Essay by Eric Worrall
Falling between two stools? Backsliding on banning gasoline vehicles and green targets is enough to upset greens, but not enough to alleviate the green energy bill pain of ordinary Britons.
Sunak has ‘set Britain back’ on net zero, says UK’s climate adviser
Chris Stark, head of the Climate Change Committee, says Tories’ decision to dilute key green policies has had huge diplomatic impact
Michael Savage Policy editor Sun 21 Apr 2024 03.11 AEST
Rishi Sunak has given up Britain’s reputation as a world leader in the fight against the climate crisis and has “set us back” by failing to prioritise the issue in the way his predecessors in No 10 did, the government’s green adviser has warned.
Chris Stark, the outgoing head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said that the prime minister had “clearly not” championed the issue following a high-profile speech last year in which he made a significant U-turn on the government’s climate commitments. The criticism comes after Sunak was accused of trying to avoid scrutiny of Britain’s climate policies by failing to appoint a new chair of the CCC.
…
“It was presented to the country as a step back from going too fast on this transition,” Stark told the BBC. “In the speech itself, he talked a lot about the need to reappraise lots of the steps that take us to net zero. I think it set us back. I think we have moved from a position where we were really at the forefront, pushing ahead as quickly as we could on something that I believe to be fundamental to the UK economy, fundamentally beneficial to the people living in this country, whether you care about the climate or not.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/20/sunak-has-set-britain-back-on-net-zero-says-uks-climate-adviser
Bringing energy price relief to ordinary people could actually claw back support for the British Conservatives.
Going pedal to the metal on the green transition could restore the faith of green supporters.
Trying to find a green policy compromise, where no compromise is possible, just upsets everyone, and will lead straight to the electoral disaster which the out of touch British Conservatives so richly deserve.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
________________________
Yes, fundamentally wrecking the economy.
“I think we have moved from a position where we were really at the forefront, pushing ahead as quickly as we could on something that I believe to be fundamental to the UK economy, fundamentally beneficial to the people living in this country, whether you care about the climate or not.”
What a delusion! Who cares about the “forefront”?? Who thinks that tripling the energy cost (or worse) will bring net benefits??
Do India and China think it would be fundamentally beneficial to the people of their nations to rush toward Net Zero? Obviously not. Record coal production.
The Imperialist belief that China will kowtow to Britain’s norms was always optimistic.
But since they have ignored the understandings over democracy in Hong Kong, it is now absurd.
Thus being at the forefront or aft is equally daft to worry about. The UK’s climate policy are irrelevant to the planet.
It only matters to the UK economy.
Therefore, we should scrap the Climate Change Committee.
German, UK folks, and all other CO2-reduction/phobia fanatics have wasted many $trillions on hare-brained wind/solar/battery/EV/Heat Pump, etc., schemes
.
They have impoverished tens of millions of people in the process, because they are spreading THE TRUE FAITH, based on their science, to save the world
.
The elites have made oodles of $billions in the process, FOR DECADES.
You will NEVER hear of a halt for building private planes and yachts!!
.
Excerpts from:
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
.
Retained Energy in Atmosphere
.
Dry Air and Water Vapor
ha = Cpa x T = 1006 kJ/kg.C x T, where Cpa is specific heat of dry air
hg = (2501 kJ/kg, specific enthalpy of WV at 0 C) + (Cpwv x T = 1.84 kJ/kg x T), where Cpwv is specific heat of WV at constant pressure
.
1) Worldwide, determine enthalpy of moist air: T = 16 C and H = 0.0025 kg WV/kg dry air (4028 ppm)
h = ha + H.hg = (1.006T) + H(2501 + 1.84T) = 1.006 (16) + 0.0025 {2501 + 1.84 (16)} = 22.4 kJ/kg dry air
About 16.1 kJ/kg of dry air is retained by air and 6.3 kJ/kg by WV
.
