Echoing the recent shameful episode in the European Court of Human Rights, last week, the High Court ruled that the U.K. Government’s carbon reduction targets were insufficient to comply with the ‘Net Zero Strategy’, as set out by the Government in 2021, and which it is legally obliged to observe as per the Climate Change Act 2008. In his judgement, Mr Justice Sheldon upheld four out of five complaints brought by a team of lawfare activists in what they claim is a “humiliating” defeat for the Government. While it remains to be seen how this ruling will play out either in policy or in its formulation, it nonetheless marks yet another milestone in Britain’s departure from democracy and towards post-industrial immiseration. It is the public, not the Government, who have been humiliated by climate lawfare.
The Judicial Review was brought – or simply bought – by the bitter EU-referendum Remain hold-outs the Good Law Project, as well as Friends of the Earth (FoE) and green lawfare activists ClientEarth. These organisations can afford expensive litigation because they have incomes of £5 million, £13 million, and £31 million respectively – the latter two styled as ‘charities’, despite this obvious political intervention. And this is a problem for anyone claiming that such cases are David-vs-Goliath battles. The British and International branches of FoE, for instance, are well-funded by eco-billionaires and governments. And the same bodies – such as the European Climate Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (both under the control of Sir Christopher Hohn), Michael Bloomberg and Jeremy Grantham – fund ClientEarth, too.
Over the five years to the end of 2022, the U.K. Government made grants of £5 million to ClientEarth. And those grants put to bed the notion that any disagreement exists between the Government and these billionaire lobbying outfits. Why would a government fund an organisation that sought its humiliation in the courts if it wasn’t seeking to be humiliated? In reality, it helps the Government’s to be seemingly required by the courts to impose legislation on the public, rather than to be perceived as completely indifferent to the public’s concerns in its adherence to its increasingly alarmist policy agenda.
This is a problem that was anticipated before the Climate Change Act was even passed. In debate, Peter Lilley, then an MP, told Parliament, and reiterated in an opinion piece for the BBC, that “the sole effect of enshrining the targets in statute will be to open government policies to judicial review” and that “empowering judges to prescribe additional measures costing billions of pounds, without being accountable to the electorate, is a recipe for huge additional costs”. Sixteen years later, Lilley has been proven right.
MPs chose in 2008 to put policymaking beyond democratic control. And again in 2019, they doubled down by increasing the emissions reduction target from 80% to Net Zero by 2050. These targets are now legally binding on any future government, no matter how catastrophic the economic consequences. All parties of government since the 2000s have chosen this path, and all opposition parties, too, have supported those governments in upholding the Act, rather than recognising the policy failures it has led to and the burden they have imposed on businesses and households. MPs seem entirely untroubled by the fact that they have surrendered their decision-making power to half a dozen green billionaires.
As sure as the maxim the law is an ass, courts are invariably immune to sense or reason when the law itself requires the suspension of both sense and reason. The law requiring U.K. governments to reduce CO2 emissions takes no account of the economic, technical, or political feasibility of the targets, yet the law binds the government.
As has been pointed out previously on the Daily Sceptic, it is manifestly and necessarily the case that no government or research organisation knows how to achieve Net Zero, because the plans to deliver it have never been tested and are no better than science fiction, if not sheer fantasy. A law could be passed tomorrow requiring governments to enact policies that enable half of the population to dance on the Moon by the year 2030. But that date will come and go without a single lunar tango. No number of Judicial Reviews brought by politically-driven charities will change the realities faced by policymakers.
Ironically, it is the practical infeasibility of the Government’s Net Zero policies that form the basis of the complaint. At the centre of the complainants’ case are tables published in the Government’s Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (from page 23, with further tables published here), which summarise the proposed solutions available to the government. These tables include estimates of the risk of those policies’ failures, and the complainants argue that Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State at the time of their complaint who was responsible for achieving the targets set out by another minister in 2021, failed to acknowledge the risk of failure. What does this mean? It means that by 2037, the Government’s policies may have only yielded 95% of the emissions-reduction required by the Sixth Carbon Budget established by the Climate Change Committee. Oh, the humanity!
Mr Justice Sheldon “explains”:
It is not possible to ascertain from the materials presented to the Secretary of State which of the proposals and policies would not be delivered at all, or in full. It was not possible, therefore, for the Secretary of State to have evaluated for himself the contribution to the overall quantification that each of the proposals and policies was likely to make, bearing in mind that this evaluation had to be made by the Secretary of State personally: he could not simply rely on the opinions of his officials.
