Mr Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that when he became chancellor, he worked closely with Mr Skidmore on climate change issues.
He said: “The independent panel for climate change that we have in this country are very clear that even when we reach net zero in 2050, we will still get a significant proportion of our energy from fossil fuels, and domestic oil and gas is four times cleaner than imported oil and gas.”
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dizzy: four times cleaner is just total BS, isn’t it?
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer reacts to the resignation of Tory environment champion Chris Skidmore:
“As the world burns, the Tories turn in on themselves. The government’s green credentials are truly in tatters.
“The climate crisis is here and now and being experienced by people across the country, but the Prime Minister can’t hold on to anyone who has any good intentions toward the environment.
“Labour has to be held to account as well – it refused to block Rosebank and other new oil and gas licences. How long before Labour’s own green champions feel their principles are too compromised to continue?”
A Tory MP has launched a spectacular attack on Rishi Sunak’s climate record as he announced he was quitting.
Former energy minister Chris Kingswood, who led a Government review of net zero, warned: “I can no longer stand by.”
His decision creates another by-election nightmare for the Prime Minister. Mr Kingswood has resigned with immediate effect from the Conservative Party and will formally stand down as an MP when Parliament returns after the Christmas break on Monday.
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In a statement posted on X, the Tory who signed the UK’s net zero commitment by 2050 into law said he was resigning as he could not support proposed new legislation that “clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas” by handing out more North Sea drilling licence.
He said the “future will judge harshly” anyone who backs the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which is due to be voted on by MPs on Monday.
“I can… no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of action that I know is wrong and will cause future harm,” he wrote in the excoriating statement. “To fail to act, rather than merely speak out, is to tolerate a status quo that cannot be sustained. I am therefore resigning my party whip and instead intend to be free from any party-political allegiance.”
He added: “I can no longer stand by. The climate crisis that we face is too important to politicise or to ignore.”
Mr Skidmore said the Bill that will be debated next week “achieves nothing apart from to send a global signal that the UK is rowing ever further back from its climate commitments”
… In September 2022, he was appointed by the Truss government to chair the Independent Government Review on Net Zero.[5] On 5 January 2024, Skidmore announced that he would resign his party whip and his Parliamentary seat in protest at the introduction of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill.[6]
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On 27 June 2019, as Interim Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, Skidmore signed the UK’s Net Zero Pledge into law, becoming the first major economy to do so.
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Net zero
On 26 September 2022 Skidmore launched the Net Zero Review, pledging to use the review to focus on the UK’s fight against climate change while maximising economic growth to ensure energy security and affordability for consumers and businesses.[28]
On 19 October 2022, Skidmore put out a statement on Twitter, in advance of a debate on fracking, saying that “[a]s the former Energy Minister who signed Net Zero into law”, he could not vote “to support fracking and undermine the pledges I made at the 2019 General Election”. The government was reportedly treating this vote as a confidence vote, putting Skidmore at risk of losing the Conservative Party whip.[29][30]
On 16 January 2023, Skidmore published “Mission Zero”,[31] the final report of the Net Zero Review. The 340 page report, containing 129 recommendations on how to deliver the UK’s net zero commitments, has been widely welcomed by the energy and climate sector.[32][33]
In June 2023, it was announced that Skidmore had been appointed to a professorship at the University of Bath to undertake research on sustainability and climate change.[34][35]
Although in November 2022 he had declared he would not stand again, in January 2024 Skidmore stated he would leave Parliament “as soon as possible”, stating that the relaxation of net zero targets was “the greatest mistake of [Rishi Sunak’s] premiership”.[36]
Resignation
On 26 November 2022, Skidmore announced that he would be standing down at the next general election, later stating in Parliament that ‘my constituency of Kingswood is being formally abolished in the boundary changes and there is nowhere for me to go.’[37][38][39]
However, on 5 January 2024 Skidmore announced that he would resign his party whip and his Parliamentary seat in protest at the introduction of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill.[40]
dizzy: From the Resignation section immediately above, by resigning Skidmore is forcing a by-election in a seat that will cease to exist at the next general election expected this year. From his statement and the rest of the Wikipedia entry, it’s clear that he’s doing it because he’s opposed to Rishi Sunak’s energy policy. Part of his resignation statement reads “I cannot vote for a bill that clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas. While no one is denying that there is a role for existing oil and gas in the transition to net zero, the International Energy Agency, the UNCCC and the Committee on Climate Change have all stated that there must be no new additional oil and gas production on top of what has already been committed, if we are to both reach net area carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and keep the chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees.”
He ends his statement “I can no longer stand by. The climate crisis that we face is too important to politicise or to ignore. We all have a responsibility to act when and where we can to protect the future: I look forward to devoting my time in 2024 and beyond to making the future a better place, in whatever capacity I can.”
UK lender is a major European funder of oil and gas projects and university has said it does not want to back fossil fuel expansion
Cambridge University could cut ties with Barclays after more than 200 years over the bank’s refusal to stop financing new oil and gas projects, according to the Financial Times.
It reported that Cambridge is looking for an institution with robust climate policies to manage “several hundred million pounds” in cash and money market funds – a mandate expected to cover more than £200m in assets and generate about £10m in fees a year.
