Sunak is right to stay away from COP27
By Paul Homewood
Rishi Sunak deserves one of those ‘climate champion’ badges they hand out at primary schools. Why? Because he is not going to fly to the COP27 summit in Egypt – thereby saving 1.65 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to the World Land Trust’s carbon calculator. So what if Ed Miliband thinks it is a failure of leadership? There is no point in any UK Prime Minister travelling to any more of these summits when the world’s largest carbon emitters have made it perfectly plain that they have no intention of copying Britain’s example. They will not be putting themselves under legal commitment to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050 or any other hard date.
Xi Jinping, whose country is responsible for a third of the world’s emissions, won’t be going. Joe Biden will be there to earn his brownie points, but we know what to expect after he turned up last year in Air Force One, took a cavalcade of 21 vehicles from Edinburgh airport and then appeared to fall asleep during the conference. He wouldn’t even sign a document committing the US to phase out coal power by 2030 – six years after Britain’s last coal-fired station will close.
Biden isn’t going to be legally committing to net zero any more than Donald Trump did. All he has done is make a non-binding pledge to reduce emissions by 50 per cent and signed a climate bill which is really just protectionism is disguise, for example offering bungs to buyers of US-made electric cars.
Even those countries which have followed Britain into making a legal commitment to net zero seem to be taking it a lot less seriously than we are. Sunak has just reversed Truss’ policy and reaffirmed the government’s moratorium on fracking, thereby depriving Britain of a much-needed opportunity to improve energy security. Germany, on the other hand, is about to bulldoze a wind farm in order to extend a massive open-cast coal mine. Never mind the country’s promise to achieve net zero by 2045, five years earlier than even Britain. That has gone by the wayside as German homes face a chilly winter. But Chancellor Olaf Scholz is going to COP27, so that’s alright then.
Britain is beginning to look increasingly isolated in its net zero fundamentalism. Only we really do look like we’re going to be silly enough to close down our industries, sacrifice our agriculture and pile taxes on the poor in the name of achieving a self-imposed target which will mean absolutely nothing if other countries do not follow suit. You can forget about the much-vaunted bonanza in ‘green jobs’ – the number of people employed in what the Office of National Statistics defines as the ‘low carbon and renewable energy economy’ hasn’t grown in a decade, and has actually fallen since 2018. It is China which is gaining the green jobs – not least because energy is cheaper there.
That’s why Rishi Sunak is quite right to stay away from COP27 and prioritise his efforts to salvage the public finances instead. At some point either he, or a subsequent PM, is going to have to admit that the legal commitment to net zero by 2050 is a hostage to fortune – and relax it before it causes untold damage to the economy. But I can understand why he wouldn’t want to do this in his first week in office.
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Excellent Article; but the closing down of Fracking once more sticks well and truly in the throat.
Absolutely.
👍😤
Sometimes in war (the one we have with the eco loons and corrupt academics) it may be tactics to let them win a battle…..such as fracking, long term it may prove viable but not this winter. Get on with more oil and gas exploration, with the coal comeback it makes sense to restart open cast coal, there are two sites in the north east that the greens closed down, in a few months maybe digging out coal, much bigger win for us.
That’s exactly what I think. It risks becoming a distraction over more pressing matters.
A certain Ms. Sturgeon has apparently announced she’s attending in lieu of Mr Sanook- I wonder how she’ll get there and how many peeps in kilts will be in her retinue?
Getting above her station, once again. The leader of a dysfunctional political party in Scotland attending ‘in lieu’ of the UK Prime Minister. Never knowingly humble is she?
You might call it cocking a snook?
I’m not sure that description is gender fluid enough for her?
I often wonder what happened to the other half of The Krankies…
Elsie McSelfie as she is affectionately known up here (not) never misses a photo op.
Sunak is yet another puppet WEF young global leader. It would be naive in the extreme to read anything favourable into his non-attendance.
Especially as his grasp of economics is shown up by his re-imposition of the ban on fracking
Changed his tune since the first leadership contest…
Next prime minister will be pro-fracking, TV debates reveal
Both candidates signal support for shale gas ‘if local communities support it’
Harry Cockburn
Environment Correspondent
Wednesday 27 July 2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/truss-sunak-fracking-tory-leadership-b2132167.html
I’ll warrant he knows more about economics than any of us. He’s done that because he knows that it will make no difference in the short term and would only become a distraction to his main policies
Nonsense. You have zero evidence for that.
So where is an announcement that at the very least the “Climate Change Act” will be repealed? And of course an end to “NetZero” and everything else.
>>zero evidence
What is needed is a serious politician who would actually go these “climate” conferences ONCE and put an end to the entire scam and scaremongering.
Won’t happen.
Too much money invested in it, the Yanks won’t as they’ll be no need for Ethanol in petrol, so that’s a load of corn farmers screwed & their votes gone. All the manufacturers of solar panels, windmills, EVs, the associated batteries, mining, academia.
Let’s face it, even Trump (If you can call him a serious politician) did diddly squat.
1. “Germany, on the other hand, is about to bulldoze a wind farm …”
This one was put up in 2001, so likely this is not really as sacrificial as it sounds.
2. As for Joe Biden — it is better when he is sleeping and not otherwise being silly. { With luck, they will keep him there in the warm sun. }
It’s subsidy harvesting period had expired.
Correct, and that is true for a lot of the German windmills, which means that there is no queue forming to spend any money on either new ones or replacements. Germany will see a decline in its windmills over this decade, which is fine as with companies going bust and manufacturing departing to cheaper countries there will be a drop in demand.
Mrs. Stonyground claims to have read somewhere that there is no point fracking in the UK anyway because there isn’t any gas to be extracted. The fact that there are energy companies willing to put their own money into drilling for this non existent gas is rather interesting then. Does anyone know where she might have acquired this bit of disinformation?
Thikipedia? The BBC? The Guardian – which I see from a comment on a later post has the boss of Thikipedia as a director which explains a lot.
Why, with the difficulties facing the UK would he waste time attending the Conference of Prejudices?
Hilarious that Sturgeon says she will go now Sunak has dropped out. Obviously she was so worried about climate change she couldn’t be bothered to sign up before. 😂😂
Perhaps she has reformed The Krankies and they will be providing the cabaret act.
Commeth a cold winter and attending blackouts; unemployment, due to lack of reliable power; cold homes; food shortages; and empty tummies, due to food costs, the political minds will change if they want to be re-elected.
Problem is that it is not only the current government in the UK. The other parties are just as bad if not worse in pushing the “climate” and “green” hysteria, not to mention forcing EVs whether the market wants them or not.
It’s also not only the UK, it seems that European politicians actually HATE their own populations.
Nah. He’s going to Dummkopf27:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/11/02/rishi-sunak-caves-in-flying-to-cop27-climate-talks-after-all/