Liz Truss’s short-lived cabinet was very climate sceptic with Jacob Rees-Mogg appointed as as secretary of state for business and energy, Kwasi Kwarteng and Suella Braverman. https://gal-dem.com/conservative-cabinet-members-climate-change-liz-truss/ discussing Liz Truss’s cabinet

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After examining the climate voting history of the entire new Tory cabinet (via the website TheyWorkForYou), gal-dem can report that every single person has either generally or consistently voted against climate change measures. Surprisingly, while some of the cabinet members had expressed that climate change is man-made and an urgent issue in press interviews or online, they still voted against any mitigation or adaptation policies, and often looked to unviable solutions such as carbon capture.

The most worrying appointment is Jacob Rees-Mogg as business, energy and industrial strategy secretary. The climate denialist will now oversee the government department responsible for energy and climate change. Climate organisers are deeply worried about what this will mean for the UK. 

“Putting someone who recently suggested that ‘every last drop’ of oil should be extracted from the North Sea in charge of energy policy is deeply worrying for anyone concerned about the deepening climate emergency, solving the cost-of-living crisis and keeping our fuel bills down for good,” says Dave Timms, Friends of the Earth’s head of political affairs. Indeed, Rees-Mogg is likely to push the idea that more fossil fuels are a solution to the energy crisis, when it is really our long-term reliance on gas and oil and inaction on energy efficiency that has sent energy bills shooting through the roof. Contrary to popular belief, and the Tory line on the energy crisis, Russia cutting off the gas supply to Europe is only a part of the problem.

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Surviving from Truss’s cabinet into Sunak’s you have the climate action hostile Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch.

https://gal-dem.com/conservative-cabinet-members-climate-change-liz-truss/

Suella Braverman – Home Secretary

The new home secretary, who ran for leader this summer, accepted £10,000 from a leading climate sceptic to support her campaign. She also argued that the UK should suspend its legally binding commitment to net zero by 2050 and blamed the energy crisis on our green commitments. This is, of course, false. The current energy crisis is due to the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels, the wholesale prices of which have surged. 

Unsurprisingly, Braverman almost always voted against measures to prevent climate change.

https://socialistworker.co.uk/the-troublemaker/climate-change-denial-lobbyists-access-cabinet/

Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch met secretly with a US think tank that has taken millions of dollars from climate denial groups. She also claimed it would be “irresponsible” for Britain to follow climate science. Badenoch met ­representatives of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which campaigners say has a long track record of “distorting” climate science.

Yet Badenoch dined with lobbyists in November while on an official visit to the US. The  AEI has received more than £265 million in donations from climate denial groups since 2008, including almost £4 million from US oil giant ExxonMobil mScant details of the meeting were published by Badenoch’s department last week, as her Indo‑Pacific trade deal faced criticism for “making a ­mockery” of British pledges to tackle deforestation.

The AEI, which also met with Liz Truss in 2018 when she was trade secretary, has sown doubt over climate change science. It described  the landmark 2021 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as ­“alarmist” and “deeply dubious”.Benjamin Zycher and Peter J Wallison, senior fellows at the AEI, played down its findings by claiming that “we don’t understand all the elements in the complex climate system—the effects of clouds alone are understood poorly”.

The think tank also ­separately criticised Cop 26, the annual UN climate conference hosted by Britain in 2021. One of its authors claimed that delegates spread a “false narrative” that urgent action is required. Badenoch also gave a speech at another US think tank, the Cato Institute, during her official visit.It was founded by ­billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, one of the top funders of climate denial in the US. Cato is “focused on ­disputing the science behind global warming,” according to Greenpeace US. The minister gave a speech promoting free trade at the institute’s headquarters in Washington DC in which she hinted that some climate change policies could “impoverish” Britain.“We can and should solve it by using free trade and investment to accelerate the technological progress that will protect the planet. We must protect the planet in a way that does not impoverish the UK, the US or, let’s be honest, any other country,” she said.

Grant Shapps appointed by Sunak as Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is a regrettable move.

Outgoing climate chief ‘disappointed’ by Tory and Labour net zero plan

The outgoing chair of the UK Government’s statutory climate advisers has been left “extremely disappointed and increasingly concerned” that neither the Tories nor Labour are prioritising a move to net zero.

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Lord Deben was asked on Times Radio, whether he was “surprised” by the lack of enthusiasm for the climate crisis by both major parties at Westminster, giving the scale of the challenge to tackle it.

In response, Lord Deben said: “Well, I don’t think I’m surprised, I’m just extremely disappointed and increasingly concerned because it seems to me that it is the priority.

“There is nothing more important than securing the world for our children.

“And indeed, I may be quite old now, but it’s securing it for me, because this is changing so fast that we are going to make the world an impossible place for us to live in the way in which we have lived up to now.”

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