In the Telegraph this week, former Theresa May aide now MP Nick Timothy writes that Ed Miliband’s “policies bring serious dangers to Britain”. Rightly so. But, adds Timothy, “he aims to reach Net Zero by 2050”, “decarbonise the grid by 2030”, and “reduce carbon emissions by 81%, based on 1990 levels, by 2035”. While this questioning of Net Zero is of course welcome, this belated Parliamentary scrutiny has some serious shortcomings.
“There is more joy in Heav’n,” and all that. And so I do not wish to appear to be making the perfect the enemy of the good by taking us on an ideological purity spiral. But Net Zero by 2050 is a cross-party policy priority, not Ed Miliband’s own personal policy agenda. The Climate Change Act (CCA) was made law in 2008 with just five MPs dissenting on the final vote. The CCA’s 80% emissions reduction target was raised to Net Zero by Statutory Instrument in 2019, after just 90 minutes of deliberation in the House of Commons, with no Noes being recorded – and hence no vote. Moreover, the CCA created the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which gives advice to Parliament, which the Secretary of State with the climate brief is obliged to consider. It is the CCA’s advice that the target should be 81% by 2035.
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Political parties (mainstream ones, anyway) are not sceptical and any sceptic to signs up to one signs away a little bit of their own autonomy as a sceptic. I’m sure there are possible gains, too, but that’s a decision for the individual to make. Since the Tories have generally been the ruling party of the UK for the last century, why would we expect anything different from them?
At what point will Reform be accepted as mainstream?
If they get organised.
When they become part of the uniparty.
Once they turn themselves into a proper party with a membership and not Farage’s private company. They have stated that is their aim but don’t forget they were rushed into choosing candidates by Sunak’s early election call to catch them out. Still that cost the Tories a lot of seats given how much good news came after they were ejected that would have cut Labour’s seats.
If you became a member you’ld see that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Westminster politicians are like those Japanese soldiers still at war in the 1950s
“A two-day climate conference in Prague, organised by the Czech division of the international Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), which took place on November 12 and 13 in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague, ‘declares and affirms that the imagined and imaginary “climate emergency” is at an end’
It’s over.
Now repeal some of the dumbest legislation ever enacted so we can all get on with our lives with less tax, less regulation, growlier cars and farms growing real food.
Of course, but how? The only way the Labour majority will repeal the nonsense is when there are pitchforks outside their constituency offices, deselection papers rattling through their letter boxes.
We have lost control of democracy in the UK, and all parties are to blame. First of all they tried giving responsibility for doing their jobs to the EEC, and then to devolved governments. We warned Parliament through Brexit that we wanted THEM to be responsible, instead they’ve given their responsibilities away AGAIN, this time to the Blob, Whitty and the other useful idiots
The voters are to blame. Six million people voted Conservative at the last election. Only around 15% voted for the only mainstream party proposing significant change – Reform.
It would have been many more but for Mr Farage’s, frankly, disgraceful stance on Putin.
Perhaps not, people need to understand the situation rather than condemn everything without thought.
The trouble is the majority of the public still feed off the legacy media that has been spewing out a liturgy of lies over Ukraine backed up by journalistic incompetence in spades. The military operation is in its final phase as they aim the liberate the four people’s republics by the arrival of Donald so they can remain free of Ukraine.
The ‘military operation’ is an object lesson of incompetence and corruption that has caused many hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties, tens of thousands of fatalities, only to end up with less of Ukraine now than immediately after the initial assault and, furthermore, a land invasion of Russia into the bargain, the only example of a current nuclear power ever having been invaded.
Putin walked into the U.S. strategy to weaken Russia militarily, a strategy that has succeeded beyond America’s wildest dreams.
There is no way to sugar coat the murder of political opponents, journalists, the invasion of a neighbouring country, twice, indiscriminate bombardments of civilians, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions. And that is before any consideration of evidence of alleged war crimes for which Putin has been indicted.
