“Implausible” Met Office UK Climate Projections Still Whipping up Unjustified Net Zero-Convenient Fear

 Five months after the IPCC ruled that the infamous RCP8.5 computer scenario responsible for most mainstream climate doomsday copy over the last 15 years was “implausible”, what news can I bring you of the Met Office’s UK Climate Projection 2018 report (UKCP18) that based its predictions on the now cancelled modelling nonsense? Good news: the Met Office immediately withdrew UKCP18 with a fulsome apology for all the harm caused. Everything from the compromised geography A level syllabus to numerous Net Zero rules and regulations that relied on its claims have been withdrawn pending future alteration. Sorry, I must have dropped off for a moment and started dreaming. Of course, the report has not been withdrawn; of course, no apology has been forthcoming, and of course, UKCP18 is still up to all its old tricks.

On June 23rd, the Met Office produced a weather forecast for 2055 showing how the summer temperature in England under a “plausible” computer model scenario could hit 45°C along with nine consecutive days where 40°C was recorded somewhere in the country. Not bad going in 30 years, given that the UK temperature ’record’ of 40.3°C produced on July 19th 2022 by the runway at RAF Coningsby was somewhat challenged in its veracity by the fact that Typhoon jets were attempting to land at the time. The claimed record was a 60-second 0.6°C spike and over a five-minute average – recommended by the World Meteorological Organisation to reduce ‘noise’ – the temperature fell below the magic, headline-grabbing 40°C....<<<Read More>>>>...

Why the Renewable Energy Transition is Doomed to Fail

 Politicians make many grand claims for renewable energy. But simple arithmetic shows the 'energy transition' is doomed to fail, says Richard Lyon, whose new book, The Energy Trap, is out today.

Every reader of this site knows the moment. You’re three sentences into a reasonable question about energy policy, the cost of it, the pace of it, whether anyone has actually done the sums, and someone says the word. Denier. The conversation is over. You have been moved from the category of people with an argument into the category of people with a condition.

The word works because the fight until now has been staged on climate science, and that’s ground the other side owns: the journals, the institutions, the broadcasters, the referee and his whistle. It doesn’t matter what you know about physics or engineering or just common sense. Question the models and you have diagnosed yourself.....<<<Read More>>>... 

As a Former Head of MI6 it’s Clear That Britain’s Climate Policy is Leaving Us Dangerously Exposed to Our Enemies

 The UK's climate policy is undermining national security, says former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove. "As a country we have been drifting and we are dangerously exposed."

A summer of drought and record temperatures has discomforted the country: parched ground, overheated public transport, sleepless nights and a distorted and obsessive media. It is a distracting backdrop for a lecture on energy security — ‘climate change’ must be the most repeated phrase of the last three months since the first heatwave of the summer back in May. To step out of this context will seem like a heresy to the ideologues of Net Zero. Are you blind to the disturbing evidence around us, they will ask. However, the extreme weather events of the last 90 days are not a logical place to start a debate about energy security. We must take a strategic view free of prejudice, and put aside emotionally charged, only partly scientific convictions about climate change....<<<Read More>>>... 

Bob the Builder Spreads “Net Zero Propaganda” in Solar Advert

 Bob the Builder has been accused of spreading “Net Zero propaganda” after ditching his construction yard for installing solar panels and “low carbon heating” in a woke new advert. The Telegraph has the story.

The cartoon character is seen trading in his construction yard for fitting solar panels and low-carbon heating in an eco-friendly reboot for E.On, the energy company.

In his first screen appearance in 15 years, the original stop-motion animated Bob, voiced by Neil Morrissey, encourages viewers to sign up for a “Net Zero training academy” to meet the Government’s target of a decarbonised electricity system by 2030.

The advertising campaign sparked outrage among critics of the policy, who accused the energy provider of turning the animated builder into a “woke commissar of climate” and spreading “eco-zealotry”....<<<Read More>>>....

Hijacking the tragedy in Nepal for climate activism is utterly shameless

The tragedy in Nepal and Tibet is a natural disaster; it had nothing to do with “climate change.” Yet climate change alarmists are hijacking the tragedy to further their nefarious aims.

When natural disaster strikes, climate charlatans pounce.

Over 1,200 people are dead, and over 4,000 are missing after a glacier collapsed, sending flash floods into Nepal and Tibet.

Climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann (of Climategate fame) wrote in the UK Guardian that Nepal’s flood reveals “the apocalyptic future that lies in store if we fail to take dramatic climate action.”

The executive director of the UN Green Climate Fund, Mafalda Duarte, shamelessly turned the tragedy into a call for cash, saying, “We see when there is will, that finance is mobilised to respond to emergencies. For some reason, we don’t see the same type of response to climate.”