2) Tropics, determine enthalpy of moist air: T = 27 C and H = 0.017 kg WV/kg dry air (27389 ppm)
h = 1.006 (27) + 0.017 {2501 + 1.84 (16)} = 70.5 kJ/kg dry air
About 27.2 kJ/kg of dry air is retained by air and 43.3 kJ/kg by WV
https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-the-Enthalpy-of-Moist-Air#:~:text=The%20equation%20for%20enthalpy%20is,specific%20enthalpy%20of%20water%20vapor.
.
CO2
h CO2 = Cp CO2 x K = 0.834 x (16 + 273) = 241 kJ/kg CO2, where Cp CO2 is specific heat
.
Worldwide, determine enthalpy of CO2 = {(423 x 44)/(1000000 x 29 = 0.000642 kg CO2/kg dry air} x
241 kJ/kg CO2) @ur momisugly 289 K = 0.155 kJ/kg dry air.
.
Retained energy, world: (16.1 + 6.3 + 0.155) kJ/kg dry air) x 1000j/kJ x 5.148 x 10^18 kg, atmosphere/10^18 = 1.161 x 10^5 EJ
.
Retained energy, Tropics: (27.2 + 43.3 + 0.155) kJ/kg dry air x 1000J/kJ x 2.049 x 10^18 kg, atmosphere/10^18 = 1,448 x 10^4 EJ.
.
The Tropics is a giant energy storage area, almost all of it by evaporating water.
CO2 plays a 100 x (0.155/70.655) = 0.219% role.
About 35% of the Tropics energy is transferred, 24/7/365, to latitudes north and south of the 37 parallels, which do not get enough incoming solar energy.
Humans consumed 604/365 = 1.65 EJ/d, in 2022
Negotiating the details of an energy “Transition” is like explaining your being a little bit pregnant; you are either all-in or you aren’t. Any attempt to run a modern economy on expensive, dilute and unreliable energy sources will end in the failure of the economy and privation for the citizens no matter the timeline it is or isn’t accomplished.
Voters know when their economic wellbeing is going into the toilet no matter the lies put forward by Leftist governments. Only the elites can “afford” such feckless governmental “planning.” Historically, without fail government industrial planning (socialism) has resulted in the ruination of peoples’ standards of living.
The Tories are right-wing, not left. When we were in the EU they were in a political group to the right of the Christian Democrats. That’s as right as you can be and still be a democratic party.
All their plans for the great transition involve letting privateers extract money out of the system while the Government abdicates all responsibility. Until it has to bail them out.
A shorter-term example is the pollution of rivers. We can see that they regulate that rivers should not be filled with excrement. And then they hand that responsibility for that over to privatised companies who seek profit over any other duty and thus ignore the supposed aim.
Of course, in the end it’s the tax payer, not the investor, who has to pay to clean up the mess. That’s why the Climate Change Committee should be abolished. It just embezzles taxpayers money off to boondoggles.
“The Tories are right-wing, not left. When we were in the EU they were in a political group to the right of the Christian Democrats. That’s as right as you can be and still be a democratic party.”
Any party (left, central or right ) that relies on a ‘whipping system’ to drive its policies through instead of a consensus of members, is not a democratic party. It is one step away from authoritarian rule.
All political parties have a whipping system. Members are never free to vote as they wish except when a rare conscience vote is granted. So, in my opinion all parties are left wing. This can be seen in any party structure. Pure communism or fascism if you prefer. If you want “right” you have to go independent.
As you say,
“All political parties have a whipping system. Members are never free to vote as they wish“,
therefore,
they are NOT democratic (allowing rule by consensus),
but authoritarian (ruling by an elite group ).
“If you want “right” you have to go independent.”
The problem is, that humans are pack animals, they feel safe in their own group, aggressively opposing everything that is not in their comfort zone.
In politics, you often see opposite sides uniting to dispose of an independent; then it’s back to squabbling on who can line their pockets fastest.
When will they ever learn ?? (Pete Seeger)
Don’t hold your breath.