Indeed these are awful things, however we knew Putin’s very unpleasant tendencies before the invasion of Ukraine, the question you have to ask is why he felt he needed to do that.
I’m not anti-NATO but I think that the movement of NATO’s frontiers east would have been a bit of a problem for the Russian mindset.
The idea that the Baltic States, all of them similar in size to Wales ever represented any threat, would ever have countenanced any threat to Russia does not bear serious consideration. Neither Ukraine or Georgia could have joined NATO with their ongoing border disputes.
Russia has invaded Ukraine for reasons of demography, to increase Russia’s scale on the international scene; imperialist colonialism.
Sounds more like a description of the Ukrainian nazis…
It’s tragic for Ukraine people but they appea to have found themselves caught up in the midst of the ‘Great Game’.
The West gave their assurances to Gorbachev that they had no ambition to move NATO “one inch” Eastwards. They broke that promise big style. They did the same with the Minsk agreement.
The 2014/5 Minsk Agreements looked OK to me, for everyone, especially those killed since then in Eastern Ukraine.
I don’t know what to make of Reform now after appointing a Muslim Chairman, Farage seems to be capitulating to Islam.
Depends whether Islam really is a single political blob or whether there are some parts of it that have a different view of their place in the world.
I don’t know the answer, maybe Farage believes that scorched earth approaches are counter-productive.
Perhaps scorched earth is already happening in many cities like Birmingham for example. And for indigenous Brits.
It could be a calculated move or
maybe the chairman is a great bloke
I think we have too many people from alien cultures already but we have to live with the ones that are already here, legally- unless we think that we should make them feel unwelcome and exclude them to encourage them to go home. That may be appropriate for some but not for all.
We can do it by vapourising them at the ballot box at every opportunity, as the U.S. has just done to the Democrats and we previously did to the Conservatives.
The next major opportunity will be council elections May 2025.
It’s the other way round, the green blob was set in train under the radar with a meeting between George Soros and Tony B.Liar in April 1996, it took 12 years to reach an Act of Parliament in 2008. The NGOs were primed well before that but they grew under a government that revered B.Liar’s apparent success in government where in fact he suborned the UK constitution.
It was treason going into the EEC in the first place, and they always had expansionist ambitions to swallow up more of Europe and undermine democracy.
Yes, the traitor Heath has much to answer for if only he wasn’t a disparate collection of recycled atoms.
It was always a European Superstate project not trade. The first attempt by Monnet was rejected and sadly a Brit suggested he try starting with trade and expand from there using the now infamous ‘ratchet system’ of increasing control.
Correct.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ratchet-Cool-Look-European-Union/dp/0953469719
I remember the failed negotiations, well before the Early 1970s, and the stumbling block then was always the politics, never the trade.
Perhaps only the sovereignty of the City of London was sacrosanct to the British establishment.
Net Zero is one of multiple reasons I’ll never vote Conservative again.
They must be destroyed but the chance was missed.
Electorate was too timid and not used to tactical voting. It was essential to destroy the defunct CUP in the last GE, but even more important to establish a proper useful opposition (ie Reform), which made a good start but was a bit underwhelming. Perhaps those ‘second thoughts about Net Zero’ Tories would consider crossing the House to join Reform?
It doesn’t appear so judging by the opinion polls
And we all know how accurate they are….
They were pretty accurate in the last election
Not in US though
True
Give them a ladder to climb down. Write something along the lines of: since last we looked, the science has changed (it can do that, apparently). It is now clear that co2 does not drive dangerous warming, so de-carbonisation is unnecessary. Then they can say – When the facts change I change my mind, etc.
The obvious route is that of mitigation. We can’t afford the price of Net Zero so we will focus on mitigation which Bjorn Lomborg has shown is affordable should anything predicted actually happen.
“The architecture of the CCA is such that it binds governments, and a significant Parliamentary majority is required to alter it.”
