggers a lot….is that OK?
A measure of Rum.
After reading the comments on “jigger”:
English, astounding, wonderful language!…
throw in bugs also known as jiggers
(midges most likely)
We have chiggers around here.
It was good he got swift boated. It would have been a nightmare to have him as president!
This is his revenge.
Frankenstein’s revenge
The only thing missing is the bolts sticking out of his neck
IF you are listening to John Kerry’s climate alarmism, that is your one and only existential crisis.
The obvious fear from the left is that the radical environmentalist’s billions of dollars, taxpayer money grab, isn’t achievable without their coercive practices.
That governments engage in the hyperbole and fear mongering only means that they too are in it for the loot.
Recent history is proof that the doomsday alarmism is unworthy of attention, unless you are in on the grift. Then sell it, brothers and sisters. The end is nye.
In the end, as a consumer, we all will not escape the crisis of a massively depreciated market place of goods and ideas that net zero will bring. Worse, you’ll have no recourse because on top of the socioeconomic debilitating stupidity of net zero, every country is neglecting their existing power grid. Infrastructure that has almost universally suffered from neglect these last 40 years. Good luck with that!
When a politician or judge cannot define a woman, why on earth would we trust them to guide us on the vastly more complex matter of weather and climate?
Do they have a total aversion for logic or are they totally deficient in logic?
I think more an abundance of greed masked as idealism.
This from the guy who spends more time in his private jet, than I do in my car.
PS: Whenever Trump said anything about other countries internal politics, these guys went ballistic about mean old US bullying other countries.
I don’t see anyone complaining about Lurch. For that matter, I don’t remember anyone complaining when Obama declared that if the UK left the EU, they would be cut out of all trade deals with the US.
(VP) Biden quid quo pro with Ukraine ex-president to sack an inquisitive DA 🙂
Now, ironically, the Biden administration is telling Ukraine’s leaders they need to appoint a new prosecutor to go after corruption in Ukraine.
I guess Hunter is no longer doing business in Ukraine so Joe Biden can pretend to be a crime fighter now.
See you in January, Joe. Hunter. And all the rest of the Democrat criminals and traitors connected with the Obama-Biden administrations, and the Clinton Crime Syndicate.
The Colorado Republican primary in June was a total clown show, not a single MAGA/America First candidate won. They used every capability of the Dom. machines and apparently didn’t care if anyone noticed. Unknown people with single-digit polling campaigning from their base won by huge margins; in the Sec. of State primary, the woman they selected actually works for CTCL! Entire blocks of votes were swapped from one candidate to the other in the middle of the night.
This is a long (2hr) and depressing video to watch but it goes through what happened:
https://rumble.com/v1ag8bt-jeff-odonnell-unmasks-the-election-stolen-before-our-eyes.html
Colorado might be worse than California now.
A lot of Brits did and he helped to get the Brexit vote.
Agreed, his threat is probably what pushed the vote over the line.
I guess we have that as the one and only good thing Obama ever did.
Yeah, Obama said Britain would have to go to the back of the line if they left the EU.
There is a two-tiered justice system in the United States: The Democrats can get away with anything, and the conservatives can get away with nothing, even if they haven’t done anything, like Trump.
So John Kerry can say whatever he wants with no repercussions from the Leftwing Media or the Democrats. Kerry speaks for them.
Kerry is about as bright as a match in a hurricane. I apologize to the match.
However, Kerry fits the Democrats woke vision of themselves, at least he is brighter than Biden and his co-star VP. Its a shame about the lack of quality and integrity in politicians these days, with a few exceptions in the US (Minchin), UK (Liz Truss) and Matt Canavan in Australia.
Wait are they really suggesting anyone should listen to John Kerry?
His track record on issues and predictions speaks for itself 🙂
It is the BBC giving him air time. That should be a telling indictment.
“ If the coming British winter proves to be the food shortage gas shortage electricity blackout horror show we all fear, by next Spring it might be difficult to find any British politician (still alive) who remembers ever giving unqualified support to hitting Net Zero.”
