Net Zero Scrutiny Group

Kemi Badenoch Accepts £10,000 From Chair of Tufton Street Climate Denial Group

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Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch. Credit: Credit: HM Treasury (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The former business secretary, who is running for Conservative Party leader, has defended net zero U-turns and backed new fossil fuel drilling.

Conservative Party leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch received £10,000 towards her campaign from the chair of a climate science denial group, DeSmog can reveal. 

Neil Record, a millionaire Tory donor and founder of the investment firm Record Financial Group, is chair of Net Zero Watch (NZW), the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). 

Based in 55 Tufton Street, Westminster, the GWPF is the UK’s leading climate science denial group. The GWPF’s director Benny Peiser has suggested it would be “extraordinary anyone should think there is a climate crisis”, while the group has also expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mis-characterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”. 

Its NZW arm has called for “rapid” new North Sea oil and gas exploration, and for wind and solar power to be “wound down completely”. 

Badenoch received £10,000 from Record in July, according to her official register of interests, which said that the donation was “in support of my campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party”. 

The North West Essex MP has previously criticised the UK’s climate targets, calling them “arbitrary” in a 2022 interview. Badenoch has previously suggested that she would be in favour of delaying the UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050. 

While serving as business secretary in September 2023, Badenoch also defended the decision by then prime minister Rishi Sunak to water down and delay a number of net zero policies, and argued that new fossil fuel licences were compatible with the UK’s climate targets.

“It’s no wonder that the Conservatives don’t want to act on the climate crisis when they are receiving donations from the people running groups like Net Zero Watch,” Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green Party, told DeSmog. 

“Just weeks on from the worst electoral defeat in their entire history, you’d hope they would be reflecting on why policies like U-turning on their climate commitments were so unpopular. Instead, it seems they are going to double down on their hostility to net zero and will remain both a threat to the planet and completely out of touch with the British public.”

Polling by More in Common and E3G during the 2024 general election period found that a majority of people in every UK constituency are worried about climate change. Some 61 percent of 2024 Conservative voters said they are worried about climate change, matched by 76 percent of Labour voters, and 65 percent of the country overall. 

Last month, which saw world temperatures reach their hottest levels ever measured, Record wrote in The Telegraph that it is “debatable in detail” whether burning fossil fuels increases carbon dioxide (CO2) and causes dangerous global warming.

He went on to claim that achieving net zero by 2050 “will restrict our freedom, and is likely to be eye-wateringly expensive”, and should be replaced with the “realistic promise” for the UK not to contribute more than one percent of global emissions. 

The world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has stated that CO2 “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heatwaves, heavy rains, and drought”.

The IPCC has also warned that climate action has been delayed by “rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”.

Record is a “life vice president” of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank, which he chaired until July 2023. The IEA has opposed state-led climate policies and has advocated for more fossil fuel extraction. The think tank received funding from the oil giant BP every year from 1967 to at least 2018. Record has given money to both the IEA and the GWPF. 

The GWPF and the IEA are part of the Tufton Street network of think tanks and lobbying groups based in Westminster, all of which campaign for less government regulation, including on climate change.

When questioned previously about his GWPF donations, Record said: “I personally regard the continuing contribution of the GWPF to the climate change debate as very positive in assisting balance and rationality in this contentious area.”

The GWPF and the Tories

A number of other Tory MPs have also recently received donations from funders of the GWPF. 

One of the early funders of the GWPF, Lord Michael Hintze, donated £18,000 to a number of Tory MPs from May to August. A hedge fund manager, Conservative peer and major party donor, Lord Hintze has said that he believes “there is climate change” caused “in part due to human activity over the past century”. However, he has said that “all sides must be heard” on the issue “to reach the right conclusion for society as a whole”.

A number of climate consensus studies conducted between 2004 and 2015 found that between 90 percent and 100 percent of experts agree that humans are responsible for climate change. A study published in 2021, which reviewed over 3,000 scientific papers, found that over 99 percent of climate science literature says that global warming is caused by human activity.