I am not aware of any requirements for a supermajority in British constitutional law. Can the author or someone else point me to some source that explains how this works?
Parliament’s authority (according to Parliament’s own website)
“Parliamentary sovereignty is a principle of the UK constitution. It makes Parliament the supreme legal authority in the UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution.”
Thus a simple majority would suffice.
That has always been my understanding
I think the point is that even if the Conservatives had 450 seats, a substantial number of the Tory MPs would refuse to vote to repeal the climate change Act.
They would not be Conservative, you can blame Cameron and Osborne for the changes in candidate selection that permitted this.
That’s quite possible but I am
not sure if it’s what the author meant
Of cause its a phoney war
When it comes to net zero they all sing from the same hymn sheet
Boll@cks to the lot of them!
Phoney war or not these clowns are now facing an indefatigable enemy peering over the horizon……
……The undefeated all time world champion in all matters……
……REALITY
Or Trump?
What are the consequences of failing to meet Net Zero targets? Will government ministers go to jail? If so, bring it on!
I am against all death taxes but since these people set the policies, maybe their assets should be first used to correct ship.
Off topic, I know, but the other day interest rates went down and the android Rachel was all over the media outlets saying what excellent news and how her magnificent stewardship of the economy was the reason for the reduction. Today, inflation up and there is no sign of her, they just rolled out the poor sap Darren Jones to take the flak. I never knew that robots had a coward chip installed but obviously they do.
Android Rachel?
She could get a job as an actor in a Jaguar advert.
Timothy, like most of the Establishment, thinks voters have the memory of goldfish.
He, and the rest of them, will find out the hard way that they’re wrong.
But by then, it will be too late for Great Britain and the “West”, unless Trump can really turn it round.
“not disputed by anybody credible”…when the winner of a Nobel Prize in physics declares there is no climate crisis, he immediately becomes someone who is not “credible” in the eyes of the chattering class. It’s a circular argument…everyone “credible” is an alarmist, anyone who isn’t an alarmist isn’t “credible”
Didn’t over 100 Nobel Laureates in sciences sign a declaration that the climate change scam was… a scam?
At least Nigel Farage gets it – “we are living through an industrial massacre”: https://x.com/wideawake_media/status/1842916146447609923.
People need to stop voting for the treasonous Lab/Con/Lib/SNP Uniparty.
Destroying the BBC and the MET and salting the rubble would be a great first step.
The biggest obstacle to overturning net zero – in the UK at least – is that the BBC (and by association) other traditional media outlets have declared the climate debate over. The result of this is that not only are the BBC’s climate journalists able to declare weather related falsehoods on our tv’s almost daily, but that no dissenting voice is ever able to be heard on any studio discussion or phone in.
The result is that the many, many people in the UK who still believe in the doctrine that ‘the BBC wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true” have no sceptical voices to listen to.
Until the BBC’s monopoly stand on net zero can be dismantled, nothing will change.
In other news, there is a concerted effort by the green blob in all its forms to kill X, it being the world’s largest news source that allows net zero sceptics and other non-liberals, a voice.
It is shocking just how few have the sufficient STEM understanding to realise that the BBC stance on the Climate Emergency and NET Zero policies is so ridiculous.
What we are seeing is a Lysenkoism of the climate, and it will undoubtedly have an outcome similar to the original, only this will be much more far reaching. The very idea that natural science can be moulded to the political will has been proved to be nonsense down the ages and is still nonsense today. Today’s alchemists are not searching to turn base metal into gold, rather they are attempting to create energy from nothing, urged on by the claque of climate alarmists who, in turn, are being manipulated by the ego centrist eco narcissists with their warped sense of values. Natural science will prevail ultimately, the cycle of life in nature will continue, but we cannot afford to wait for that to happen whilst we watch all of mankind’s advances, intellectual, cultural, scientific, be thrown on the scrapheap.