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal wants China, India, the US and other industrialised nations to compensate Nepal financially, framing it as a matter of “moral liability.” He said Nepal “will turn this into an issue of justice in the international arena.” He added, “This is not about asking for aid; it is about the obligation of large nations.”

Nepal’s flash flood was not caused by your SUV or refrigerator....<<<Read More>>>...

Green Taxes Are Decimating British Industry – And My New Report Proves It

Green taxes are decimating British industry and driving up energy prices, with nothing to show for it as emissions are merely pushed offshore, says Kathryn Porter, who has a new report setting out the damning details.

This week I published a new report into Britain’s oil refining sector, Fuel, Refineries and the UK ETS: What Policymakers Need to Know. Its conclusions are alarming.

Britain lost two oil refineries last year – Grangemouth closed in April and Lindsey followed in August, leaving just four operating sites: Fawley, Humber, Pembroke and Stanlow. My report finds that Government policy, and in particular the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), is making it increasingly hard for the remaining refineries to compete.

This matters because liquid fuels still provide 47% of UK final energy consumption. Diesel, petrol and jet kerosene remain essential to transport, aviation, agriculture, construction and industry, with no alternatives available at scale in the near term.

Yet Britain is increasingly dependent on imports. In 2025 we imported 15.5 million tonnes more petroleum products than we exported, the largest deficit since becoming a net importer in 2013. Closing domestic refining capacity doesn’t mean we stop consuming refined products, it just means we import more, effectively outsourcing their production. Bizarrely, Government policy is actively encouraging this.

My analysis finds that the four remaining UK refineries face a net ETS cash cost of around £200 million per year. Their gross carbon-cost disadvantage relative to refiners outside carbon-pricing regimes is around £540 million per year. That’s a significant handicap in an internationally competitive, relatively low-margin business....<<<Read More>>>...

Net Zero: China’s plan to take over the West

 Russia and China have used the communist tactic of unpersoning, developed by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, to prepare for war and to take over the West using net zero ideology.

The retreat of the United States and her allies before the Chinese-backed Taliban in Afghanistan and the failure of the West’s feeble attempts at diplomacy in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine share a sinister aetiology that has attracted remarkably little attention. A relentless, targeted campaign of desinformatsiya – systematic reputational destruction or “unpersoning” by Communist front groups posing as environmental campaign entities but in reality fostered, funded and too often founded by Moscow and Beijing – has all but silenced thousands of sceptical climate researchers who had formerly been able to debate the climate question in the sunlight of the agora, and has deterred tens of thousands more who would have spoken out in their support but dare not do so...<<<Read More>>>...

New Green Levy to Drive Up Household Energy Bills

 Labour is set to load a new green levy on to household energy bills to help subsidise hundreds of millions of pounds for hydrogen projects despite pledging to cut bills by £300. The Telegraph has the story.

The gas shipper obligation (GSO), which will be introduced in 2027, will initially add up to £7.10 to average gas and electricity bills.

The money raised will be used to fund an initial round of 10 green hydrogen schemes, aiding Labour’s efforts to replace fossil fuels with clean power.

Another 27 projects have already been shortlisted, meaning the levy’s costs will keep rising to fund them.

The GSO will also join a raft of other green levies being added to power bills, threatening Andy Burnham’s pledge to tackle the cost of living crisis by reducing household energy costs.

The Prime Minister has vowed to save families £45 a year by removing VAT from electricity bills but these savings are set to be wiped out by Ofgem’s price cap, which will rise by £60 from October.

Britain’s biggest energy companies have frequently blamed green levies as one of the main factors driving bills higher.

The GSO will start off small but its costs are expected to surge as green hydrogen production scales up to industrial levels.

It will be imposed on companies moving natural gas through the UK distribution system, which will then be able to recoup the costs from domestic and commercial energy bills.

A report from the Joint Office of Gas Transporters, an industry body, said: “The gas shipper obligation costs will ultimately be passed to consumers based upon their consumption so will have an effect on existing gas consumers and will entail a large number of consumers incurring this additional cost.”...<<<Read More>>>...

Bombshell Report Claims Miliband’s Clean Power Plan Will Cost £320 Billion

 A new report, commissioned by the Tories, has found that Ed Miliband’s Clean Power 2030 Plan will cost an extra £320 billion by 2050, compared to their own watered-down proposals which prioritise gas and nuclear, rather than wind and solar.

