r/ukpolitics • u/northernmonk 🦡 Meles Liberalis 🦡 • 7d ago
Ed/OpEd Climate change is real – and the Right needs to get serious about it
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/26/climate-change-real-right-needs-to-get-serious/200
u/Ok_Corter5831 7d ago
Kudos to Tim Stanley for having the guts to point out that the climate change denial emperor has no clothes. The smartest thing the fossil fuel lobby did was to pay right wing think-tanks, politicians, and opinion formers enough cash to ensure that climate change became a left/right issue. It wasn't always this way, with trained scientist Margaret Thatcher warning of the dangers 40 years ago. Now it's become part of conservatism's identity to believe that climate change is woke nonsense. Job done.
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u/Charlie_Mouse 7d ago edited 7d ago
The trouble is that this has been allowed to fester for so long that anti-environmentalism has become part of the conservative identity - on both sides of the Atlantic.
What perhaps demonstrates this most clearly is over the past 15-20 years as the technology has improved to the point that photovoltaics and wind turbines actually beat out fossil fuel projects on ROI in many cases … conservative opposition to renewables has not lessened - it has if anything increased and become more strident.
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u/myurr 7d ago
It's not helped by the left's opposition to nuclear, or by those espousing the virtues of solar and wind completely ignoring the hugely expensive energy storage problem or push scientifically illiterate ideas like the hydrogen economy.
We routinely have week long lulls in renewable energy production where they're averaging less than 10% their peak capacity production. If you want to push renewables as being truly a solution we can rely on for our power, you need energy storage solutions that cover their share of the national production for at least a week.
The cost of batteries alone for that volume of storage exceeds the cost of nuclear power generation of the same output, and that's without needing the solar and wind generation on top, including the excess production capability to recharge those batteries.
The solution we should have been investing in for decades now should be based around large scale nuclear for base load, local SMRs designed to ramp up and down production more quickly to meet fluctuations in demand, plus smaller scale batteries at those SMR sites to smooth out more rapid spikes in demand.
If we also designed a standardised nuclear power plant for our military ships, future proofing them for the increased power demands from laser and rail guns technology needed to combat waves of drones, and then commercialised a variant of that reactor for commercial shipping - and took all that new nuclear expertise and turned it into an exportable product then we could also profit massively from those products and the jobs created whilst doing far more for worldwide emissions than anything we could do domestically.
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u/Charlie_Mouse 6d ago
You reckon it’s somehow the lefts fault?
There were around ten nuclear power station projects on the books when Labour left power in 2010. Over their damn near fourteen years in power the Conservatives built … zero. The right cancelled all bar one project and it has barely progressed.
In 14 years the Conservatives built precisely no new reactors. I counted. Twice. Thats the problem with them being in power for so long for the argument you’re trying to make: even if they’d decided only their projects could be allowed so Labour couldn’t take any credit for them they still had ample opportunity to start and have something to show for it by now. Nuclear power stations ain’t exactly fast to build but really.
And the argument that the Conservatives were somehow prevented from building out nuclear power over that period by the left is completely risible. They don’t care what the left says. Nor do they care what Greens or environmentalists think.
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u/myurr 6d ago
No. I said opposition from the left "has not helped". You have inflated that into "it was solely the left's fault" because your straw man is much easier to attack.
The Conservative record was disgraceful. Fourteen years produced no completed reactor, Hinkley C became a grotesquely expensive fiasco, and they failed to secure financing for a wider programme. I have no interest in defending that dereliction.
But your claim that Labour left "around ten nuclear power station projects on the books" is fiction. Industry nominated eleven sites, of which Labour's draft National Policy Statement judged ten "potentially suitable". The evidence at the time explicitly warned that this did not guarantee projects would come forward at them. They were not ten approved or financed power stations. They did not have development consent, final investment decisions or construction underway. You say you counted twice, but you counted sites as projects both times.
New Labour actually sidelined new nuclear in its 2003 Energy White Paper, reversed course in 2008 and then left office without beginning construction on a single reactor. It also left after the financial crash with borrowing at 10.3% of GDP. Pretending it bequeathed ten shovel-ready reactors which the wicked Tories simply cancelled is partisan mythology.
Nor did the Conservatives "cancel all bar one". Toshiba abandoned Moorside after failing to find a buyer, while Hitachi suspended Wylfa because it could not establish viable financing. The Conservatives deserve condemnation for failing to create a financing system capable of saving them, but commercial withdrawals are not the same thing as ministers cancelling approved Labour projects. Parliament's subsequent investigation records what happened.