In other words, Grant Shapps did not have a crystal ball, and future policymaking will now require a greater degree of certainty than can reasonably be achieved. But all Net Zero policies face risks of failure, and so the complaint and the judgement are both trivially true and truly trivial.
For example, summing up his evidence to the judicial review, recently-departed Chair of the Climate Change Committee, John Gummer, restyled as Lord Deben, told Friends of the Earth that: “The Government is relying on everything going to plan with no delays or unforeseen circumstances, and on technologies which have either not been tested or indeed on which testing has not even started.” But exactly the same criticism can be levelled at the Climate Change Committee’s own advice to Parliament and the Secretary of State on reaching Net Zero in 2019, which warned that “sixty per cent of the emissions reduction in our scenarios involve some societal or behavioural changes”. The following year, the CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget report, under Gummer’s instruction, projected a policy pathway that would yield a “thirty five per cent reduction in all meat and dairy by 2050”. What if the public do not wish to have their behaviour altered by these pompous climate commissars and begin to kick against them?
And the CCC makes similarly absurd economic and technological assumptions. “U.K. low-carbon investment each year will have to increase from around £10 billion in 2020 to around £50 billion by 2030,” it declares. Offshore wind will be producing power costing £43 per megawatt hour (MWh) by 2035, it predicts, whereas the Government recently increased the Administrative Strike Price of offshore wind to £101 (£73 in 2012 prices) following the failure to receive any bids in the Contract for Difference Auction in 2023. Hydrogen will store power and heat homes for a mere £37/MWh – £6 less than the electricity required to produce it. Any remaining emissions will be mopped up by Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage for a mere £240 per tonne of CO2 – which implies DACCS systems running on electricity that costs less than a penny per kWh. Needless to say, these prices are fantasies, and as I pointed out last week here, the technologies either don’t exist or are unproven.
The reasoning of the complainants and the judge, and the expert witnesses, appears to be entirely specious. And the grievance thus appears to be that the Secretary of State, even while trying to advance the Net Zero agenda, spoke out of turn. The Government’s mildest possible U-turns in the face of political, economic and technological reality has upset the green blob and the CCC, the departing top brass of which seem to be demob-happy and speaking out merely out of bitterness.
If only us ordinary folk had the opportunity to bring a judicial review, such points could be raised against the nonsense the court heard. But as I pointed out in the case of the recent ECHR ruling, raising money is a big barrier when it comes to hiring barristers to represent the public. Groups with a combined income of nearly £50 million a year can raise the cash for one judicial review after another without breaking a sweat, thanks to green billionaires such as Sir Christopher Hohn, who has $64.8 million committed to litigation. Indeed, such a barrier to democratic decision making seems to be the point of the Climate Change Act – it’s a feature, not a bug. No group representing the public at large has any hope of raising such funds.
MPs don’t seem to have understood what they have done. And until they develop the sense required to understand and undo this Blairist abomination, there is little point in their sitting in the House of Commons: they have surrendered policymaking to the climate lobby.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
But will anyone in government in a position to turn around the super-tanker pay any attention?
Unfortunately you’re right that the green/net zero agenda is a super-tanker, and one that’s been gathering speed for at least 2 decades. Therefore it will take years if not decades to slow it down and eventually turn it around, so we shouldn’t expect this latest declaration to have any immediate noticeable effect. However it isn’t without value if it is one of many such declarations, articles, blog posts etc. that may eventually have a cumulative effect.
If they don’t then we are heading towards catastrophic consequences on the scale of The Great Leap Forward. That initiative led to some 30m deaths in China.I’m afraid the net zero/climate emergency rhetoric is on a similar scale. Already government
departments/civil service (the latter really runs this country) around the world are scheming and colluding with the globalists to kick farmers – of long experience off their land so as to ‘rewild’ or cover with solar panels (made without regard for the environment). This is happening in the U.K., the US, Canada, Holland They – the likes of Gates – are investing in the development of
lab grown meat to replace ruminant herds that are blamed for ‘greenhouse gas emissions’. The madness is off the scale.
For those who downvoted this, can you please explain your logic? No emotion, or appeals to authority, or insults. Just an explanation.
“Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome” – Charles MacKay
“We live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.” – R. Feynman
“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.” – Feynman
And this is where we are:
“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements . . . profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.” – Sagan
A typical dictionary definition: “Emergency – a serious occurrence that happens unexpectedly and demands immediate action”. In the real world, there is nothing unexpected about climate change – what would be odd is a long term period of stability, such as my first 60 years.
It’s good to see some serious academic getting a grip of the political debate, though, before over reactive measures are implemented.