All parties fear independents so, yes, they will unite to destroy them and preserve their own illicit power. However, ultimately, it is the voter who gives power to parties and this is rapidly changing.
Need to read Burke, too.
I suggest reading Burke, and an intelligent commentary on him. British democracy evolved over a century without any pre-set direction or objective, as was found necessary to make parliamentary democracy work. As was necessary for a government to have a reliable majority in Parliament to allow it to govern.
You start out after 1688 with the idea that the executive (Crown) invites some person with a following to ‘form a government’. At this point there are loose groupings of men with largely personal followings, and patronage is a key glue. The position of Prime Minister evolves out of this, with Walpole. A little while later in the last third of the 18C political parties evolve in a recognisably modern sense.
At this point we have a party line, a party which forms a government, and governments fall when they lose a reliable majority. As the importance of Parliament increases, and the Crown ceases to be the executive and becomes more of a head of state, with most of the Royal Prerogative residing with the government of the day, the amount of business to be done also rises. Population rises. The industrial revolution brings complexity of issues. Some way has to be found reliably and predictably to get votes through. And this is how whipping in the modern sense evolves. Its a response to the importance of Parliamentary votes.
The English historical experience is that without parties and without whipping, governments cannot govern. They cannot reliably get things done, that is, get measures passed in Parliament.
This is Parliamentary democracy. Its quite wrong to think this is some variety of non-representative authoritarianism. It has its defects, but its lasted 300 years in Britain without any serious challenge, evolved to overcome many obstacles and crises, and has spread through the world. Like all political life its a matter of compromises. But its survived war, depression, epidemics, wholesale social and economic change and is still going strong. It will survive climate change mania too – though its not clear how much of the economy it governs will!
I cannot see any evidence to support the notion that the Tory party is right-wing. It was right-wing, they still have right-wing members, but the party under current and recent leadership (eg. Theresa May, Carrie Johnson) is not right-wing now.
Just this side of woke !!
Only just
It depends on who you’re comparing left and right wing to. For the U.K. labour is left wing, Lib Dem’s are right of centre and conservatives are right wing. Compared with Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam they’re all right wing. Compared with the Republicans in the USA they’re all left wing, even compared with the Democrats in the USA they’re all left of centre.
You can’t know much about the Lib Dems if you think they are right of centre. In some ways they are more left wing than Labour. But in this day and age, the old left-right divide is somewhat irrelevant. The key issues these days are globalism, immigration and wokery. It’s where you stand on these issues that really matters. On these issues, the Lib Dems stand at one extreme. (They were given £1 million by a firm that supplies puberty-blockers.)
The current Tories, compared to the Conservative Party of a couple of decades ago, or even the Labour Party of the same vintage, are hard left on every measure: record high taxes, huge social spending, massive debt, uncontrolled deficit, gay marriage, politically correct speech codes, schools/medical facilities assisting transitioning of children, record migration, record asylum numbers, protected foreign aid spending regardless of deficits, support for myriad minority rights charities, enforcement of left wing dogma through media regulators, promotion of a sick note culture, more funding without reform of a bloated NHS that is one of the world’s biggest employers, legally binding climate change targets, etc. This is not right wing by any measure.
Marginally right of the extreme left would be my estimate!
I agree. The only diference bewteen the Conservatives, Labour an the Lib Dems is the spelling. They are all left of centre.
The Tories used to be right-wing (in a good way), but are now dithering between being left of centre and not quite as left as the Labour party
There was a moment when the Tories appeared to favour fracking but it was oh so easily dispatched by a tiny earthquake in the fracking area which absolutely nobody could have felt. But there will be future opportunities depending upon weather and the many energy dispatching parts working properly. Just one newsworthy black spot last for long enough to annoy people is all it will take at the prices we are currently paying for fuel.
One thing is certain and that is that Starmer, if elected with a working majority, will be just as bad (if not worse) in Government as he has been in Opposition.