The report by the economic think tank Onward was originally commissioned by Claire Coutinho, when she was Energy Secretary, to calculate the overall system costs of fully decarbonising the UK’s electricity supply. It was conveniently shelved by Ed Miliband when he took office.

The extra costs are made up as follows...<<<Read More>>>...

The Climate Debate Was Never About Saving the Planet vs Doing Nothing – it Was Always About Statism vs the Free Market

 In a recent monologue on climate change, LBC radio host James O’Brien hit out at politicians opposing Net Zero, framing them as in denial of objective reality. To many on that side of the debate, a simple opposition to EV mandates, dietary changes, ULEZ, accelerated deindustrialisation, or any other harmful policies associated with Net Zero is a rallying cry of climate denial. They tell us how many jobs the Government is creating, and how good for everyone the Climate Change Committee’s advice will be.

Anyone suffering high energy costs and industry layoffs can see that promises of Net Zero bringing prosperity are plainly untrue.

While niche left-wing blogs might accuse us all of climate vandalism, the reality is far removed from this. I am not a climate denier, nor have I ever been one. Millions of Net Zero sceptics aren’t either; many realise that what was once an aspirational target has now hardened into a stifling reality. Some of us didn’t grasp it in 2019, when the Climate Change Act amendment was passed, but the blatant statism that goes along with a statutory target of Net Zero by 2050 is now hard to deny....<<<Read More>>>...

Home Office Plans to Spend £4.5 Million on Electric Car Chargers While 250 More Migrants Arrive

 Ministers and civil servants tackling the small boats crisis are being slammed for planning to spend millions on electric car chargers. The Mail has the story:

Nearly £4.5 million has been earmarked for the Net Zero gadgets to be installed at Home Office buildings to help staff go ‘green’.

But it sparked a furious backlash as critics said officials, who have struggled to get to grips with relentless Channel crossings, should focus all their resources on tackling the crisis.

It came as another 250 migrants on three boats arrived on Monday, taking the total since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister around a month ago to nearly 3,500.

In recent weeks a string of ‘mega-dinghies’ carrying more than 100 migrants at a time have also reached UK shores as smugglers shift their tactics.

One vessel arrived last week carrying a staggering 230 migrants, comfortably smashing the previous record of 165 aboard one vessel on July 23rd.

The spend came to light today in a written Parliamentary question, with Home Office minister Sarah Jones saying more than £500,000 was splurged on installing electric car chargers in 2024/25.

The department plans to ramp this up to £1 million this year and annually until 2029, bringing the total earmarked spend to £4.4 million. …

Mr Burnham has revealed little about what his strategy is for stopping the boats, choosing to leave the issue out of his maiden speech on the steps of Downing Street on July 20th.

But he has said ministers will look at “changing our tactics” to tackle the rise of mega-dinghies being used.

The average number of migrants crammed onto small boats has more than doubled over five years to a record high under Labour, from 28 per vessel in 2021 to nearly 70 so far this year....<<<Read More>>>..

EU Net Zero Regulations Are Killing Off British Agriculture – And we Slavishly Enforce Them, Even Though We’ve Left the EU

 The UK is still beholden to EU emissions standards, which, like most things under the purview of the European Union, have become bureaucratic and are applied in ways that are detrimental to both efficiency and productivity, without doing a proper cost – benefit analysis. Vehicles in high-traffic residential areas should rightly be given greater weight when it comes to pollution reduction, but should a tractor working on a farm or in the middle of a field, miles from the nearest village, be subject to the same conditions?

EU emissions regulations for non-road mobile machinery have become more and more stringent over the last decade, to the point where the demands on the technology have led to runaway costs and new machinery has essentially become emissions-regulation equipment with an engine attached. The cost of emissions-regulation technology can account for 20–30% of the total list price for a new vehicle such as a tractor, excavator, bulldozer, or any other type of non-road mobile machinery. The technology required to bring emissions into compliance with the Stage IV and Stage V standards places huge burdens on manufacturers and end users. Failures of the emission-monitoring components result in large warranty bills for manufacturers, which are pushed onto end users through eye-watering extended warranty programmes. Those who cannot afford these, or whose machine has reached an age where the manufacturer’s warranty has expired, can be left with a ticking time bomb. A single component failure can result in bills of several thousand pounds which, for a small family farm often with only a single tractor, can cause significant financial hardship...<<<Read More>>>...

ECB is intensifying its war on humanity using climate regulations, despite a global collapse in “green” finance

 Last weekend, as wildfires continued to scorch parts of southern Europe, Frank Elderson of the European Central Bank’s (“ECB’s”) Executive Board took to the pages of The Guardian to warn that the “climate and nature crises” now pose a direct threat to “core financial stability” and even “core price stability.” The destruction of ecosystem services, he insisted, is not some “flower-power, tree-hugging exercise” but “core economics.” The ECB, he added, is already deepening its scrutiny of banks’ exposures to nature-related risks, with further analysis due later this year.