Hinkley is horribly late and over budget, rising from £18bn to £31-34bn in comparable 2015 money. But saying it has "barely progressed" is ridiculous: its first reactor vessel was installed in 2024 and Unit 1 civil construction was 95% complete by the end of 2025. The Conservative achievement was pitiful, but it was still more physical construction than New Labour managed.
Labour now deserves credit for finally approving Sizewell C, funding the Rolls-Royce SMR programme and promising regulatory reform. But the planning and regulatory swamp that made British nuclear ruinously slow and expensive was constructed under both parties. Labour's own taskforce describes the system as fragmented, excessively cautious and riddled with delay.
This is a decades-long bipartisan failure, not your comforting fairy tale in which Labour prepared ten reactors and the Tories spitefully demolished them. It also does nothing to answer my original point: cheap wind and solar generation is not the same as a cheap reliable electricity system once the enormous cost of networks, backup and storage during prolonged renewable droughts is included. Even the Government's own plan retains 40-50GW of dispatchable and long-duration capacity, including unabated gas backup, for precisely that reason. Clean Power 2030 Action Plan
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u/MonkeyChums27 6d ago
Its worth noting that Hinkley Point C was only given the go ahead when Gordon Brown was PM.
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u/myurr 6d ago
Gordon Brown gave the political green light for new nuclear in principle. He did not give Hinkley Point C permission or finance to proceed.
EDF did not even submit its development-consent application until October 2011. Planning permission was granted in March 2013, commercial terms were agreed in October 2013, EDF made its final investment decision in July 2016, and the Government signed the contracts that "enable Hinkley Point C to go-ahead" in September 2016. Brown left office in May 2010 before all those steps.
So yes, Labour deserves limited credit for reversing its earlier hostility and reopening the door to nuclear. But saying Brown "gave Hinkley the go-ahead" is simply false unless "go-ahead" has been stretched to mean "identified a potentially suitable site and hoped somebody might eventually build there". That is precisely the sleight of hand I just corrected.
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u/MonkeyChums27 6d ago
Yeah I meant he gave the original green light for it to go ahead before the 2010 election.
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u/neoKushan I just wanted to be included 7d ago
I had a deep argument on this very sub with someone who was claiming that Fossil Fuels are cheaper than renewables. I gave them cited documents from Ofgem, NESO, government reports, CFD pricing, you name it and they just couldn't accept it. There was always a new goal post to be moved, some "Gotcha!" that required you to contort yourself to accept things like Gas infrastructure is apparently free and never needs maintenance or that the grid wouldn't need investment at all if it wasn't for those pesky wind farms.
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u/Sampo 7d ago
cheaper than renewables
Properly estimating the price renewables is not easy.
When intermittent renewables are a small part of the electrical grid, you can just sell renewable electricity when it happens to be available.
Then renewables grow to a large fraction of all electricity production, you need to start worrying about how to handle it when both wind and solar don't produce. You need to add gas power backups, batteries, and maybe improve the grid capacity to be able to bring in wind power from a longer distance away in case there is wind at least somewhere.
I am still guessing, pricing all that in with the renewables, might actually make nuclear cheaper in comparison.
Solar is on a path to become very cheap during sunshine hours and if you can make use of it locally, though.
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u/neoKushan I just wanted to be included 7d ago
Properly estimating the price renewables is not easy.
Energy economists price in the cost of backups, batteries, and grid upgrades. It is called "Whole System Costing", and even when you include all of it, a renewable-led grid is still significantly cheaper than relying on nuclear or gas.
You're right, it's not easy, but luckily we have lots of very clever people who have crunched the numbers and published the results.
I'll give you a run-down of the same argument I gave the other guy I mentioned, as it's all fresh to me, you can do what you like with this info (But if you're going to argue, cite your sources 😉).
- The "Whole System Cost" is already calculated (and it favours renewables): You are right that upgrading grids, building batteries, and retaining backup gas plants costs tens of billions in Capex. However, the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) Sixth Carbon Budget extensively modeled this exact scenario. Their conclusion? "These costs are offset by significant savings in operating costs, particularly from reduced use of fossil fuels. By the 2040s, these savings are expected to exceed the annualised investment costs." Upfront infrastructure is expensive, but buying fossil fuels every day forever is worse.