Lord Hintze’s recent donations included £2,000 to Claire Coutinho, £5,000 to Iain Duncan Smith, £2,500 to Alison Griffiths, £2,500 to Kit Malthouse, £2,000 to Andrew Murrison, £2,500 to Patrick Spencer, and £2,500 to Nick Timothy.

Former energy and net zero secretary Coutinho – who oversaw the weakening of a number of flagship climate policies – received another £2,000 from Lord Hintze in January. 

Lord Hintze is one of the Conservative Party’s most prolific donors in recent years and has given more than £4 million to the party and its candidates since 2002. 

Between the 2019 general election and the start of the 2024 campaign, the Conservatives received £8.4 million from fossil fuel interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers.

GWPF donor Lord Jon Moynihan has also given £12,000 to a number of Tory MPs in recent months, including £5,000 to Peter Fortune, £2,000 to Mark Francois, and £5,000 to Thomas Bradley. He has now donated more than £600,000 to the Conservatives and its candidates since 2001.

Lord Moynihan gave £25,000 to the GWPF between 2018 and 2023, and has donated over £300,000 to other “free market” groups in the Tufton Street network in recent years, including the IEA. 

Lord Moynihan also has substantial oil and gas investments. The peer’s register of interests shows that he holds shares worth more than £100,000 in each of the oil and gas majors BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies.

The GWPF and NZW have a number of political ties. Labour MP Graham Stringer is a director of the GWFP, having joined its board of trustees in 2015. Lord David Frost, a Tory peer and the UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator, is a trustee of the organisation alongside Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson. Former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, who lost her seat in July’s general election, is a director of NZW.

“The government may have changed, but it’s not clear much else has when it comes to climate crisis denialism,” Jolyon Maugham, executive director of the Good Law Project, told DeSmog. “Labour MP Graham Stringer continues to sit on the board of the GWPF and Neil Record, who chairs its subsidiary, is funding the would-be Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.”

Following a review by the Charity Commission into the GWPF’s activities and structure, the group announced that it would soon be ending its formal ownership of NZW.

All the MPs and donors mentioned in this article were approached for comment. 

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingKemi Badenoch Accepts £10,000 From Chair of Tufton Street Climate Denial Group

Net Zero Scrutiny Group Chair Urged Not to Resurrect ‘Failed’ Project

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Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Former Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. Credit: GB News / YouTube

Despite growing public support for climate action, former Tory MP Craig Mackinlay has pledged to continue opposing green policies.

Campaigners and politicians have warned a former Conservative MP against reviving an anti-net zero group which is allied to climate science denial. 

Craig Mackinlay stepped down as MP for South Thanet before the general election after contracting sepsis in September. Tributes were paid in Parliament to Mackinlay’s personal courage in May after the illness required the amputation of his legs and arms.

Mackinlay was nominated to the House of Lords on 4 July (the day of the election) by outgoing prime minister Rishi Sunak, and Mackinlay said he would use this position to campaign around sepsis and limb loss, “as well as sensible net zero”.

In an interview last week with GB News – a broadcaster which frequently airs climate science denial and attacks on net zero – Mackinlay announced that he plans to continue to chair the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG), which he has led since its launch in 2021.

“The Net Zero Scrutiny Group will continue”, he said. “We had a number of peers in it before. 

“I intend it to continue – and perhaps even stand it up with some external funding – if we can fund it as a proper group, to actually tell the story to new parliamentarians about why the current thinking is so woolly and so wrong and so costly, and there’s a better way of doing this.”

The NZSG has led the opposition to climate action in Parliament in recent years. The group has urged the government to scrap “environmental levies on domestic energy”, “expand North Sea exploration” for oil and gas, and support “shale gas extraction” by lifting the ban on fracking. 

“Just a month on from the worst electoral defeat in its entire history, you’d think the Conservative Party might be reflecting on why policies that will trash the planet went down so badly,” Zack Polanski, deputy leader of the Green Party, told DeSmog.

“If its remaining MPs decide to double down on their hostility to net zero then it will show that they have learnt absolutely nothing, are completely out of touch with the British public, and represent a threat to life on our planet.”

Public Support for Net Zero

The NZSG has extensive ties to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s main climate science denial group, sharing research and staff, and promoting each other’s work. 