This is the same institution that, only 10 days earlier, quietly expanded its “climate factor” in the “Eurosystem collateral framework” to cover non-financial corporate loans. From the end of 2027 at the earliest, loans to companies deemed exposed to “transition shocks” from climate change will face an additional haircut of up to 5%. The July decision and Elderson’s August rhetoric are of a piece: the ECB continues to weaponise climate (and now nature) policy even as the empirical, political and market ground shifts decisively under the alarmist camp....<<<Read More>>>...

UN’s Green Climate Fund isn’t “Green” or about “Climate”; it’s just a UN Fund

 The UN Green Climate Fund (“GCF”) is neither Green nor about climate. They are mostly just doing normal foreign aid that the donor countries would be better off doing themselves. They have received and spent over $20 billion to date, with more billions coming.

For example, they fund a lot of water supply systems in dry countries. They call it “climate change adaptation,” but it is not adaptation to climate change. It is addressing a condition that has always existed. It is fraud to call this “climate funding.” The same is true for flood protection in flood-prone areas or improving existing farms, which they also do a lot of.

Moreover, much of this so-called adaptation funding actually increases CO₂ emissions, so it is not even green.

A fine example is their biggest funding to date, which is part of the huge Jordan Desalination Project. The GCF says that Jordan is among the world’s driest countries, so it certainly needs water. But Jordan has been this dry throughout its history, so the project has nothing to do with climate change....<<<Read More>>>...

Central Banks Double Down on Climate Regulation Despite Collapse of Green Finance

 Last weekend, as wildfires continued to scorch parts of southern Europe, Frank Elderson of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board took to the pages of the Guardian to warn that the “climate and nature crises” now pose a direct threat to “core financial stability” and even “core price stability”. The destruction of ecosystem services, he insisted, is not some “flower-power, tree-hugging exercise” but “core economics”. The ECB, he added, is already deepening its scrutiny of banks’ exposures to nature-related risks, with further analysis due later this year.

This is the same institution that, only 10 days earlier, quietly expanded its “climate factor” in the “Eurosystem collateral framework” to cover non-financial corporate loans. From the end of 2027 at the earliest, loans to companies deemed exposed to “transition shocks” from climate change will face an additional haircut of up to 5%. The July decision and Elderson’s August rhetoric are of a piece: the ECB continues to weaponise climate (and now nature) policy even as the empirical, political and market ground shifts decisively under the alarmist camp....<<<Read More>>>...

The True Cost of Green Subsidies is Much Higher Than Politicians Admit

 Intermittent ‘renewable’ (solar and wind) electricity generation is a useful but niche technology, either for off-grid users or as a small portion of on-grid generation. However, British politicians have decreed its central role in an energy transition away from the sources of energy that fuelled our transformation from a remote outpost of Europe to a rich post-industrial economy. Since most renewable generation is highly capital-intensive as well as intermittent, this can only be achieved by taking vast sums of money from electricity consumers to build generation plants and a parallel electricity grid. Maintaining two grids – one reliable, the other not so reliable – is not only vastly expensive but it introduces the risk of major failures, as the near total-blackouts in Spain and Portugal in April 2025 and in Texas in February 2021 have illustrated.

The commitment to an energy transition has been supported, until recently, by most politicians from all the main political parties. However, as explained in other articles, notably by Frank and Prins, the political and bureaucratic elite has never attempted to assess whether the policies adopted were, in any sense, value for money. In this article we will examine the tangled web of subsidies for renewable generation and ask what we are getting from the huge sums involved.

Large scale subsidies for renewable generation were first introduced under the Renewables Obligation, which commenced in 2002. This required energy suppliers to source a minimum proportion of the electricity they supplied from accredited renewable generators whose output was awarded Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs). The original idea was that the value of ROCs would be market-driven with a cap (the ROC buyout price) to prevent excessive costs to consumers. After lobbying by renewable generators, the rules were changed to ensure that the buyout price is effectively a floor price with the consequence that the value of a ROC has more than doubled since 2002....<<<Read More>>>...

How the Climate Agenda is Being Pushed into Our TV Shows

 A new BBC drama with Net Zero-sceptics as the baddies, a TV game show with a heavy-handed "Environment Week" – the climate agenda is being pushed into our TV programmes to ‘educate’ us, warns Charlotte Gill.

This week, The Great British Sewing Bee managed to push the climate agenda into its otherwise harmless show in what was termed “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle Week”.