The fracking decision was down to Ed Davey when the Lib Dems were in coalition with the Tories. He was also responsible for the ongoing Hinkley Point C nuclear power debacle which has recently seen the date of completion move from 2026 to 2029.
Paraphrasing the Sunak criticism: “UK is no longer at the forefront of Net Zero.”
Meaning no longer at the forefront of societal suicide. Sad, not. Won’t save Sunak from his impending election disaster based on immigration and Sunaknomics.
Chris Stark, outgoing head of the ‘Climate Change Committee’, exemplifies everything wrong about climate alarmism. Scottish education was a BSc in Political ‘science’. At Harvard that would have been a BA, not a BSc.
Old joke—any college department needing the appendage ‘science’ isn’t. Math, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, paleontology, anthropology, even economics, English lit, and history do not call themselves a ‘science’ department. But polisci, socsci, clisci, and such do. Which just convincingly proves they aren’t science at all—just false advertising.
As always, there is a fun exception to the general rule. Computer/information science IS a science, although at the beginning it really wasn’t—early on just a special form of engineering needing sciency student recruits. So its originally false advertising morphed into true advertising.
If all of the so-called social sciences simply disappeared, would the world be any worse off? Do any of these bogus ‘sciences’ contribute anything useful to the sum of human knowledge?
Is this a trick question?
Yes, they serve as a sorting bucket for those whose IQ’s lag behind their ambition.
Any field of study that relies on mental masturbation and fact-less assertions instead of the adherence to scientific principles is doomed to irrelevance. Normal people learn from the failures of the social sciences not to trust the snake oil salesmen. And people wonder why there is huge pushback against Leftist tropes.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Oh, something like psychology could become a science, but it is not now or ever has been “science” as practiced. Poli Sci never tried. All the others are worse.
The Climate Alarmists don’t study history or learn from political giants who forged past society, on the anvil of conflict. Fooling all the people all of the time is their entire foolish game plan.
They have never heard of the Gettysburg Address, that defined democracy as government of the people, by the people, for the people. No mention of being for the technocrats of for the convenience of the super wealthy either.
“Won’t save Sunak from his impending election disaster”
Poor Brits…
… whoever takes over is bound to be far worse. !!
UK on the road to self-caused economic and social disaster. 🙁
Unfortunately Chris Stark is not moving away from ‘climate change’ but is becoming CEO of The Carbon Trust where he can continue to create havoc.
Purported “conservatives” going Green is manifestly an oxymoron. The green movement is inherently anti-capitalist, so what do the Conservatives stand for? Going socialist somewhat more slowly?
UK ‘Conservatives’ is obviously a misnomer. I think they call themselves Tories. Still left of center after Thatcher. Nigel Farage may have something to say.
I would argue they are not conservative since they forced Thatcher out.
Their official title is the Conservative and Unionist Party. (Unionist referring to Northern Ireland but also now Scotland and Wales.) The term Tory has a long history and is used by people generally to refer to the Conservatives as a kind of nickname.
Preservation of the status quo, a traditional rural status quo, is not conservative?
Hmm…
“so what do the Conservatives stand for”
Modern Conservatives… not much !!
They do seem determined to make John Cornyn look like a man of courage and conviction.
Few self appointed bodies have given themselves more unearned authority than the CCC,(Climate Change Committee).
A group of individuals that were headed by John Selwyn Gummer AKA Lord Deben a man so distanced from reality he was given a cabinet post in John Major’s government. The reason he was appointed was they needed someone so dim he would make Major look intelligent and even statesmanlike…..well it was worth a try.
The point I make is the CCC which is funded by state advised the need for more and more green initiatives despite all of the evidence showing that was the road to ruin.
One of the few things done by Rishi Sunak that has been almost helpful to the nation was the question he raised about Net Zero timelines. He didn’t dare suggest Net Zero was a recipe for economic collapse but that is precisely what it is. All Sunak did was continue the Net Zero objective but make the pain last a few years more before total collapse arrives.
