Ex-Cabinet minister Lord Frost says there is no ‘climate emergency’ and Britain should end focus on ‘medieval’ wind power
By Paul Homewood
A breath of sanity from Lord Frost:
Ex-Cabinet minister Lord Frost has insisted there is no climate ’emergency’ and urged the next prime minister to move away from ‘medieval technology’ such as wind power.
The former Brexit negotiator, who is backing Liz Truss for the Tory leadership, hit out at a ‘totally unrealistic approach to climate and energy policy’ over the past two decades.
He demanded Britain change tack from ‘managing demand’ for energy and instead put greater emphasis on fracking and nuclear power, as well as carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Calling for a ‘pragmatic’ response to climate change – which the Conservative peer said was just ‘one of the many’ problems facing the UK – Lord Frost blasted an approach that asked the public to ‘up-end the whole way our societies work’.
Lord Frost’s support for Ms Truss during the Tory leadership contest has prompted speculation he could return to the Cabinet – or become the new PM’s chief of staff – should the Foreign Secretary win the contest to replace Boris Johnson.
He was Mr Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator before being given a Cabinet role in March last year. But Lord Frost quit the Government last December with a swipe at the ‘direction of travel’ of Mr Johnson’s administration on Covid restrictions, net-zero ambitions and tax rises.
During the Tory leadership contest, both Ms Truss and her challenger Rishi Sunak have said they would support fracking in Britain if local communities supported it.
This has left open the possibility of a change of direction in UK energy policy under a new PM, with Mr Johnson having used his premiership to call for Britain to become the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power.
In a new essay for the Policy Exchange thinktank, Lord Frost outlined how a new PM could alter the Government’s approach as he hit out at the ‘insidious effects of 20 years of a totally unrealistic approach to climate and energy policy’.
‘The current evidence does not support the assertion that we are in a climate “emergency”,’ the Tory peer wrote, as he delivered a fresh swipe at Mr Johnson’s climate policies.
‘Rather, the effects of climate change are a problem, one of the many we face, and should be tackled in that pragmatic way rather than by asking us to up-end the whole way our societies work.
‘Western society, and indeed world civilisation, depends on copious supplies of energy.
‘Yet the prevailing mood is one in which individuals are asked to restrict their use of energy and in which unsatisfactory renewables technology is touted as the best solution to our problems.
‘Instead of focusing on technological solutions that enable us to master our environment and get more energy in a more carbon-efficient way — nuclear, CCS, fracking, one day fusion – we have focused on managing demand so we can use medieval technology like wind power.
Lord Frost despaired at how Britons are told by climate activists to ‘stop travelling, live local, eat less, stop eating meat, turn our lights out, and generally to stop being a burden’.
‘As most of us are generally reluctant to do this as individuals, the state has had to step in, with smart meters, heat pumps, LTZs (limited traffic zones), unsatisfactory electric cars, tailored taxation measures, and “nudges”,’ he added.
‘We have all gradually got used to this, and indeed internalised it, so that it seems normal to be lectured about the moral aspects of virtually every choice in our everyday lives.’
The peer said this had led to a ‘further loss of trust in free market economics’ but argued there was ‘overwhelming evidence that socialist systems have worse environmental outcomes’.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
About bloody time! At last, someone has escaped the group-think chamber.
So how do we convince the 80% who’ve swallowed all this that it’s nonsense and Frost is right?
Blame it all on Russia and China because they won’t play ball. The line should be that because of their decisions we are all down the swanee so we might as well be comfortable on our journey.
Why blame them ? They know CO2 cannot cause dangerous global warming so they are sensibly carrying on with fossil fuels. Frost needs to check the science not just the history.
80 percent! More like 99.9 percent!
Any time I have confronted a politician about AGW they quote the precautionary principle. Now the boot is on the other foot , their policies are having real impacts that may see a cohort of people suffering cold and nutritional problems so it’s now time to ask them” what if you are wrong”!
Mankind has never achieved anything without risk. The precautionary principle is, in itself, anti progress.
Correct. If you believe in the ‘precautionary principle’ you should never get out of bed. That way you’ll never run the risk of falling over.
No wonder he felt he had to leave Government. It must have been stifling in there listening to all though mantra shouting clowns masquerading as politicians.
John,
Ask ’em “What happened to the ‘Precautionary Principle”, when you lot were deciding to go for 100% Ruinable energy?”
In Science, the first Precautionary Principal is Allow Cross-examination and Discussion.
In Engineering, the first Precautionary Principal is, for any new Technology, always build, test and assess a prototype before spending more money, and time.
In Engineering, the second Precautionary Principal is split the project into stages and reassess after every stage.
Reblogged this on delboydave and commented:
At last! A Politician who has seen through all the ‘Bull’ and calling this ‘climate emergency’ for what it is! A scam!
Let’s hope he can convince many more politicians that ‘Net Zero’ is also a waste of time and money, & concentrating on ‘Medieval’ wind turbines is a futile endeavour.
Great sentiments. Pity he included carbon capture though, that’s unnecessary, expensive and unproven. Carbon dioxide is plant food, we do not need to reduce it in the atmosphere, as had been states many times by unbiased scientists that are not part of the green blob
Don’t celebrate too soon, he still talks about managing carbon and CCS.
Even Frost had to take precaution of bowing to the God, Carbon. CCS would increase electricity bills by 50% – assuming, rather like fusion, if they ever get it to work.