In March 2022, Mackinlay gave a supportive quote to a report by the GWPF’s campaign arm, Net Zero Watch, which called for “rapid” new North Sea exploration and for wind and solar power to be “wound down completely”. 

As recently as May of this year, Mackinlay’s parliamentary aide was still Harry Wilkinson, head of policy at the GWPF, according to the official register of secretaries. 

The GWPF frequently publishes reports that cast doubt on established climate science, explicitly rejecting the position of the world’s climate scientists. It has also actively campaigned against net zero policies, and in favour of new fossil fuel extraction. 

As reported by DeSmog, two thirds (24 out of 37) of the NZSG’s supporters in the House of Commons lost their seats in the general election. The Conservative campaign adopted some of the language and policies of anti-net zero groups, as the party pushed for more fossil fuel extraction and to delay key net zero reforms. 

Between the 2019 general election and the start of the 2024 campaign, the Conservatives received at least £8.4 million in donations from fossil fuel interests, climate science deniers, and polluting industries. 

The Conservative Party won its lowest ever number of seats in July’s election, registering only 121 Commons constituencies, with Mackinlay’s former seat (albeit with reformed boundaries) falling to the Labour Party. 

Sam Hall, director of the Conservative Environment Network, has urged the party’s leadership candidates to learn from Sunak’s mistakes. Writing for CapX on 29 July, he said: “Now in a new Parliament, aspiring Conservative leaders must learn the lessons from the campaign and set out a bold plan to stop climate change and restore nature… 

“Further weakening environmental policies will not shift Reform voters, and will only serve to alienate current Conservative voters and the voters the party needs to win back from Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens.”

Polling by More in Common and E3G during the general election period found that a majority of people in every UK constituency are worried about climate change. Some 61 percent of 2024 Conservative voters said they are worried about climate change, matched by 76 percent of Labour voters, and 65 percent of the country overall. 

Voters that switched from the Conservatives to Labour were highly engaged on climate issues, with 72 percent saying prior to the election that net zero would affect how they planned to vote.

It also appears that support for climate action has risen since the election. A new poll by YouGov for Climate Barometer, which tracks public opinion on climate change, found that support for net zero had risen from 69 percent in April to 74 percent in July after the election.

“This attempt to deny science and resurrect the failed Net Zero Scrutiny Group is bizarre against a background of the YouGov poll this week which showed that three quarters of the UK public support the drive to net zero,” said Jolyon Maughan, executive director of the Good Law Project. 

The world’s leading climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has said that climate action has been delayed by “rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”.

Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, last week warned of a “massive mis- and disinformation campaign” to stop climate action. “There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said.  

“It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.”

Mackinlay said he had “nothing to add” when approached by DeSmog for comment.

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingNet Zero Scrutiny Group Chair Urged Not to Resurrect ‘Failed’ Project

Two Thirds of Anti-Net Zero Tories Wiped Out in UK Election

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Original article by Adam Barnett and Joey Grostern republished from DeSmog.

From left to right, outgoing net zero sceptic MPs Steve Baker, Miriam Cates, Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Jenkyns and Philip Davies. Credit: Official House of Commons portraits. Design: Adam Barnett

The result has “buried Sunak’s anti-green agenda once and for all”, said Will McCallum of Greenpeace UK.

Labour’s landslide victory over the Conservatives has left the party’s anti-net zero wing in tatters. 

DeSmog’s analysis of Westminster’s influential Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) found that two thirds of its supporters are no longer represented in parliament following the July 4 general election.

Twenty-four of the 37 MPs supportive of the backbench grouping were voted out – a loss of 65 percent of its backers. Outgoing supporters include former energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, former NZSG co-chair Steve Baker, and Net Zero Watch board member Andrea Jenkyns. 

A further five stood down or resigned before the election, among them veteran climate crisis John Redwood.

The group’s former chair Craig Mackinlay, who contracted sepsis in September, has been appointed to the House of Lords by outgoing prime minister Rishi Sunak. Mackinlay has said he would use this platform to campaign for “sensible net zero”. 