Unfortunately for the Tories, they have form – saying one thing in Opposition, doing quite another in Office.
In fact saying one thing in Office and doing quite another in Office.
Nobody believes a word they say.
Ben is right on the underlying “green” assumptions of MPs. The Telegraph is rightly critical of the practicality and economic consequences of Net Zero but can anyone point me to a single article or letter which articulates the scientific argument that CO2 from fossil fuels is NOT driving climate change? The nearest they get to acknowledging the argument is to refer dismissively to climate deniers.
Is the Telegraph being paid to suppress the contrary view of CO2?
Much of the evidence is uncollected experimental results and quotable misinterpretation by ‘authorities’ that requires understanding to unravel.
Joanna Nova, No Tricks Zone, and ‘Not A Lot Of People Know That’ are just three of the many sites that provide information on this.
But many panic just looking at a graph, so other methods are also required.
The Climate Change Act (CCA) was made law in 2008 with just five MPs dissenting on the final vote.
Which raises the question, just who is specifying this course of action that the mother of all democracies has committed itself to? To claim that CO2 is beneficial to us all, is not something new, it is something anyone learnt who paid attention during science lessons at school.
Maybe it is time to ban lobbyists from parliament (actually, way overdue)? How easy is it to distinguish between lobbyism and straightforward bribery?
In the US, the plan is to restrict lobbying to US citizens.
“A deeper problem exists, which is epitomised by this cross-party consensus that has long dominated Westminster. It’s not just about what MPs think: it is that they have deferred thinking, full stop.”
The parallels with the Coronavirus Act are obvious. ‘The Science is settled’!
As Ben Pile says this uniparty approach fundamentally undermines democracy
Claire Coutinho was making similar claims to Nick Timothy in ConHome yesterday (20 Nov) and I wasn’t the only one making similar comments to Ben Pile. Badenoch said on GB News yesterday that she is a Net Zero sceptic. It will be interesting to see whether her scepticism goes any further than issues of timing picked up by Coutinho, and if so, whether she can carry the One Nation mob with her. Somehow I doubt it.
Excellent, inciteful article. One I’d like to see in the DT or Speccie
I absolutely support you. Very fine writing by Ben Pile.
‘Before we can know what ‘science says’, we must know what it has been told. In today’s terms that is equivalent to knowing what science and everyone between institutional science and government have been paid and by whom.’
This is the key point. If we are to save Western Civilisation, all income, private and corporate, has to be made open to FOIA. We’ve got to know who is on the take, and from whom. We cannot allow anyone or any organisation to keep its income secret.
A lot of bad-mouthing above from Ben Pile for green-blob billionaires, but he doesn’t name the main man. Gates and his lucre are everywhere.
His vaunted twenty-fold profit on his $10 billion mRna investment may be the biggest sordid jackpot by which he has doubled his private fortune since resolving 20 years ago to give it away by philanthropy, But it’s far from the only one.
How many Indians contracted Non-Polio Flaccid Paralysis before the Indian government canceled Gates’s polio-vaccine programs and threw him out of their country? 500,000? Gates was burnt in effigy all over India, but bribed and wormed his way back in.
Chemtrails in the sky. Burgeoning bug factories to provide the universal diet of the future. GM mosquitoes released by the billion into the open. The defining characteristic of Gates’s rackets does not vary: zero democratic legitimacy or accountability, and reckless disregard for caution and safety. Who appointed Gates to be God almighty?
Gates dealt with Ivermectin and Vitamin D as threats to his covid-jab monopolies exactly as he dealt with Netscape and Borland as threats to his software monopolies in the 1980s. ‘Kill the baby’ was the Microsoft chant. The mammoth fines for anti-competitive practices were costed and budgeted. The babies were killed, Gates’s monopolies went on.
The architecture of the CCA is such that it binds governments, and a significant Parliamentary majority is required to alter it.
But a majority of just 1 is required to repeal it. In our system, said Churchill, 1 is enough.