Incidentally, I hope Greta is growing up well!
Over reactive measures have already been implemented. Over 50% of our homes will be too expensive to heat this winter.Deliberately engineered by our Net Zero zombie Government.
Now that Carrie Antoinette has been booted out of 10 Downing Street, The interest in ‘Zero’anything will fade into distant memory – hopefully
Emergency was added recently in order to grab the attention of tv watchers. Covid propaganda worked so well, they’ve moved on to the climate ‘emergency’ to get the masses on board.
They never speak of the Medieval Warming Period, or the years – 1315-17 – of failed crops due to cold weather and heavy rainfalls that led to mass starvation across Britain and the rest of Europe resulting in the deaths of up to 10% of populations.
with so many falling over themselves now to prove their net zero dedication it is all horribly reminiscent of the Great Leap Forward which resulted in 30m Chinese deaths except this is on a global scale.
I doubt that this will make the headlines of the BBC news tonight, but well done to those who are willing to stand up for real science and truth. If the ‘overwhelming majority’ think Climate Emergency is real, bring forward your evidence and discuss it openly.
No ‘settled science’ ever required laws to stop you discussing the possibility that it wasn’t true.
It won’t be on the BBC because like so much of the media it is bought and paid for by the perpetrators of the lie.
Clintel has been around since 2019. The BBC has known of it since then but to the best of my knowledge has never mentioned it.
As with the GBD, all the signatories deserve our support and respect. The battle against this insane eco, net zero lunacy has properly commenced.
As with the C1984 Scamdemic we must try to do what we can to promote common sense and the application of genuine science and research.
Tip o’ the hat and much respect to the decency and bravery shown by all those who have signed.
God bless.
Just something I notice, not trying to push an agenda, but I notice that by far the majority of the names appear to be men’s.
Sexist
😉
I don’t have to hand (and wouldn’t really know where to find it) the normal proportion of women working in this field, but it feels likely to me that it is considerably higher than the proportion in this declaration.
It seems to me that the Climate Emergency is taking on an ever more violent character: it is getting ever closer to a real war waged against regular folk’s lives. It’s at times like these that the typically masculine characteristics come to the fore, and the feminine characteristics take a back seat – this list might be the vanguard.
I don’t like to talk up war – it’s just an observation.
It’s about time scientists spoke up en masse about this horrific pseudoscience.
The damage it has done to Western society is incalculable.
Ever since the Club of Rome pinpointed the Eco agenda as the vehicle for controlling the masses in the 1970s things have steadily gone from reasonable concerns about pollutants in the oceans to self flagellating anti human death cult.
It strikes close to home with millennial relatives of mine so convinced of the impending climate apocalypse that they have become completely alienated from living a full life invested in theirs snd their children’s (if they can be bothered to have them) lives.
Since much of this claptrap has been pushed through the Appeal to authority argumentation, one hopes that a slew of authorities countering it will give the hysterics and terminally depressives a pause to rethink this heap of lies.
But then, the same forces that controlled the media narrative on Covid, then Ukraine, control the narrative on climate, so I don’t have high hopes.
Very good news. A GBD of climate change. Perhaps it will garner some acceptance and respect in a couple of years as the GBD is beginning to. Thanks for the post.
By the way, the byline is Toby Young but at the bottom it says “Chris Morrison is the DS Environmental Editor”; who exactly is the author of this piece?
PS. Is there a non-pdf version of the declaration?
Not quite. It has much less substance, it’s basically just a single page of text and one with a pretty picture.
Oh. 🙁 Thx, I couldn’t look at it because my tablet seems to have lost its pdf reader.
Yes – clearly inspired by the GBD; I wonder if the signatories are also sceptics of lockdown policies?.
This will be derided and smeared at first; I don’t know if they are looking for laypeople to sign – possibly not, because it will rely on scientific credibility for clout.
Maybe in the medium term the world at large will decide that these scientists are right. They have a lot of convincing to do in the meantime.
I welcome this Declaration – hope it gets widely shared on social media because the other sort of media won’t touch it, unless they unearth a few Mickey Mouse signatures as happened with the GBD.
I had a short look at the signature list. One of the signatories was an urologist who claimed to be a climate realist. That should count as layperson here.
I have a feeling you are our resident urologist.
Albert Bourla CEO of Pfizer has a a veterinary background..Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna is a business man with no science background at all. Bill is a college drop out, and Greta is autistic! What’s your point?
That we should try to hold ourselves to higher standards?