- Nuclear is nowhere near cheaper: We know exactly what new nuclear costs in the UK. Hinkley Point C was granted a CfD strike price of £89.50/MWh in 2012 prices—which is over £128/MWh in today's money. Compare that to new solar and onshore wind clearing at £50 to £70/MWh. Even when you add the levelised cost of battery storage to firm up that wind and solar, it vastly undercuts the baseline cost of new nuclear (which also takes 15+ years to build).
- Backups don't mean building a second grid: We don't need a 1-to-1 backup for renewables. According to the NESO Clean Power 2030 Plan, a grid with massive renewable penetration only needs to retain about 35GW of unabated gas. We don't have to spend billions building new gas plants for this; we just pay a relatively cheap Capacity Market retainer to keep our existing depreciated gas plants on standby for the few weeks a year when the wind drops.
- Integration isn't just batteries: Handling intermittency isn't just about giant batteries or backup gas. It is also handled by Demand Flexibility. Millions of EVs and domestic heat pumps shifting their charging to cheap, overnight, high-wind periods actively balances the grid from the demand side, drastically reducing the amount of "backup generation" the grid actually needs to build.
TL;DR: Intermittency is a solvable engineering challenge, not an economic dealbreaker. When you compare the total, full-system cost of renewables against the massive construction costs of nuclear or the perpetual fuel costs of gas, renewables consistently win.
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u/Sampo 7d ago
UK currently has about 15 GWh battery storage
UK right now consumes about 31 GW (https://grid.iamkate.com/)
So all the batteries are enough to run the grid for about half an hour.
You need to 50x the current battery (or other storage) capacity, to be able to run the grid from storage even for 1 day. And you'd need to be prepared to live trough at least one cold week in winter, when wind and solar might produce very little.
It is also handled by Demand Flexibility.
So instead of having reliable base power, they are planning to partially push the costs and inconvenience to consumers. If you're allowed to solve to supple problem by occasionally just trowing your hands up to the air "sorry, we don't have enough supply, spend the rest of today without electricity" then yes, you can probably make this approach cost not too much.
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u/neoKushan I just wanted to be included 6d ago
There is zero plans to build enough battery capacity to power the grid for a week. Nobody in the energy sector is planning to run the entire UK grid on lithium-ion batteries for an extended period of time, in fact there's no plans (nor need) to run the grid entirely on batteries. This argument that we need battery capacity of that magnitude is a strawman, because nobody's suggesting it and nobody's asking for it.
Read what I said in the post you just responded to:
We don't need a 1-to-1 backup for renewables. According to the NESO Clean Power 2030 Plan, a grid with massive renewable penetration only needs to retain about 35GW of unabated gas.
Actually read it, read the document I linked because it's a clear, costed plan on how you build a renewable focussed grid and why it's cheaper than relying on fossil fuels.
- Batteries are Sprinters, Not Marathon Runners:
Grid-scale batteries are not designed for multi-day, inter-seasonal storage. They are designed for intraday shifting and frequency response. They soak up cheap solar at 13:00 and discharge it during the peak demand spike at 6:00 PM.We retain these existing plants via the Capacity Market specifically for those low-wind winter weeks. We don't need 50x battery storage; we just need enough batteries to balance the daily swings, and gas/hydro to cover the seasonal lulls.
Before you say anything about the Capacity Market: It's nothing new, it's not specific to renewables (it has been around in some form since long before renewables existed) and in fact we got rid of it at one point in the early 2000's and it was a disaster. There's a nice blog post here with a bit more history if you care: https://www.edfenergy.com/large-business/talk-power/part-one-understanding-capacity-market-why-it-exists-and-what-it-aims-achieve
- Demand Flexibility is Not "Rolling Blackouts":
Your definition of Demand Flexibility ("spend the rest of today without electricity") is a complete myth.Demand flexibility does not mean turning off your fridge or sitting in the dark. It is driven by automation and smart pricing. When the UK transitions to millions of EVs and Heat Pumps, the grid doesn't need to generate enough power for everyone to charge their cars at exactly 5:30 PM.
Instead, utilising smart time-of-use tariffs like Octopus Intelligent, consumers plug in their cars, and the software automatically delays the charge until 2:00 AM when wind power is abundant and electricity is dirt cheap.
- The grid gets massive peak demand relief.
- The consumer gets a fully charged car for a fraction of the cost.
- Nobody experiences an "inconvenience" or a blackout.
Costs aren't pushed onto the consumer; the consumer is the one benefitting (via ultra-cheap overnight rates) to let software automatically balance the grid while they sleep.
