Nigel Lawson would have been delighted with Kemi Badenoch’s ‘Net Zero Scepticism’

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

We will have to wait and see if this is just window dressing from Kemi, or the first chink in the Net Zero armour.

The real problem though is that Miliband will have done so much damage by 2030 that it will prove impossible to reverse in our lifetimes.

London, 18 March 2025 – The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has welcomed Kemi Badenoch’s speech on her self-declared ‘Net Zero scepticism’ and the need for climate policy reforms.

Dr Benny Peiser, the outgoing director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said:

“Nigel Lawson would have been delighted with Kemi Badenoch’s excellent speech which could have been drafted by himself almost verbatim.

“For more 15 years, ever since the late Lord Lawson and I launched the GWPF, we have been warning MPs and ministers relentlessly that Britain’s unilateral climate policy will inevitably cause rising energy prices, leading to the rising cost of living, dwindling manufacturing and international decline.

“As predicted, these costs have been rising sharply. As a result, there has been growing public opposition and hostility to ever more expensive energy bills, deindustrialisation and the subsequent cost of living crisis.

“Kemi Badenoch’s announcement of the need for radical policy reforms may be 15 years late, but it’s not too late to turn Britain’s economic and societal future around.”

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strativarius
March 19, 2025 2:20 am

Nigel Lawson would have been delighted with Kemi Badenoch’s ‘Net Zero Scepticism’

Would he? She has only questioned the timeline. I think he would be more underwhelmed than delighted.

She said she has not changed her mind after showing support for the net zero by 2050 target set by the Conservatives when she was a minister
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/kemi-badenoch-conservative-scotland-labour-china-b1217348.html

Just not good enough.

Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 2:36 am

Yep. All she’s said so far is that she wants a lower-speed car crash.

Reply to  DavsS
March 19, 2025 11:06 am

Kind of like overused roundabouts. 🙂

Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 2:56 am

Only way to stop the lunacy is vote Reform, But that takes another four years.

Meanwhile I have posted a link to this on the other thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEshBHrzm-8

Its Ed Miliband taking questions this week on Energy and Net Zero. You have to watch it to believe how widespread the craziness is in the UK political class. This is the Parliament that, as Badenoch says, approved the 2019 changes to the Climate Change Act without a vote.

Watch it, and weep for England. Scotland too actually, but they are even fuirther gone.

strativarius
Reply to  michel
March 19, 2025 3:00 am

I need a drink…

altipueri
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 3:11 am

I need a double as the self destruction of the UK continues.
==

Wasn’t it a North American indian ritual (potlatch) where tribes meet and then smash up their own stuff to show how wealthy they were?

Well the UK is certainly smashing up its economy and future.

====
Added: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch

strativarius
Reply to  altipueri
March 19, 2025 3:14 am

And it’s only after 10am!

altipueri
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 3:48 am

I drink early, and often.

strativarius
Reply to  altipueri
March 19, 2025 3:55 am

What else can one do?

James Snook
Reply to  michel
March 19, 2025 5:25 am

Unfortunately it’s too late.

Certainly, we should leave EV adoption and charger installation to market forces, stopping all direct and indirect subsidies, same for heat pumps and crazy carbon capture, but the orgy of virtue signalling destruction of our coal plants and the rush to wind and solar leaves us hostage to the need to spend ridiculous money on the distribution system, to be highly dependant on imported gas, and to keeping the ultimate green joke of Drax subsidised.

We have been screwed by our witless politicians allowing Green activists to lead them by the nose, not to mention the Climate Clowns Committee.

MarkW
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 6:53 am

At least she recognizes that attempts to eliminate fossil fuels are damaging to the economy and are making energy more expensive. That’s more than most global warmers are willing to admit.

Robertvd
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 7:56 am

She is a politician and one thing sure about politicians is that they lie all the time.

Corrigenda
March 19, 2025 2:44 am

Real science and logic at last – perhaps? Lawson was so clearly right at his first comment on this and at last maybe we shall start to see real science on climate issues rather than the nonsense science we have seen for far too long..

strativarius
Reply to  Corrigenda
March 19, 2025 4:48 am

Real science and logic at last

I wouldn’t hold your breath….

Attribution science and the Imperial College Storm Model
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/research/climate-science/modelling-tropical-cyclones/attribution-science-and-the-imperial-college-storm-model/

They say: “Potential intensity is a powerful metric“, indeed it could, might , may etc…. be.

Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 4:57 am

I’m an IC alumnus, and I’m ashamed of what my alma mater has become.

strativarius
Reply to  Graemethecat
March 19, 2025 4:59 am

It was once a fine institution.