The NZSG has actively campaigned against climate action since it was formed in 2021. The group’s joint letters to the Telegraph made front page news, as supporters urged the government to scrap “environmental levies on domestic energy”, “expand North Sea exploration” for oil and gas, and support “shale gas extraction” by lifting the ban on fracking. 

In addition to the NZSG grouping, former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has become an outspoken critic of net zero since leaving Downing Street in 2022, was voted out on Thursday. 

Campaigners have welcomed the departure of MPs opposed to climate action. “This landslide election victory has buried Sunak’s anti-green agenda once and for all along with many of its principle architects”, Will McCallum, co-executive director at Greenpeace UK, told DeSmog. 

“Most of the former MPs who sought to sow division and disinformation about net zero have lost at the ballot box.”

Meanwhile, 14 anti-net zero MPs were re-elected, including Labour MP Graham Stringer, who is on the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s main climate denial group, and Lee Anderson, who defected from the Tories to Reform UK earlier this year.  

Four new Reform MPs were also elected, including party leader Nigel Farage and chairman Richard Tice, both of whom have a record of climate science denial. 

Despite this, campaigners are still positive. McCallum added that “the biggest winners [in the election] – Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party – contested this election on strong green policies that will slash emissions, lower bills and deliver hundreds of thousands of new jobs”. 

“There is and has long been a public consensus on climate action in this country”, he said, and “the new government should feel empowered to be bold”. 

Here are some of the most prominent critics of net zero who have lost their seats: 

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who lost his North East Somerset seat by more than 6,000 votes to Labour’s Dan Norris, was secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy under Liz Truss between September and October 2022. 

While in office he reportedly argued for lifting the ban on fracking for shale gas, and told the head of the UAE’s state investment company, in a private meeting revealed by DeSmog, that people need to “stop demonising oil and gas”. 

Since January 2023, Rees-Mogg has presented his own show on GB News, which regularly broadcasts climate science denial. Rees-Mogg has been a harsh critic of the government’s net zero policies, stating that “the current headlong rush to net zero risks impoverishing the nation to no global benefit on emissions”.

Steve [“Number two”] Baker

Steve Baker has led the charge against climate policies in parliament. Baker was a trustee of the UK’s main climate denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), from May 2021 to September 2022, when he stepped down to serve as Northern Ireland minister. He was co-chair of the NZSG, which operated as the GWPF’s caucus in parliament.  

At a 2021 Conservative Party conference event, Baker said that much climate science is “contestable” and “sometimes propagandised”, while claiming that some UN climate scenarios were “implausible”.

In February 2022, Baker received £5,000, and a further £10,000 in February 2023, from Neil Record, chair of Net Zero Watch, the campaign arm of the GWPF. 

On Thursday Baker lost his Wycombe seat to Labour’s Emma Reynolds by more than 4,000 votes. 

Dame Andrea Jenkyns 

Andrea Jenkyns, who lost her seat of Leeds and South West Morley by more than 7,000 votes to Labour’s Mark Sewards, sits on the board of Net Zero Watch, the campaign arm of the GWPF, the UK’s main climate science denial group. 

In March 2023 Jenkyns told parliament: “Personally, net zero, I think we need to ditch these targets, especially at the moment, and use whatever resources we’ve got under our feet.” She has described herself on Twitter as holding “no-to-net-zero views”.

Miriam Cates

Miriam Cates lost her Penistone and Stocksbridge seat by more than 9,000 votes to Labour’s Marie Tidball in Thursday’s general election. 

Cates was tipped as a rising star of the Conservative party, a “darling” of the Tory right. She is the co-chair of the New Conservatives, a socially conservative faction of the Tory party which received £50,000 in January from GB News investors the Legatum Group.

Cates also sits on the advisory board of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), a right-wing group fronted by prominent climate denier Jordan Peterson. 

Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in London last year, Cates suggested that “epidemic levels of anxiety and confusion” are being caused by teaching children that “humanity is killing the Earth”. 

Philip Davies  

Philip Davies, who lost his Shipley seat by more than 8,000 votes to Labour’s Anna Dixon, has a long record of opposing climate policies. Davies was one of only five MPs to vote against the UK’s Climate Change Act in 2008. 