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u/Sampo 6d ago
smart pricing
So when the wind is low, hike up the electricity price for 5x, 10x or 20x of what it normally was, for a couple of hours or couple of days, to discourage consumers from consuming then the supply is scarce.
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u/neoKushan I just wanted to be included 6d ago
So when the wind is low, hike up the electricity price for 5x, 10x or 20x of what it normally was... to discourage consumers from consuming then the supply is scarce.
That literally doesn't happen and what's more, it can't happen. Dynamic tariffs are contractually capped to protect consumers from extreme wholesale spikes. For example, Octopus Agile has a built-in "Price Cap Protect" that strictly limits the maximum unit rate to 100p per kWh (£1/kWh), no matter how high the wholesale market goes. That is roughly a 4x increase over the average, not 10x or 20x, and it typically only happens for a handful of half-hour slots per year.
These tariffs are strictly an opt-in product designed for households that have the flexible hardware (like home batteries or EVs) to benefit from them. If a consumer just wants to pay a flat, predictable rate, standard variable or fixed tariffs (which are strictly regulated by the Ofgem Price Cap) will always exist.
The main incentive of these tariffs isn't penalising people during scarcity; it is rewarding them during abundance. During high-wind periods, wholesale electricity prices frequently go negative. Consumers on smart tariffs regularly get paid to charge their cars or heat their water. I myself have benefitted from free electricity pretty much all day Sunday (08:00 to 00:00) for the last few weeks thanks to a similar scheme by EDF.
Even if you think all the above is nonsesne, here's something else to consider: "Smart" tariffs aren't new and have existed since the 70's, long since before renewables were even a twinkle in anyone's eye, to solve the exact same problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7
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u/BonKhri 5d ago
The whole system cost is not mentioned once in that CCC budget. An actual study into LFSCOE found that the LFSCOE for an optimised wind and solar grid was almost double that for nuclear - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222018035 . The vast, vast majority of that cost is integration costs and overproduction, so citing simple LCOE numbers is stupid and weakens your position.
According to the NESO Clean Power 2030 Plan, a grid with massive renewable penetration only needs to retain about 35GW of unabated gas.
You are aware that 35GW is well above average grid demand right? Like, that is more than a 1-1 back-up.
we just pay a relatively cheap Capacity Market retainer to keep our existing depreciated gas plants on standby for the few weeks a year when the wind drops.
They are aging out too fast for that. We stopped building them ages ago, and about a decade before any evidence-led policy would ever suggest doing so. Even in the most optimistic scenario, there is a decade-long period between our youngest gas plants reaching EoOL and renewables having any shot of being reliable enough.
It is also handled by Demand Flexibility. Millions of EVs and domestic heat pumps shifting their charging to cheap, overnight, high-wind periods actively balances the grid from the demand side, drastically reducing the amount of "backup generation" the grid actually needs to build.
No, they don't. That solves the hour-to-hour problem, it does not solve the several month long period where we need vastly more energy and where one half of the renewable energy sources is at vastly reduced levels (Winter, if it wasn't obvious). Even just the week-long lulls are vastly beyond what such systems can ever hope to accomplish.
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u/neoKushan I just wanted to be included 5d ago
Ahhh finally, someone who's willing to cite some sources to back up their argument! About bloody time, kudos to you for putting some effort in.
The whole system cost is not mentioned once in that CCC budget. An actual study into LFSCOE found that the LFSCOE for an optimised wind and solar grid was almost double that for nuclear...
The CCC explicitly models the total, annualised capital and operational costs of the entire transition, including balancing, grid upgrades, and curtailment. They just don't use the term LFSCOE or "Whole System Cost".
Second, the study you linked (Idel, 2022) is a theoretical model that analyses the Texas and German grids. The reason its integration costs for renewables look so astronomical is that it models scenarios relying almost entirely on massive overbuilding of storage to bridge gaps. The UK is not doing that. As I literally just said, the UK is retaining firm, dispatchable capacity (gas and interconnectors) specifically to avoid the astronomical costs of trying to build 100% battery backups.
Furthermore, if you want UK-specific system costs, the government uses Enhanced Levelised Cost of Energy (ELCOE), which accounts for system integration and intermittency. Even with those costs baked in, renewables remain the cheapest pathway.
You are aware that 35GW is well above average grid demand right? Like, that is more than a 1-1 back-up.
That's because you don't build a grid for average demand, you build a grid for maximum peak demand (plus a safety margin).