James Snook
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 5:21 am

Fortuntely, much of it still is. The climate attribution mob are paid by Grantham to indulge in confirmation bias on steroids.

strativarius
Reply to  James Snook
March 19, 2025 6:00 am

Isn’t mining a no-no these days?

Dave Andrews
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 9:39 am

Fredi needs to earn a living somehow 🙂

Abbas Syed
March 19, 2025 3:08 am

I doubt she believes in net zero

Having said that, I don’t think she would fight it, she would do what is politically expedient

This “softening” of the approach is totally non committal, to either supporting it or to ditching it

I’m guessing she’s seen the tide is turning and that the public have had enough of the net zero nonsense, which has brought nothing but hot air and higher bills

She’s seen commitments around the world melt away. This is a safe time for the Tories to test the waters

There’s no fundamental shift – yet. I would wager though that it’s coming, sooner rather than later, because the whole infrastructure propping it up is crumbling at the foundations

As more wind, solar and battery companies go bust, others companies abandon their virtue signalling, the EV market continues its collapse, the venture capitalists continue to dump their interests or no longer invest, the net zero project will de facto die

Reply to  Abbas Syed
March 19, 2025 3:52 am

Badenoch has no backbone, as her history shows. Her ‘ideas’ drift with the prevailing wind. People seem to think this is what a politician should be..

strativarius
Reply to  ballynally
March 19, 2025 3:56 am

Word is…. they want her replaced as leader.

Abbas Syed
Reply to  strativarius
March 19, 2025 9:31 am

I think it was always inevitable. She’s definitely conservative (on the safe topics), but doesn’t have a filter between brain and mouth

She also has no idea how to endear herself to the wider electorate, no charm at all, pitbull mentality

Robertvd
Reply to  Abbas Syed
March 19, 2025 8:01 am

We all have seen what happened under Boris J. Who thinks this would be different ? Do we really think politicians are in power?

Abbas Syed
Reply to  Robertvd
March 19, 2025 9:34 am

Agree with that. Unless they are filthy rich and can stick two fingers up to the deep state

This is why Trump will not go along with the green and DEI agendas

He scares the Republicans more than he scares the Democrats

observa
March 19, 2025 5:16 am

As you say the science is settled which means you’re now surplus to requirements-
Trump Administration to Fire Hundreds of Scientists and Researchers at the EPA and Other Agencies

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  observa
March 19, 2025 5:44 am

From the article:

The research conducted by the ORD has been vital in addressing environmental challenges such as climate change, 

Climate change is not an environmental challenge. Harmful pollutants, land and water management, etc. are environmental issues, not CO2.

MarkW
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 19, 2025 7:01 am

Most of what they claim to be harmful pollutants aren’t. At least not at the levels found in most places.
Land and water management is usually ends up meaning locking up the resources so they can’t be accessed and preventing any use by man at all.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  MarkW
March 19, 2025 8:48 am

Unfortunately true in the present era.

The zero threshold levels absolutely need to go. Limits, yes. But to take it to extreme, water can kill. Therefore we need to declare water a pollutant and set a zero threshold level. No need to answer what the consequences of that kind of nonsense would be.

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 20, 2025 3:38 am

And real environmental issues in the US were dealt with decades ago. We have clean air. We have clean water.

EPA should be focused on cleaning up any “superfund” sites that remain, and about pretty much anything else they should not be involved.

EPA has been “regulating” all matter of things that don’t need regulating for decades. All of it based on junk science.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AGW is Not Science
March 20, 2025 6:27 am

I have posted similar in the past.
Bureaucratic creep is real.
An agency that completes its task starts looking for make work to justify its continuance. EPA is now stating that we can always be cleaner. Whatever that means, unless justifying its existence.

March 19, 2025 5:21 am

story tip

WSJ article by Al Gore and David Blood

The Business Case for Green Energy

Last year was the hottest on record, and humanity suffered some of its costliest extreme weather events fueled by the warming planet.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-business-case-for-green-energy-investing-climate-environment-1f672fda?st=cEBfD9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
March 19, 2025 5:30 am

The only answer to that is ‘prove it’. They can’t but think repeating endlessly it will make it true.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  JeffC
March 19, 2025 5:45 am

Goebbels

youcantfixstupid
Reply to  JeffC
March 19, 2025 5:27 pm

NO. They KNOW that repeating it endless will make them and their friends RICH.