He currently works as a presenter for GB News, as does his wife and fellow Conservative politician Esther McVey, who was re-elected on Thursday. 

Liz Truss

A number of net zero sceptic MPs existed outside the NZSG grouping, among them former prime minister Liz Truss, who resigned in October 2022 after just 49 days in the job. As well as appointing Rees-Mogg energy secretary, Truss overturned the UK’s moratorium on fracking for shale gas – a key demand from the Net Zero Scrutiny Group.

Since leaving Downing Street – and in between giving paid speeches to U.S. anti-climate groups like CPAC and the Heritage Foundation – Truss has become an open opponent of net zero policies. 

In her 2024 book “Ten Years to Save the West”, Truss called for the independent Climate Change Committee to be abolished, and attacked the UN COP process, which coordinates international action on climate change. Truss also claimed that while in cabinet she argued against the UK hosting the COP26 climate summit.

On Thursday, Truss lost her South West Norfolk seat by 630 votes to Labour’s Terry Jermy.

‘Watching Closely’

“It’s obviously fantastic news that 30 Tory MPs who’ve lobbied against climate policies are no longer in parliament”, said Jessica Townsend, founder of the MP Watch campaign group, which used DeSmog research in a recent event on “top ten climate denial MPs”.

Townsend noted that seven of the campaign’s list have won seats, including Reform’s Farage and GWPF director Graham Stringer.

“MP Watch will be watching these MPs closely in coming months as well as the influence fossil fuel companies and their think tanks may have on Labour in Westminster now that the power base has shifted,” she added.

Original article by Adam Barnett and Joey Grostern republished from DeSmog.

What does it mean to be a climate denier?

Continue ReadingTwo Thirds of Anti-Net Zero Tories Wiped Out in UK Election

Fossil Fuel Linked Donors Gift Half a Million to Conservative Party

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Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

The CEOs of jet fuel suppliers, gas turbine makers, oil and gas companies are among those who made large donations in the last quarter of 2022.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Credit: Number 10 Downing Street / Simon Walker, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Conservative Party has received more than £632,000 in new donations from individuals and firms tied to polluting industries, DeSmog can reveal. 

New Electoral Commission records released today show that the bulk of the fossil-fuel linked funds came from Christopher Harborne, who donated £500,000 in the final quarter of 2022 – the joint-largest donation registered by the party during this period. 

Further donations were made by a gas turbine manufacturer, a North Sea oil investor, a petrochemical engineering firm, and a peer with shares in major oil and gas companies.

The revelation comes at an important moment for UK climate policy. Sunak’s government is due to release an update to its net zero strategy next month after a High Court judge ruled it lacked sufficient detail. 

The government recently opened up a new round of North Sea oil and gas licences for oil and gas exploration, at a time when the UN has warned that only drastic, immediate cuts to carbon emissions can avert a climate catastrophe.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said donations from polluting industries represented a “dangerous conflict of interest”. 

Fossil Fuel Ties

Harborne is the owner of AML Global, an aviation fuel supplier operating in 1,200 locations worldwide with a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website. Harborne is also the CEO of Sheriff Global Group, which trades in private jets. 

Before the pandemic, aviation emissions accounted for eight percent of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee, yet the government granted nearly £250 million in “free pollution permits” to the industry in 2021.  

In the past, Harborne has provided gifts to Conservative MP Steve Baker, who co-founded an anti-green group of back benchers  – the Net Zero Scrutiny Group – and who has said that a considerable amount of climate science is “actually still contestable”.

Harborne has also donated some £6.5 million to the Brexit Party – now Reform UK – whose co-founder Nigel Farage has called for a referendum on the government’s net zero targets and has labelled the focus on carbon emissions “alarmism”. Harborne has rarely spoken about the climate crisis, so the details of his personal views are unknown. 

As revealed by DeSmog, Harborne also donated £515,000 to the Conservatives in the second quarter of 2022, when the party accepted a total of £651,000 from the aviation industry.

These donations landed in the same period as the government’s “Jet Zero Strategy”, published in July. The policy – which aims to cut UK aviation emissions to net-zero by 2050, allow travellers to fly “guilt-free” and supports further aviation sector growth – has been dismissed by environmental groups as “pure greenwash”.

