THERE were some curious features of the report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change titled ‘The Climate Paradox: Why We Need to Reset Action on Climate Change’:what happened before, the criticisms and comments, the local elections afterwards, and who actually wrote it.
It was odd that on April 25, four days before the report was published, Energy Secretary (at the time of writing) Ed Miliband was clearly worried that his precious policies to save the world were meeting with growing and inexplicable (to him) opposition. Clean power, he claimed, will make Britain more secure, provide energy security and lower bills. The government, he said, ‘is up for the fight over Net Zero’. Was he aware of the Blair army gathering over the horizon so got his blow in first?
The report itself was a much-needed blast of common sense. The lengthy foreword (by Sir Tony himself) warned that the climate debate had become irrational, the impact of our financial sacrifices on emission was minimal, fossil fuel demand was rising and present policy solutions are unrealistic and therefore unworkable, especially as regards the series of United Nations COP summits.
Try to leave aside any baggage associated with the Blair name. Then whatever your views on climate it is hardly possible to disagree with those accusations. The case the document makes for a more rational approach to the problems of climate and energy is long overdue. It argues in much detail for a complete change of focus on our ways of dealing with emissions. It is more practical than anything that has ever come out of the government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Blair’s critics mostly missed the point or displayed ignorance of the real world. The report covers a wide range of possibilities including geoengineering projects such as solar radiation management. One critic made a joke of this ‘bonkers plan to reflect sunlight’, apparently not realising hundreds of such plans – and several experiments – have been around for years and are being treated very seriously. (More about that subject here and here.)
Another said that the report’s comment about China’s emissions ‘is muddled and misleading’, as China is a world leader in clean energy development. Alas, the critic hadn’t noticed it was clearly stated that the country is also world leader in emissions and will be for some time to come.
There were some who still seemed to think that ‘faster deployment of renewables is the best way [to Net Zero]’. The report was even accused of downplaying scientific urgency when its recommendations specifically include focusing more on carbon capture and storage, going for nuclear power by way of small modular reactors, and developing a new approach to other technological solutions.
There was a press comment that Sir Tony had been forced to issue a statement that the government’s Net Zero policy was the right one. That is another curious feature as the report recommends a radically different approach.
There was much careless misreading of the document. Some opinions, for instance ‘he appeared to criticise the push to achieve Net Zero by 2050’, were simply not true. Lindy Fursman (the author of the report) stepped in to point out that it was the debate that was irrational, not the planned push for Net Zero.
Lindy Fursman had been advising about climate matters for the New Zealand government for over eight years before being appointed Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute. The thinking in the ‘Blair’ report is all hers. Sir Tony’s foreword is based on Fursman’s Executive Summary, chapter 2. Curiously, she has a PhD in sociology and a BMus (performance).
Try to find time to read or at least skim through the whole thing. This is an instruction list for whoever takes over at the Energy Department. Unfortunately it is long and has annoying signs of hurried release (to get it out before the May 1 elections?) so there are neither index nor page numbers.
The Prime Minister played it down of course. He had every confidence in his Energy Secretary, he said; ‘he is doing a great job’. He even commented that the report ‘was absolutely aligned with what we’re doing here’. All I can say to that is: read it again, Sir Keir.
The Reform party won 677 seats in the local council elections two days after the report appeared. One reason (and there are many) for their success must surely be their policy to scrap Net Zero and related subsidies to bring down our energy costs which are crippling industry and worrying householders. They would return to North Sea gas and oil rather than import someone else’s at enormous cost, and fast-track clean nuclear energy with new Small Modular Reactors built in Britain.
Many of us think ‘catastrophe’ is a word that should not be linked with ‘climate’. Many more know that a constant and reliable source of electricity is vital. For all of us there is much to consider in these detailed proposals for a more sensible and practical way forward.
This Blair/Fursman real-world analysis slots neatly into the wide-open gap between Miliband and Reform.