Sewers were given three tasks “focused on the environment and sustainability”: first to create underpants from old t-shirts; second to transform material intended for landfill into “a garment with drama at the back”; and third to make outfits with an environmental message.

The third challenge was by far the most ideologically heavy-handed. “Throughout history, fashion has been used as a tool for protest, a statement for resistance and a spark for social change,” began presenter Sophie Willan, introducing the task to contestants. “So the judges want you to create an outfit with an environmental message that’s close to your heart.”

When quizzed later about the impetus for the challenge, Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant told Willan: “Fashion designers have always been people that are kind of very socially engaged, and a big part of that is them having strong views on all sorts of things, and they want to put those forward through the clothes that they make.”

Luckily the designers didn’t seem to mind having their “strong views” decided for them by the judges and programme creators. “It is incredibly important to be environmentally conscious. Because we’re killing the planet,” one sewer was filmed saying. Another making a “Save Our Seas” protest dress was asked by Grant: “Why is the plastic thing so important to you?” She replied: “It’s so detrimental to the animals and the beauty of the sea.”...<<<Read More>>>...

Green Empire Strikes Back

Recently, it has felt like we had reached a new dawn on energy and climate policy with energy Jedi winning the argument against the Net Zero by 2050 target. Reform fought the election on a policy of abandoning Net Zero. More recently, the Tories have followed suit by abandoning the 2050 target, setting out their own cheap power plan and beginning to purge the party of Net Zero zealots like Gavin Barwell.

But the green empire is striking back with a new article (no paywall version here) in the Telegraph from Tim Stanley and Greg Jackson has also weighed in, cheering on Stanley’s article. Even DV himself has weighed in to support Tim Stanley. The trouble with Tim Stanley’s argument, in common with many Net Zero supporters, is that it is based on vibes and emotion, not analysis of actual data.

Time to dive in to see what Tim Stanley and Greg Jackson got so wrong....<<<.Read More>>>..

Climate Change Catastrophism is a Leftist Weapon

What we drive, how we heat our homes, what we eat, how much water we use: every modern activity increases industrial CO2 emissions in a manner not dissimilar to air conditioning. Do all such intimate, local decisions therefore necessitate governmental oversight and regulation? And if so, what freedoms can possibly remain?

The roots of such worrisome totalising can be traced in the more academic realm to the 1960s and 1970s, with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Paul Ehrlich’s the Population Bomb and the Club of Rome’s the Limits to Growth. More distal influences, such as Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto of 1848, also merit consideration, as we shall see.

There is another source, however, unmatched in its combination of scientific pretension, charged emotional tone, policy impact and mass appeal: former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which this year marks its 20th anniversary.

More than any other single work, this glossy, visually dramatic production translated the abstractions of climate modelling into a compelling, emotionally charged narrative – one that struck fear into the hearts of tens of millions. It did so by framing mankind’s industrial activity and consequent increase in CO2 production as the driver of a truly dangerous increase in global temperature. It did so by warning of severe and impending ecological devastation and economic disruption. It did so by arguing for the necessity of emergency response, while casting dissent as the most serious of modern sins....<<<Read More>>>...

EU’s Green Deal is pushing Europe into decline

 The great majority of mankind aspires to more prosperity, which requires abundant and cheap energy. However, the EU is using its Green Deal to do the opposite.

In the following, Samuel Furfari highlights a report that reveals the EU is clinging to the pretence of leading an “energy transition” as Europe declines under the weight of “green” climate policies.

An Energy Institute report reveals a Europe clinging to the pretence of leading an “energy transition” as the continent declines under the weight of climate policies whose quixotically utopian objectives are negated elsewhere by fossil fuel-supported economic growth.

Data from the 75th edition of the annual ‘Statistical Review of World Energy‘ will surprise only those ignoring the facts: The world continues to depend massively on fossil fuels [more correctly, hydrocarbon fuels]. Solar and wind technologies, while expanding, still lag ever-rising energy demand, which last year reached a record 600 exajoules. (That’s 600 quintillion joules, where a joule is equal to the work necessary to create one watt of power for one second.)

Of total primary energy consumption, 86% came from fossil fuels – oil at 33.5%; coal, 27.6%; and natural gas, 25.1%. Accounting for just 3% were solar and wind, which are heavily promoted by the European Commission over the much-demonised hydrocarbons.

From 2015-2025, the first decade of the Paris Agreement on climate change, global energy consumption rose more than 14%, with sharply contrasting dynamics. European Union use declined about 1% annually, while consumption in the Asia-Pacific region grew 2.6%....<<<Read More>>>...