Harborne and AML Global have been approached for comment. 

Other Donors

The new Electoral Commission records show that the Conservatives received a further £15,000 in the final quarter of 2022 from Centrax Industries – a firm that specialises in manufacturing gas turbines. Centrax has now given more than £300,000 to the Conservatives since 2010.

DeSmog previously revealed that companies and individuals involved in North Sea oil and gas – including Centrax – donated a total of £419,900 to the Conservatives ahead of and during the government’s review into the future of the sector from July 2020 to March 2021.

Another Conservative donor in the final quarter of 2022 was Nova Venture Holdings, which donated £52,260. The company is wholly owned by Jacques Tohme, who describes himself as an “energy investor” on LinkedIn and lists his current role as co-founder and director of Tailwind Energy, an oil and gas company. 

According to its website,Tailwind focuses on “maximis[ing] value in UK continental shelf (UKCS) opportunities”, an area which includes the North Sea. Serica Energy reportedly has an agreement in place to buy Tailwind, which is expected to complete in March. The acquisition will make Serica one of the 10 largest North Sea oil and gas producers. 

A further £10,000 was given to the Conservatives by Alan Lusty – the CEO of Adi Group – adding to the £17,000 that he has given to the party since 2021. According to its website, Adi Group is a “leading supplier of engineering services to the petrochemical industry”. These services “add significant value to petrochemical engineering companies”, Adi says, though the firm claims “to work towards delivering a low-carbon economy” through its products. Adi also provides engineering services to the aerospace and automotive industries. 

Finally, the Conservative Party received £50,000 from one of its peers – Lord John Nash – who also donated £5,000 to the local Wantage constituency party. According to his register of interests, Lord Nash holds shares in Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue, and BHP, the Australian-based mining, oil and gas firm. 

Lord Nash, who has run several private equity funds, has donated more than £560,000 to the party since 2018. 

The £632,260 accumulated by the Tories from fossil fuel interests and high polluters represents more than 13 percent of the party’s £4.8 million income during the final quarter of 2022. 

Rishi Sunak himself received £141,000 from energy interests during his Conservative leadership campaign in the summer of 2022. 

Jacques Tohme, Tailwind Energy, Centrax, Adi Group, Lord Nash and the Conservative Party have been approached for comment. 

Additional research by Clare Carlile.

Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingFossil Fuel Linked Donors Gift Half a Million to Conservative Party

IPCC report calls for urgent action on climate

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In summer, some polar bears do not make the transition from their winter residence on the Svalbard islands to the dense drift ice and pack ice of the high arctic where they would find a plethora of prey. This is due to global climate change which causes the ice around the islands to melt much earlier than previously. The bears need to adapt from their proper food to a diet of detritus, small animals, bird eggs and carcasses of marine animals. Very often they suffer starvation and are doomed to die. The number of these starving animals is sadly increasing.AWeith This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Endangered_arctic_-_starving_polar_bear.jpg

The most recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body) report published today tells us that some impacts of climate change are now irreversible.

[A] liveable future remains within grasp – just. But the window of opportunity for action is “brief and rapidly closing”. The response from UN secretary-general António Guterres was stark: “Delay is death.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/28/what-at-stake-climate-crisis-report-everything

The IPCC report says that we must act now while world governments continue to pursue climate destroying policies. The point is this: We tolerate and suffer these governments and their super-rich masters that they pander to but we don’t have to. We can instead obstruct business as usual, refuse to tolerate and suffer these climate-destroying bastards. We need to act in unity putting away any other differences we might have. Our planet is getting killed, we must act for the sake of our children, young people and future generations. Delay is death.

Instead of responsible government Boris Johnson’s UK government is pursuing climate-harming policies and has stuffed his cabinet with climate-denying ministers. UK Tory MPs are campaigning against climate policies through the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. Legitimate government should be concerned with protecting it’s citizens while Boris Johnson’s UK government is doing the opposite.

https://www.onaquietday.org/new-years-message-we-need-to-stop-the-destroyers-of-our-planet/

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Continue ReadingIPCC report calls for urgent action on climate