Smart politician. Net Zero Disaster won’t now happen on his watch. Kick the can down the road is a very very common political move.
Sole living memory exception was 45. NATO, pay up. NAFTA replaced by USMCA. China tariffs doubled. Southern border wall almost completed. Promises made, promises kept.
Never agreed with John Major’s politics but I respected his integrity, with respect to the nation’s needs.
Never agreed with John Selwyn Gummer’s politics. He’s a schill and always has been.
Major’s name should not to be sullied by his brief association with Gummer.
Major had a 4 year secret affair with Edwina Curry, so I’m not blown away with his reputation for integrity.
Having said that I once met Edwina Curry, she accepted an invite to an event I arranged. After meeting her in person, even though she was in her late 50s when I met her, I completely understand why Major was attracted to her. There was standing room only at the event that night.
I said “with respect to the nation’s needs”, not his personal integrity.
You’ll be getting the Trump Brigade on your back if you can’t make that distinction.
I had the “privilege” of meeting Gummer at a Conservative Student Conference in 1961 (or maybe 1962). My fellow delegate was a mature student, a serving army captain. His opinion of the evident “leader” of the Cambridge University delegation is not repeatable in polite company.
I agreed wholeheartedly and have seen no reason to change my mind in the 60-odd years since! What he was doing in the Conservative Party, goodness only knows. I can’t imagine what the Party was thinking about!
More good news. Sunak should tell Stark you ain’t seen nothing yet, hold my beer. The Brits have made massive sacrifices for no good reason. CO2 has increased at the same rate as it did before the Brits made all these sacrifices. Time to get back to reality, there is no climate crisis, CO2 is not the control knob for our climate and we are not going to reach a tipping point and suffer irreversible global warming. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove all wind and solar from the grid.
GB wind currently only 9% of supply
Power imports nearly 25%
How, in even the craziest and most delude mind, is that a “transition” !
It’s a positive transition …
from bad to worse !!
If only we can try a bit harder, the UK can win the race to the bottom !!
It’s OK, the Tories are prepping construction of Britain’s first commercial nuclear fusion reactor, which will also fulfil their promise to bring more jobs to the regions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-68723533#https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/02/climate-obsessed-british-politicians-are-embracing-fantasy-energy-solutions/
This is the Prime Minister who stood at the Dispatch Box in Parliament two weeks ago and said that the Covid vaccines are safe and effective.
How out of touch can he be? What has happened to traditional, leading-the-way British Conservatism? People need it more than dictates from Elites.
Geoff S
Nobody can make the claim they are safe and effective, because nobody knows for sure. They released Covid vaccine after Phase 1 trials, without Phase 2 & 3 trials.
I have no problem with Trump’s effort to make the vaccines available, but it’s ridiculous to suggest they have had adequate clinical trials, especially when the history of SARS virus vaccines is troubling.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22536382/
UK Conservative Party cp. UK Labour Party = a distinction without a difference.
There’s still time for Rishi Sunak to get a landslide win in the next general election by officially dropping ‘net zero’ completely and going flat out to restore Britain’s energy systems. But that time is running out. I get the impression that he is now fully aware of this, and is testing the waters to see whether he can go further and if so, how far. To my mind, he is too cautious, but I hope I’m wrong. A Keir Starmer Britain is not a pleasant prospect.
I once asked a British political agent, the local political association chief who answers only to the MP, why he never became an MP himself. He explained being an MP would make him too visible, it would make it difficult for him to meet and negotiate with his opposite number in other parties without being noticed.
I strongly believe the Tories would rather lose than give up Nut Zero. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out why.
“You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out why.”. Not sure about that. I’m not Einstein. I still can’t figure out why they do it. (Must be a logic error somewhere …..).
Ditch net zero. Ditch all the other green policies. And ditch anyone that promoted, supported, made or enforced any of them.
Who in his right mind wants to be the first lemming to jump off the cliff?
That’s Fishy Rishi for you. Always coming up short.
