Editor’s Note;
Just recently the Starmer government responded to a petition demanding that the lunatic Net Zero act be repealed with typical arrogance and dishonesty. I asked Iain Hunter, who has written several articles for FSB on the fake climate crisis to respond, as he does below.
This article also appears on Iain’s substack Clipped Wings.
The following is what the Starmer-led Labour Government of the United Kingdom responded to a recent petition to Parliament to repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 and scrap Net Zero targets.
The government’s response:
“There is no ‘two-sided’ debate on anthropogenic climate change. The Government’s policy to support ambitious action on climate change reflects the overwhelming scientific consensus.”
“The Government’s policy to support ambitious action on climate change reflects the mainstream scientific consensus and thousands of studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. The IPCC is the authoritative source of information on climate science. The IPCC has established that human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years. This warming of the climate is attributed to the build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel combustion, cement manufacture and deforestation. The evidence for this is set out in chapters 2 and 3 of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 report. The IPCC Sixth Assessment reports can all be accessed here (https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/).
As discussed in chapter 4 of the above report, if the CO2 concentration continues to rise unchecked the world could face a global surface temperature rise of about 3°C or more above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. The serious consequences of this for human societies and ecosystems are set out in the IPCC Working Group report on impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation.
The Prime Minister has reiterated that net zero is a priority for this Government. The UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions – having cut them by around 53% between 1990 and 2023, while also growing its economy by around 80%. More than ever, we are determined to adopt a fair and pragmatic approach to net zero that minimises the burdens on working people. The measures announced by the Prime Minister on 20th September 2023 (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-net-zero-20-september-2023) will help avoid imposing significant costs on families.
The Government understands the importance of affordable energy bills for households and businesses and is focussed on delivering for energy consumers. We are taking a comprehensive approach to bring down future bills. This includes reforming retail markets to be more effective for consumers through the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA) Programme. We are also investing across the energy system and supporting the progress of new technologies to deliver a smarter energy system, and energy efficiency to reduce costs for all consumers.
The costs of global inaction to tackle climate change significantly outweigh the costs of action. Indeed, delaying action will only put future generations at risk. The Net Zero Review by HM Treasury, published alongside the Net Zero Strategy in October 2021, provided an analysis of the costs and benefits of the transition, found here (http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-review-final-report). As the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) noted in its July 2021 Fiscal Risks Report (https://obr.uk/frs/fiscal-risks-report-july-2021/), “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero”.
Government policy and spending ambitions will support up to 480,000 green jobs in 2030. We have a clear strategy to boost UK industry and reach net zero by 2050 – backed by £300 billion in public and private low carbon investment between 2010 and 2023, with a further £100 billion of private investment expected by 2030. Since September alone companies have announced plans for £30bn of new investment across the energy sector, including to advance green technologies and support green industries of the future.
The public will play a key role in the net zero transition. A significant proportion of the emission reductions will require the public to make green choices and the UK government will be supporting the consumers all the way. Our priority is making green choices significantly easier, clearer and more affordable, and working with industry to remove barriers.
The DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker shows that people are willing to make green choices. In Summer 2023, a large majority (74%) agreed that they could make changes that would help reduce climate change. When shown a list of behaviours related to reducing climate change, almost all people (98%), said that they did at least one of these in their everyday life. The most recent wave of the DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/desnz-public-attitudes-tracker-winter-2023) shows that 80% of people in the UK are either fairly concerned or very concerned about climate change and 62% of the public consider climate change and the environment to be one of the most important issues facing the UK (ONS 14-25th February 2024 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/publicopinionsandsocialtrendsgreatbritain/14to25february2024).
The Climate Change Act requires that we publish the level of the Carbon Budget 7 twelve years before the period to allow policy makers, businesses, and individuals to prepare. The statutory deadline for setting the Seventh Carbon Budget is June 2026. In recent correspondence with the Environmental Audit Committee, the Secretary of State for DESNZ stated her support for proper democratic consideration of carbon budgets. We have committed to additional Parliamentary scrutiny for Carbon Budget 7, which is in line with this government’s commitment to delivering on these targets in a way that brings people with us and ensures democratic debate about the way we get there.
Department for Energy, Security & Net Zero”
Open letter to the British government:
“Dear Starmer,
Thank you for your government’s response to our petition to repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 and Net Zero Targets.
To begin with, let us say that your statement that there is no two-sided debate on anthropogenic climate change is true. This is simply because those who believe in the concept refuse to debate with sceptics and realists. They resort to defamation, cancellation and name-calling instead. All of these tactics are the time-honoured indicators of the liar who knows he is on shaky ground.
We’ll take the claims made in your government’s response in order.
The idea that there is an overwhelming consensus about anthropogenic climate change: There is no such mainstream scientific “consensus”. This is based on the claim that 97% of “scientists” back the idea of anthropogenic climate change. Let us inform you that this figure was cooked by the United Nations IPCC in whom you appear to put far too much blind faith. The true figure is 0.3%. If you are receptive, we will be happy to provide you with proof of the IPCC’s fraud.