Reply to  youcantfixstupid
March 20, 2025 3:53 am

Not if they bankroll it WITH THEIR OWN MONEY and NO REGULATIONS FORCE ITS ADOPTION they won’t.

If “green energy” had to compete on a level playing field in the market, not a single “wind farm” or “solar farm” ever would have been built.

So if they think there’s a ” business case” for it, let them put their money where there mouths are. Let Fat Albert mortgage all of his mansions and show people how competitive this crap is *with no laws mandating* his worse-than-useless crap should be “prioritized” over useful, dispatchable sources.

Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
March 20, 2025 3:47 am

SMH. Yeah, the “business case.” Just send taxpayer money and mandate the “products” Gore and Blood are championing.

If there was an *actual* “business case,” then “investors” would be on “green energy” like flies on shit. Without “government action” of ANY kind, in particular money being thrown at it and regulations requiring it.

How many trillions have already been squandered on “green energy?! And more “fossil fuels” are being used now than when they started wasting money on “green energy” which is *not* green and delivers little useful energy while requiring 100% backup.

ResourceGuy
March 19, 2025 7:51 am

Maybe that special relationship with China will save them. Coal plants and forced labor camps are rarely visited or investigated. It’s a throwback to the 1930s for blindness.

Robertvd
Reply to  ResourceGuy
March 19, 2025 8:06 am

Most stuff bought in the UK is made in china. Even Hornby model trains are made in china just like most of the medicines and medical equipment.

Robertvd
Reply to  Robertvd
March 19, 2025 8:08 am

And for Scotland, most kilts are made in pakistan.

ResourceGuy
March 19, 2025 7:58 am

Ask her detailed questions about the forced labor camps in western China and what they make there. She either knows full well and condones it or she must admit the implications of don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.

Editor
March 19, 2025 1:16 pm

Bear in mind that Kemi Badenoch is leader of a divided party under existential threat from Reform. When Rishi Sunak became leader of the Tories, the process showed just how dicided the Tories were: The party has a convoluted way of “electing” a new leader which does not simply put it to a party vote. The Tory members of parliament, who controlled the election process, knew that the party as a whole wanted Kemi Badenoch as leader, and manipulated the process to get Liz Truss into number 2 position for the final vote against Rishi Sunak. To their dismay, Liz Truss won – the party members simply did not want Rishi Sunak. It took them just 17 days to remove Liz Truss and install Rishi Sunak without a vote. After Rishi Sunak’s election defeat, they tried desperately to prevent Kemi Badenoch from winning the leadership, but failed.

Politics is the art of the possible. If Kemi Badenoch goes full bore on Net Zero now, the party would disintegrate. By making the speech she did, she can hopefully hold the party together while it shifts her way over time. It’s still 4 years to the next general election, so expect further shifts in the next few years. In the circumstances, I think that Kemi Badenoch’s speech was as good as anyone could have reasonably expected, and in one stroke she has changed the direction of the Tory party without (hopefully) breaking it. I say hopefully, because a broken Tory party would give Keir Starmer another 5 years in power – which would of course be a disaster for Britain.

Editor
Reply to  Mike Jonas
March 19, 2025 3:57 pm

Typo: divided not dicided.
PS. I voted Reform last time to help get rid of Rishi Sunak (Keir Starmer was a high price but it had to be paid). Next time I expect to vote whichever way has the best chance of removing Keir Starmer.

Reply to  Mike Jonas
March 20, 2025 1:06 am

It doesnt matter. Blair wins. The rest loses. The Party, The Members, the Politics. It’s a circus. Reform has been added to the clown show. People will get removed (Liz Trust) when the Uniparty overlords want it (the City crowd). Corbyn the same (the ridiculous anti semitism accusation). Starmer will be gone if The Dark Lord Tony decides he is too much of a liability.
All parties are enslaved and pretending to be free agents. Yes, i am that cynical. That’s why i see the Badenoch ‘move’ in this context. Room for hope? Do you really think any party is going to drag the UK out of the quicksand? You got to be kidding me and everyone!!

son of mulder
March 19, 2025 2:10 pm

It’s too late for the Conservative party, they lied, failed to implement their manifesto promises, treated us like children during the pandemic, failed to implement Brexit properly, put Net Zero into LAW (aargh). No way would a sane English person trust them again. Bring on the next General Election and vote Reform, Nigel Farage’s party to end the madness we’ve been put through the last 28 years in the UK and continue to be put through by the Labour governemnt now.

ethical voter
Reply to  son of mulder
March 19, 2025 5:19 pm

If one acts like a child one gets treated like a child. Vote for free ice cream at your peril.