Fixed it…🤣
Voting public bearing torches and pitchforks outside your house or place of work do have a way of concentrating the mind…
And in other news the Australian Climate Bill has hit the Parliament. It seems to suffer from the same impediments as th UK “Net Zero” Bill which was scorched by the UK High Court.
how convenient that this came along to give meaning to his life.
Useless lying hypocrite traitor Kerry. Any self-respecting new PM would laugh right in his face.
“Useless lying hypocrite traitor Kerry.”
That sums it up nicely.
Whatever Kerry advises — do the opposite and you’ll be fine.
Lurch needs to stop jiggering with himself.
JOhn KErry.
Definite proof that you do not need even average intelligence to understand climate science!
Alarmists don’t understand climate science. That’s why they are alarmists.
No Comment
Did he or the disgraced BBC mention that UK produces one per cent of global CO2?
Now: we have cut it more than any other nation.
Fossil fuels provided 80% of world energy in 1970 and still provide 80% of world energy today. All the UK, EU, US etc have done is outsource their CO2 production to China.
Why do you think that in the UK industrial demand for electricity has fallen 20% since 2000?
And why when that demand has fallen has the UK had to increase electricity production capacity to almost 100GW, an increased requirement of over 20GW despite a significant reduction in demand? The answer is unreliables.
And global CO2 is Four- hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere.
Oh, and right now UK windmills are producing one point four per cent of electricity demand.
And getting paid anyway.
1.4 percent. And they think they can power their whole country with these things. Delusional. They will find out differently one of these days.
and solar is producing 13%
Remind me. How much does solar provide over night?
Don’t you have an incentive to promote solar Griff. Care to confirm or deny this is your business? https://www.griffservices.co.uk/?
oh wow. so 14.4 % of the total need.
and tonight for 12 hours solar will produce 0%
and you think this is something to be proud of ?
And John Kerry’s experience of anything is what exactly?
Did you not know he is an expert scientist? His wisdom is evident in the video here, from about 8:30 in:
https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/221704.htm
Kerry is a very experienced liar. He’s been doing it a very long time.
ass kissing when he was in the Navy
As a Tory member, (I joined them when it became clear they were adopting the green Net Zero nonsense, to try and steer them onto a more sensible path) I actually have a vote on the upcoming leader. Rishi Sunak is about as unpopular as it gets with the Tory members. He is seen as an establishment plant among other things, like being a Gordon Brown disciple of flawed economic thinking. Liz Truss will be the next leader of the Party and PM unless vote rigging takes place which could happen and a mechanism to enable that has been introduced called last vote/second vote is the one that counts. I won’t bore you with the details. Contact Tory HQ for the contrived logic of it.
As for Kerry, he is generally regarded as a bit of a pantomime figure at the best of time. He is completely ignored by rational thinkers, so his input is about as useful to the green cause as Biden is to training Truck drivers, by calling on his past experience….
Thank you for the insight. At least Liz Truss has admitted she was wrong to vote against Brexit. She did a good job, I believe, on trade deals so my fingers are crossed she can rise to the job of PM. I don’t want another Maggie. Liz has to be her own woman.
She doesn’t need to overtly drop NetZero, just gradually shuffle it into the long grass, which I think is inevitable.
I have long said we sceptics always have had the thin end of the wedge. The only thing we can hope for are negatives, that the weather gets rapidly colder or that climate mitigation imposes such financial pain that it is dropped. So far, we’re one out of two and the planet doesn’t seem to be heating up much, other than in BBC Voodoo climate world.
Agree, I pointed out to our MP that the Ukraine invasion gave the Conservatives a “get out of jail free” card – prioritise price and energy security and slowly distance yourselves from Net Zero. He has ignored it in public. However, I think there is strong pushback in the Tory back benchers behind the scenes, possibly up to a third of the MPs who can see that continuing with Net Zero will inevitably exacerbate the crisis and leave them facing a charge of economic incompetence. They cannot ignore the elephant in the room forever. However, being politicians, they require a face-saving exit strategy. There is a window of opportunity to grab one now for the Conservatives.
The only hope for change on this issue going forward is a Conservative government. Labour would simply double down and borrow loads of money for Net Zero and a LibLab coalition would probably double-double down.