The university said it was “exploring opportunities to find financial products that do not finance fossil fuel expansion” as part of its “net zero engagement strategy with the banking sector”.
Though Barclays has provided financing to the university for centuries, the bank was also the top European funder of fossil fuels between 2016 and 2022, according to a report by the Rainforest Action Network.
Global emissions of fossil carbon dioxide (CO₂), in yet another year of growth, will increase by 1.1% in 2023. These emissions will hit a record 36.8 billion tonnes. That’s the finding of the Global Carbon Project’s 18th annual report card on the state of the global carbon budget, which we released today.
Fossil CO₂ includes emissions from the combustion and use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and cement production. Adding CO₂ emissions and removals from land-use change, such as deforestation and reforestation, human activities are projected to emit 40.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023.
The world’s vegetation and oceans continue to remove about half of all CO₂ emissions. The rest builds up in the atmosphere and is causing increasing warming of the planet.
At current emission levels, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit warming to 1.5°C will likely be exceeded in seven years, and in 15 years for 1.7°C. The need to cut emissions has never been so urgent.
Emissions from every fossil source are up
Fossil CO₂ emissions now account for about 90% of all CO₂ emissions from human activities. Emissions from every single fossil source increased this year compared to 2022:
Although global emissions have increased, the picture for individual countries is more diverse. There are some signs of progress towards decarbonisation.
China’s emissions (31% of the global total) increased by 4% with growth in all fossil fuel sources. The highest relative growth was from oil emissions. This was in part due to the transport sector’s recovery after COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.
The United States’ emissions (14% of global) are down by 3%. The rapid retirement of coal-fired power plants drove most of this decline. US coal emissions are the lowest since 1903.
India’s emissions (8% of global) increased by 8.2%. Emissions for all fossil fuels grew by 5% or more, with coal the highest at 9.5%. India is now the world’s third-largest fossil CO₂ emitter.
European Union emissions (7% of global) are down by 7.4%. This decline was due to both high renewable energy penetration and the impacts on energy supply of the war in Ukraine.
During the decade of 2013-2022, 26 countries had declining fossil CO₂ emission trends while their economies continued to grow. The list includes Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Romania, South African, United Kingdom and USA.
While fossil CO₂ emissions continue to increase, net emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation (CO₂ source), minus CO₂ removals, such as reforestation (CO₂ sink), appear to be falling. However, estimates of emissions from land-use change are highly uncertain and less accurate overall than for fossil fuel emissions.
Our preliminary estimate shows net emissions from land-use change were 4.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023. These emissions follow a small but relatively uncertain decline over the past two decades.
The declining trend was due to decreasing deforestation and a small increase in reforestation. The highest emitters are Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These three countries contribute 55% of net global CO₂ emissions from land-use change.
When we combine all CO₂ emissions from human activities (fossil and land use), we find very little trend in total emissions over the past decade. If confirmed, this would imply global CO₂ emissions from human activities are not growing further but remain at very high record levels.
Stable CO₂ emissions, at about 41 billion tonnes per year, will lead to continuing rapid CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere and climate warming. To stabilise the climate, CO₂ emissions from human activities must reach net zero. This means any residual CO₂ emissions must be balanced by an equivalent CO₂ removal.
Nature’s a big help, with a little human help
Terrestrial vegetation and ocean absorb about half of all CO₂ emissions. This fraction has remained remarkably stable for six decades.
Besides the natural CO₂ sinks, humans are also removing CO₂ from the atmosphere through deliberate activities. We estimate permanent reforestation and afforestation over the past decade have removed about 1.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year.
This is equivalent to 5% of fossil fuel emissions per year.
Other non-vegetation strategies are in their infancy. They removed 0.01 million tonnes of CO₂.
Machines (direct air carbon capture and storage) pulled 0.007 million tonnes of CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Enhanced weathering projects, which accelerate natural weathering processes to increase the CO₂ uptake by spreading certain minerals, accounted for the other 0.004 million tonnes. This is more than a million times smaller than current fossil fuel emissions.
The remaining carbon budget
From January 2024, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit global warming to 1.5°C has been reduced to 275 billion tonnes of CO₂. This budget will used up in seven years at 2023 emission levels.
The carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.7°C has been reduced to 625 billion tonnes of CO₂, with 15 years left at current emissions. The budget for staying below 2°C is 1,150 billion tonnes of CO₂ – 28 years at current emissions.
Reaching net zero by 2050 requires total anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to decrease on average by 1.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year. That’s comparable to the fall in 2020 emissions resulting from COVID-19 measures (-2.0 billion tonnes of CO₂).
Without additional negative emissions (CO₂ removal), a straight decreasing line of CO₂ emissions from today to 2050 (when many countries aspire to achieve net zero CO₂ or the more ambitious net zero for all greenhouse gases) would lead to a global mean surface temperature of 1.7°C, breaching the 1.5°C limit.
Renewable energy production is at a record high and growing fast. To limit climate change fossil and land-use change, CO₂ emissions must be cut much more quickly and ultimately reach net zero.