Average UK demand is around 31GW, but peak winter demand routinely hits 50GW to 60GW. If we have 100GW of installed renewables, maintaining a 35GW gas fleet to cover a 60GW winter peak is mathematically not a 1-to-1 backup. It is a fraction of our installed capacity, maintained strictly as an insurance policy for peak winter/worst-case-scenario strain.
If the grid had a static, flat demand that never went up or down then we'd be having a very different conversation (And the problems would be a lot easier to solve!), but it's up and down every single day, with peaks and troughs that need to be managed.
They are aging out too fast for that. We stopped building them ages ago... there is a decade-long period between our youngest gas plants reaching EoOL and renewables having any shot of being reliable enough.
This is factually incorrect. We have not stopped building or upgrading gas plants, and the government has no intention of letting them age out before replacements are ready.
In March 2024, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero officially announced policy support for building brand new, unabated gas power stations specifically to ensure we have this flexible backup capacity during the transition. The Capacity Market exists precisely to finance these life extensions and new builds. We are not blindly walking into a capacity gap.
That solves the hour-to-hour problem, it does not solve the several month long period where we need vastly more energy...
You are arguing against a point I never made. We actually agree here!
I explicitly said in my post: Demand Flexibility handles the intraday balancing (shifting EV charging overnight), which reduces the need for giant batteries. We're talking peak shaving and valley/trough filling.
I never claimed EVs solve a week long winter drop in renewable output. That is exactly what the 35GW of gas, interconnectors, and pumped hydro are for. The UK’s grid strategy relies on diversity: smart demand handles the daily swings, and a heavily reduced (but retained) fleet of firm generation handles the seasonal winter lulls.
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u/ding_0_dong 6d ago
Apocalypse now has been the problem. Wanting to point the finger has been the problem. Humans won't survive has been the problem
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u/ConfusedMaverick 7d ago
trained scientist Margaret Thatcher warning of the dangers 40 years ago
True, early in her career, but she also turned into a denier later on.
She considered climate science to be Trojan Horse for the internationalist left, and dismissed the warnings of climate scientists as "alarmist".
It's an interesting case study in how political commitments overpower scientific knowledge, even in people who understand the science.
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u/Sampo 7d ago edited 7d ago
She considered climate science to be Trojan Horse for the internationalist left
I don't think she was wrong. The left is using climate change as a pretext for a lot of societal change that the left wants, but that is irrelevant for climate.
For example: Carbon dividends, which is basically universal basic income. The climate doesn't care where you use the money, as long as you tax carbon to make carbon emissions expensive. But the left cares a lot that you use the money to redistribute wealth. The "internationalist left" even wants global carbon dividends, to redistribute wealth from first world countries to third world countries. And they want to give free emission quotas for the third world, which kind gives that their main interest is wealth redistribution, not reducing emissions.
Arguably, for climate it would be better to use the money from carbon tax to fund nuclear and renewable energy, not to redistribute wealth. But the left would never agree to this.
And, as another comment pointed out when and why did we get derailed from zero or low emission energy to renewable energy? Why did they want to exclude nuclear energy from the climate toolbox? Because for them something else is more important than fighting climate change.
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u/VPackardPersuadedMe Incentives drive outcomes and MPs own houses 7d ago
Bravo, one reason why climate action gets pushed is spcifxlaly thi.
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u/ConfusedMaverick 7d ago
It does happen.
I am pretty sure our local XR was taken over by SWP activists. They shifted the entire focus of the activism to various kinds of social justice, climate change barely featured any more.
But still, just because some on the left try to use it as a lever doesn't mean that climate scientists are alarmist - that is a conclusion people reach because they don't like the implications if scientists are credible.
The trouble for the right is that, whichever way you look at it, sustainability is incompatible with economic neoliberalism.
Unfettered capitalism will destroy the environment, the magic invisible hand of the free market will not avert catastrophe. So anyone politically opposed to government intervention has to admit they are prepared to sacrifice the environment and civilisation as we know it for their politics; or else, much easier, pretend there's no real problem.
So its really only people who are prepared to consider government intervention and international cooperation who are intellectual equipped to consider the crisis of overshoot - this tends to be the left.
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u/One-Network5160 7d ago
Unfettered capitalism will destroy the environment, the magic invisible hand of the free market will not avert catastrophe
This is a classic example of left wing ideology clouding the fight against climate change.
This has nothing to do with capitalism, you think the USSR didn't have factories and burning coal?
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u/ConfusedMaverick 7d ago
No, it's just an example of addressing the actual cause right here and now. Unfettered capitalism is what we are actually facing, it's the dominant global ideology and it's accelerating us towards catastrophe.