I saw a psychopath ranting at the rational. Certified deranged.
Who rids me of this troublesome priest?
Kerry Silver Wings is obviously worried that the Tory MPs might wake up and discover that a significant programme of rolling back the Not Zero fantasy might prove an election winning and hugely popular political policy that the majority of the electorate would get behind given half a chance. After all, the general populace has never been asked if they want them abandon heating and lighting to finance the Chinese economy and indulge green fairy tales.
At least he doesn’t have to worry about Germany where government ministers are still insane enough to actually believe that the answer to their shortage of Russian gas supplies is to waste more money building more renewable (in)capacity.
When will someone like Kerry, living a life of opulent luxury and very frequently flying all over the world, totally change his lifestyle to support his claim that there is an impending climate disaster?
When will Kerry consider the clear statements of scientists and professional people who call in question his ideological fixation and consider that he may be very wrong about the science?
The arrogance of a man, who considers he can never be wrong on something so complex as the various climates in our world and the enormous weather variations in these, comes from people like the ancient tyrants who considered themselves god like.
“Jiggering” 15 minutes into “The World This Weekend”, Sunday 24th July. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019jvb
Thanks Roger, you’re a braver man than me 🙂
Kerry Instructs Tory Candidates Not to “Jigger” with 2050…
and to Ignore His 12 Cars, 6 Houses, 2 Yachts and the Private Jet….
The Tories should be worrying about 2023, not 2050.
WE should be worried.
We’re going to get net zero, like it or lump it.
I should think many tories could beat him on cars etc – besides their houses will be genuinely ‘stately homes’
Trust you to try to defend an elitist, griff.
Why is Kerry’s excessive hypocrisy ok and that of other [Conservative] elitists not?
Do explain….
I wonder what Shakespeare would have made of all this?
Perhaps he would not have written that
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy . . . . .
Some seem to have got stuck between the first two stages:
mewling and puking and whining
What we are seeing in the UK is the policy of appeasement; appeasement to the green lobby. What Britain needs is another Churchill. Somebody on the backbenches who will speak loudly against this appeasement and campaign strongly against it. Someone who will fight the green lobby on the beaches, fight them on the landing grounds, fight them in the fields and in the streets, fight them in the hills and never surrender. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be. (With apologies to Winston Churchill.)
Presumably when this is all over us sceptics who save the UK will be “the few”…
Just asking 🙂
Don’t care. I’ll be damned happy if we avoid becoming a train wreck of a country quite frankly.
Welcome to the new “special relationship” with your crazy climate overlord.
Not much has changed since the late 1930s and 1940 when FDR told the Brits to ignore Ambassador Joe Kennedy and deal directly with the WH.
The greatest thing about 2050 is Lurch Kerry won’t be around any longer to deliver pretentious lectures to us peasants.
I think John Kerry and Al Gore are just trying to punish the world because they couldn’t make it to be President of the US.
When it’s costing £500 a month to heat an average home it won’t matter what JK thinks. The public will vote with their wallets.
How much do the Brits have to say about who is their PM?
This is now an election by the Conservative Party membership only. About 240,000 if memory serves.
Not much at the moment but a general election is a couple of years away and we’ll have a wonderful choice between whoever the Tories elect, a wishy-washy lefty who can’t work out what he stands for and a weak-willed no-hoper who just copies what the wishy-washy lefty does. You can see why some Tory voters want BoJo back, for all his many faults, can’t you?
Dudes…it’s NOT enough to be net zero….we need Negative CO2, we need to bring atmospheric CO2 levels below ZERO….problem solved.
What problem?
John Kerry and Al Gore…two highly privileged white males who really give all white people a bad rap. What is maddening is both were on the brink of ultimate power and blew it, and now think they are entitled to lecture us about science neither understands, but conveniently gives them a pulpit to lecture gullible feckless fools who now set public policy… when will the madness ever end?
Is Kerry one of the world president’s (Klaus Schwab) 15000 global shapers who are working to change the world to what the WEF thinks its should be?
Johnm Kerry, Al Gore, birds of a feather Twits for sure and most likely big fans on Twitter, a place for Twits. Birds of a Feather