Apart from that, ‘consensus’ is a word that does not belong in science. There is no such thing as a scientific ‘consensus’. There are only facts and theories which exist until someone, somewhere proves them to be wrong. ‘Consensus’ is a political word.
There is no proof whatsoever that the recent warming of the planet has been caused by human activity. Your response states that the IPCC has established that humans have caused an unprecedented rise in temperature over the last 2,000 years. First, the temperature rises we have seen in recent times are not at all unprecedented; second, this claim blithely ignores the rest of the 4.5 billion years of Earth’s existence. The proveable geological evidence of the last 500 million years shows that there is no general link between CO2 and temperature and, where there is, it is the other way around. Increased natural CO2 in the atmosphere LAGS temperature rises by approximately 800 years.
You know you really ought to stop calling oil and gas “fossil fuels”. Hydrocarbons are found throughout the universe. Saturn’s moon Titan has seas of liquid hydro-carbons and they have frequently been identified elsewhere in far flung corners of our galaxy. There is nothing “fossil” about the origins of oil and gas. They are mineral.
Let us say this about CO2 which may be a revelation to you, your political acolytes and their civil servants. This wonderful gas is the very stuff of life. It contains the carbon of which we are all made. The plants, trees, animals, birds, fish, insects and other invertebrates are all made of carbon. So are many rocks - chalks, limestones and the metamorphic marbles. Where did all that carbon come from? The primeval atmosphere of Earth, that’s where. No CO2, no life on Earth.
The claim that there “could” be a temperature rise of 3℃ above pre-industrial levels - when we were still in the Mini-Ice Age - has no basis in science. It comes from computer models which are the only places in the world that anthropogenic climate change exists. The employment of the modal auxiliary verb “could” also implies that that there “could not”. This is flimsy stuff on which to base UK government policy.
The UN IPCC claim that any temperature rises are due to CO2 increase is not credible while it continues to ignore variations in solar radiation documented in well researched work on solar cycles. CO2, in any case, is a particularly weak greenhouse gas and is a very small component of the atmosphere - just 0.042%. Water vapour is much more important - 90 to 95% of all greenhouse gas is water vapour.
Climate changes. It always has and always will. It is entirely natural. Mankind can do nothing about it except adapt if it has to.
Now, about the claims about the financial costs of doing or not doing anything about so-called climate change. It’s very nice of you to say that you understand the importance of affordable energy bills and you’ll try to bring down future bills. What about present bills? Apart from anything else, unless you control world oil, gas and other energy markets, which you don’t, this is pie in the sky.
You then provided links to an HM Treasury report and an Office of Budget Responsibility report on future costs of transition and fiscal risks providing a quote from the latter: “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero”. Again, there is a modal auxiliary verb employed, this time “would”. That tells us we are in the realms of imagination, not fact. No-one can forecast with any degree of accuracy what our economic conditions will be even a few weeks in advance let alone years. Such economic forecasts are, as we are all painfully aware these days, totally worthless.
The same can be said of your ridiculous claim about 480,000 “green” jobs in 2030 (why does that year keep cropping up so often?). Apart from that, the fact that you state that government will “support” such jobs must mean that the market will not, so they are fundamentally uneconomic. The same applies to the £30Bn of announced new investment in the energy sector which can only be made with subsidies, i.e. our taxes or yet more government borrowing.
The most laughable bit is the idea you have that the public will play a “key” role in the net zero transition, that you’ll “require” us to make “green” choices. Well, I‘ve got news for you. In countless numbers of homes up and down the land, new gas and oil boilers are already being installed and people are buying log burners ahead of forthcoming bans. Besides, it is WE who do the “requiring” not you. You are our SERVANTS, not our masters. However, we do realise that YOU have other masters to whom you answer ahead of us.
Now we come to your DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker. All that this tracks is the result of your propaganda and lies. So, people are willing to make “green” choices are they? They wouldn’t be if they were told the truth. The truth that the whole Climate Change fraud, for fraud is what it is, was dreamed up in the 1950s in the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Special Projects. It was developed through the Club of Rome, the Trilateral Commission, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, all set up by Rockefeller interests, to generate an invisible global threat that would require a global response as a driver towards a One World Government arising out of the UN and WEF. There is no use denying it. The wonders of the internet has meant that research work has been done on this by many diligent people. We know. We can prove it. The game is up.
By the way, has Miliband transitioned? We see you refer to the Secretary of State for DESNZ as a she/her. We have to say we’ve always had our doubts about him/her.
You’ll have to forgive us when we tell you that in the light of all this we really couldn’t give a fig about your “carbon budgets” except in as much as we are all forced to pay for them and we really do not like that.
More and more people are waking up to this Great Lie of Our Times. Unless we see a retraction of all the foolish legislation, an end to “green” subsidies and a return to a sensible energy policy which leads to the energy independence which we know our country is capable of reaching, we will begin to get rather angry. Who knows where that might lead.
Yours sincerely,
The British People.”
Editor’s Note:
Please send this to your MP and as many MPs as you can. In fact, please send it to everybody you know – for we are all paying the price, and the price our children and grandchildren will pay will be ruinous.