The climate scaremongers: Great Barrier Reef refuses to play the game
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-great-barrier-reef-refuses-to-play-the-game/
Paul Homewood
Yellow Boards By The Road
Friday 19th August 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
A3095 Foresters Way &
B3430 Nile Mile Ride
Bracknell RG40 3DR
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f446.svgplease sharehttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f446.svg
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
BBC will be all over this have no doubt, obviously they couldn’t just ignore such well qualified and eminent scientists with far more impressive publications than the alarmists.
It’s known about Clintel for 3 years. I doubt it would say anything now.
Excellent piece Chris. Sadly there’s far too much money invested in this madness to stop it, at least in the short term.
What drives me mad is how we come to ‘settled’ science or a ‘consensus’ these days – cancel anyone who disagree’s with the orthodoxy and call it the consensus! Utterly crazy!
We covered this in the pod last week, among other things…
If you guys want to hear our latest podcast, then check it out and subscribe below:
Ep. 51 BANNED FROM TWITTER (Find out why)
We’ve been banned from Twitter for a week…find out why! Plus we talk Canada and Justin Trudeau, your first ‘Listener Rant’, Climate change madness, University PHD’s gone mad, Scotland’s gone crazy, The return of the Big Breakfast and MUCH MORE!
https://therealnormalpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1268768/11142910-ep-51-banned-from-twitter-find-out-why
Consensus is fine if we are talking about Black Holes or Evolution, but we don’t spend trillions of taxpayers money on black holes or Evolution. We don’t impoverish people and take away affordable energy based on what we might think is true about black holes or evolution. ———Consensus science, when it is used as the excuse for public policy is “Official Science”. It is the science that governments use to persuade the public that since all scientists agree then so should they.
Could this be the sound of the cavalry arriving, just in the nick of time?
Anybody who now thinks the government and bureaucrats are anything but incompetent & poorly informed after this covid fiasco that will end up killing more people and destroying more lives and who will now allow them to implement this cult like Net Zero, deserves all of the hardship & destruction it will bring. Only a country of fools would even consider the staggering ineptitude of this policy.
The headline in today’s Daily Telegraph:
“Lockdown feared to be killing more than Covid”
Only 2+ years late to understand what’s been going on; better late than never.
I remember the first time I heard ‘the science is settled was in a BBC announcement that they would no longer talk to people who questioned climate orthodoxy. Since then, I have heard it used enough times to realise this is another example of nudge units using slogans.
We’re in the grip of too many global organisations.
Well done and thank you. About time this ridiculous charade was called out by a larger scientific community. ANY lay person can spend a few hours doing simple research and come to the same conclusions that something is definitely wrong with the current zeitgeist. I have. Most climate models take too smaller averages and either take chunks of graphs that satisfy the narrative or doctor evidence to support their lies. This is not even close to science – its called propaganda and brain washing. When you take in larger time lines and cycles then the picture opens up and we see that we are heading for a time of global cooling. This is logically driven by the sun and the comic array which necessarily pre-empts more localised earthly patterns. Many seem to forget (or is this part of the same hoodwinking of humanity) that we are part of a larger system and a unified whole and we are subject to the forces therein. Sadly it is not just the climate that is treated to such narrowing abuse. The problem however starts with us – we must NOT accept being fed lies and we must all be called upon to do our own research and to stand up and demand the truth. I hope that it does not take a major earth shattering event to wake everyone up to their personal responsibility as a sovereign human being living on our beautiful and kind earth. Best. Isabel
One problem though with your idea that we should all do “our own research” is that people are most of the time too busy with work and family life to investigate every issue. When you have 3 children and you work you cannot be expected to do that. But we are supposed to be able to rely on investigative journalists to do that for us, but on mainstream TV News they are all on board with the climate industrial complex and are really just climate activists with BBC leading the way, and even on the likes of GB News I hear presenters refer to “the climate crisis”. They should not be using that non-scientific terminology. ———–Some, like Mark Steyn whose book “A Disgrace to the Profession” exposes a lot of what this is really about do ask questions and don’t cow tow to this group think “official science”, but even he sometimes cannot get the better of silly activists from “Just Stop Oil” or the daft “Extinction” useful idiots. The majority of people do not have the time to come to a site like this, or to “Watts up with That” etc, and that is a big problem. I have tried speaking gently to friends and family on this issue and you notice that when they hear something they have not heard on the 6 o’clock News they tend to think they are hearing “Conspiracy Theory”. They are like a rabbit in the headlights when you tell them Polar Bears are increasing in number. They think to themselves “What makes you think you know more than the scientists”, and that is the power of propaganda for you.