Meanwhile, on that idiot Vine’s R2 program for the cerebrally-challenged, he had people ringing in complaining that as they were with a supplier who brags of only suppliying renewable energy, why should they have to pay more as renewables are the cheapest out there. I do hope the Gov nips this lie in the bud. There really are people who think their homes are wired directly to a solar/wind farm
They also overlook the fact that these suppliers offer domestic gas as well, and buying it is now costing them a fortune that they hadn’t planned for.
I have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about E-ON’s current TV adverts that claim the lie that “all their customers get 100% renewable energy”. Haven’t heard anything back from them yet (after 3 days), but hopeful they’ll get this advert taken off or at least amended
Ha ha the ASA are in with scam
You won’t get anywhere unless you go right to the end
You check up the results when people complained before
The ASA say that having offset certificates is the same as renewable
which it of course isn’t.
The liars at Shell Energy – I hold Shell shares – in their TV advert say all their customers get renewable energy which their own data shows is complete rubbish but the screen shows that it is deemed so by REGOs. I suspect that any challenge to the lies in the advert will be thwarted by the REGOs.
The entire advert needs a complaint for pushing the “glacier” and “climate” scaremongering in the first place.
All crawling out the woodwork now to condemn green policies. Where were they all ten years ago when Matt Ridley was a voice in the wilderness.
I was doing this from when I retired in 2007. When I found David MacKay and Douglass Lightfoot had done it all already. But what lay behind it took much longer. Brian
Because nothing else can deliver the amount of cheap, sustainable, and affordable energy we need to stay a developed economy that depends on that single essential measure above all else. I would add with sovereign price control from any assets we mine or extract. Nuclear must replace fossil at scale because nothing else can , when we need to. We need to get politicians out of the management of energy supplies, for industry, heating and transport – and plan the longer term sustainable solution when fossil fuels actually decline, for US, not what sounds nice to environmentalists with no idea how real things work, that make supply expensive and rationed, and enriches enrich urban elites with the subsidies we are forced to pay for what doesn’t work.
Energy policy we now have is a legalised climate change protection racket. Legalised crime,
Are you really Brian Catt who was good on TalkTV last night doing 15 mins with James Whale ?
.. Pity only a few people on Twitter noticed the item.
Yes, guilty as charged. I have also done three gigs on the subject for Nana Akua on GBNews. They say they wanted to get me in the studio this w/e. Well see if it happens. Messaging is getting bettetr as I develop it. I am no longer targeting professional numerate audiences, so the message has to become assertive but from the authority of informed knowledge/research
Deconfused.com.
OK, let’s see if I have got this right?
People are going to freeze to death this winter, but we are fighting global warming?
Pity he wants to continue pushing the equally unrealistic carbon capture idea. As we know carbon dioxide is highly beneficial to life on Planet Earth. But one small step at a time…..
It could be just a sop to the greenies. It will become obvious in time that CCS is neither practical nor affordable.
Most greens are in with the big green hedgefunds
The last thing they want is CCS that works
cos that would mean you wouldn’t need to bother with solar and wind power.
Yes, he blew it with the reference to CCS. How to spend £billions and make energy unaffordable, how to waste massive amounts of energy, how create and store a hazardous material. All for no purpose beyond a theoretical and unquantifiable harm. He blew it.
I too was disappointed at Frost’s reference to CCS. But maybe it was a sop to the eco- loons to stop them foaming at the mouth too much at his other, sensible, comments?
But he spoils it by saying we need CCS. If we took ALL the CO2 from the air it would be replaced by CO2 from the oceans (Henry’s Law) since the oceans have so much of it.
And established science tells us warmer oceans absorb less CO2 from the atmosphere, which must have been happening since sometime in the 19th century, if not before, if thermal expansion is any guide.
Local newspaper has a double page advert for BP windfarms.
What purpose does that serve ?
It does put money in the newspapers accounts.
but surely it makes no difference to readers.
The business section usually starts of with Green dreamery PR
now it’s “Huge carbon negative quarry project reaches build milestone”
Sounds like voodoo maths
Origin corp of Oxford university plus 8 Rivers corp Calcite tech.
‘Normally producing a tonne of lime uses a tonne of CO2, but then the lime absorbs 800Kg of CO2.
The new tech aims to reduce the CO2 using in manufacturing so making the full process carbon negative.
then the block can go back in the kiln to be reprocessed into lime’
This seems like a perpetual motion machine.
The next page is full page for Dogger Bank windfarms and RWE, going on about 3GW twin projects.
Next page : “Green aviation fuel first praise as government commits to five plants by 2025”
Boris wrote very similar articles when he was a journalist look how that turned out
Yes practically all modern Lab/Con politicians are two faced
I think the reason Johnson changed into an eco-nut and climate change believer was Carrie, his recent new wife. She has become the de-facto unelected PM, and the real gain from Johnson’s departure will be her loss of power.
Can’t understand why Germany isn’t flooded with windmill electricity given the billions spent? Oh, I notice ours are producing only two per cent of demand so we can’t help. Look at the European isobars
Disappointingly Lord Frost is talking nonsense. As others have said, what has CCCS git to do with anything? Nuclear is decades away. Fracking is a non-starter. The fact is that we have bet the farm on wind, so let’s make it work. The issue, as everyone knows, is intermittency. That can be overcome by stabilising our gas turbine power generation to operate on liquid fuels like keronsene or gas oil which can be stored (the Ireland Alternative Fuel Obligation). Some fairly complex financial engineering has to be done but its feasible.
wonderful outbreak of common sense.
Lord Frost for PM, or as close to it as he can get.
A genuine breath of hope.
Alan