Story Tip
In the Telegraph today an illuminating story about what Net Zero will cost the UK citizen, and why.
[Paul Homewood has estimated that the current situation already costs households about 450 sterling each per year.]
This does not deter the Resolution Foundation from endorsing Net Zero in principle and fantasizing idly about interest rates falling back to close to zero. And what is the government reaction to this?
The problem is not interest rates. The problem is that you cannot run a modern economy on intermittent energy when you have no viable mass storage technology. And the attempt to do it will cost huge amounts without working, ie without supplying enough reliable power for current demand, let alone the increased demand from electrifying everything we can think of.
To be clearer, Homewood’s 400 estimate is what the present various subsidies to renewable electricity cost the UK household now. The Resolution Foundation estimate would be on top of this, so we are talking 800 per year total. And that extra 400 is almost certainly an underestimate because it relies on plans which will not, as they stand, deliver reliable power, so additional costs will have to be incurred to deliver that.
The only way to get dispatchable power from wind is to build a duplicate network of gas powered stations and get it from that. Then think of the wind network as a sort of sacrifice to the gods of climate, because it serves no useful purpose in generating electricity.
The most cost effective solution to wind power, if you have to erect masses of turbines, would be to erect them but not connect them to the grid and don’t include any generators. Just put them up, have the blades turn while they last, and admire the view. Far cheaper than trying to use electricity from them.
Don’t worry – hydrogen will save the day – after all what can be wrong with an energy source that takes more energy to create it than it then contains ? 🙂
And pollutes by releasing water vapor.
Hey, if CO2 is a pollutant, so is WV.
Does “stepping back from the transition” mean stopping short of amputating your own testes?
NET ZERO FOLLY
As most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. It is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including nuclear power to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. In the Ordovician ice age atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than now. There was no industrial revolution then to be the cause . The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases. We have no control over the climate. The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. Most importantly, Net Zero (carbon dioxide) Policy will do nothing to change it. Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.
I read conservative UK articles on Nut Zero and climate change every day
The few real conservatives in the UK accuse Sunak of doing too much
He seems as unpopular as Jumpin’ Joe Bribe’em, so why does he still have the PM job?
Net satisfaction with Sunak now at joint worst levels in history of Ipsos – going back to 1978 – equivalent to John Major and Jeremy Corbyn’s worst in 1994 and 2019.
Stark is just like all the other Grifters and Shills, without the Net Zero gravy train, he becomes (even more) pointless. Him and his ilk need the climate cult to sustain their self-importance and help them to have some meaning to their otherwise miserable life.
Stark by name – Snark by nature!
Mr Stark apparently believes the tooth fairy will save them, or something.
A bumper sticker by intolerant adherents of one world view asks intolerant adherents of other world views to tolerate each other. The bumper sticker font contains symbols related to books which contain clear instructions about how adherants of other world views are to be dealt with. Seems unrelated to the article but it is by analogy. “Pragmatic” and “logical” describe what I think, “Dogmatic” and “emotional” are for others.
The arrogance of these people is infuriating. They really seem to think that the world is watching the UK and deciding on their climate policies based on what we do. Nobody is interested in the UK’s slow self destruction by way of green crap. The rest of the world is busy getting on with building coal power stations and burning oil.
The UK’s steady reduction in CO2 emissions has had no impact on the rest of the world, so there’s no reason to believe that any petty reversal in planned policies will have any opposite effect.
The UK now emits about the global average CO2 per capita on a territorial basis (i.e. the only basis we can control). Even if you believe in catastrophic global warming in full, a sensible policy from this point might be to reduce emissions a couple more percentage points and then tie your future emissions reductions to the rest of world. At least then your providing some incentive to others to act
A tiny, insignificant country cutting emissions on its own will obviously do nothing except impoverish its own citizens.
Can anyone explain why it would be important for a country to be a world leader, at the forefront of fighting climate change? Other than to secure some form of bragging rights?