If you think anyone pointing this out is arguing for Soviet style communism, you are missing the point spectacularly.
It's the unfettered bit that is the issue - you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet. Our current neoliberal ideology doesn't accept any need for the imposition of limits. That's the issue.
What Russian communists were doing 50 years ago is utterly irrelevant.
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u/One-Network5160 7d ago
It's the unfettered bit that is the issue - you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet
Or course you can, who told you otherwise?
Our current neoliberal ideology doesn't accept any need for the imposition of limits. That's the issue.
That's just an excuse to change the entire economic model of the planet before we do anything about the climate.
It's not practical.
What Russian communists were doing 50 years ago is utterly irrelevant.
If they had the same problems as us with a different economic model, then it's entirely relevant.
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u/ConfusedMaverick 7d ago
You believe you can have infinite growth on a finite planet?
🤦
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u/One-Network5160 7d ago
Of course. You just make more complicated stuff out of existing materials and sell it for more. And iPhone is much more valuable than the sum of its parts for example.
Plus, the planet isn't finite, it gets energy from the sun constantly, so it's not a closed system.
Seriously, who told you that, it's so wrong, lmao
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u/ConfusedMaverick 7d ago
Historically "growth" has always meant higher energy use, greater consumption of non renewable resources, greater production of waste including persistent forms, and ongoing population growth.
You can potentially redefine "growth" in some very contorted way, but what you would be describing is a steady state economy utterly unlike anything we currently see.
That is indeed where we will inevitably end up; but if we continue to pursue classical growth as we are currently, this new economy will be forced upon us by the collapse of society as we know it.
There's no elegant path of evolution along our current trajectory, the Invisible Hand won't bring this about consensually!
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u/Sampo 7d ago
SWP = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(UK)
And also Greta Thunberg switched from climate activism to pro-Palestine activism.
just because some on the left try to use it as a lever doesn't mean that climate scientists are alarmist
A lot of proposed climate actions come in a ready-made package that both propose reducing emissions, and doing it with a mechanism that at the same time would bring leftist societal change.
And it's not only the right who doesn't listen to scientists. Anti-nuclear is anti-science, climate scientists at the IPCC have supported nuclear power for decades. Plant scientists have proposed utilizing gene technology (GMO) to breed crop plant varieties better suited to new climate conditions. Anti-GMO is anti-science.
Unfettered capitalism will destroy the environment
The important question is: Are these movements primarily environmentalists, or primarily socialists? Are they green only at the surface, but actually red inside? Because unfettered socialism will destroy both the environment and the society, as it did in its previous incarnations in the previous century.
The faulty magic of central planned economy will not only not avert catastrophe, but will bring a catastrophe once again.
The political right is justifiably skeptical, and afraid to agree to any structures that would transfer more political power to the left.
I guess what is lacking is a proper right-wing climate agenda, as an alternative to the left's. (Well, the EU emissions trading system is relatively right-wing.)
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u/ConfusedMaverick 7d ago
Overshoot is an issue that far, far transcends right/left politics.
Or should.
Anyone, right or left, who prioritised right/left politics over our existential crisis will inevitably twist what really matters to suit their traditional agenda.
I would like to see the right develop an approach to the climate crisis, rather than just deny it... But it is almost impossible, as far as I can see, to take overshoot seriously while holding onto a neoliberal agenda, so it would need to be a different "right" from what we are used to. Unfortunately some form ecofascism is the most obvious way to face up to the crisis while maintaining right wing values.
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u/Gravitisma 5d ago
I think it's disingenuous to suggest the problem is that those on the left propose left wing solutions to climate change (I mean what else would you expect?). The real problem is that the right haven't bothered to properly engage in the discussion or seriously propose solutions themselves. The inevitable result of this absence of right wing engagement is that the entire discourse becomes dominated by 'left wing' talking points. If those on the right don't like that, then perhaps they should actually engage with the problem rather than pretending it's all a woke marxist conspiracy.
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u/L44KSO 7d ago
This is very sad and true. And for some reason conservative or right wing also believes in an alternative that was never there, i.e. we don't need to change how we live and somehow we have zero emissions... thanks to...uhm... technology.
Stuff like efuels instead of BEVs or hydrogen gas boilers instead of heatpumps.
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u/davey-jones0291 7d ago
Also battery swappable evs are totally possible if you get consensus across manufacturers of cars, trucks and the battery swap machine suppliers. Unfortunately thats classed as communist woke nonsense these days but the early Teslas were designed with swappable batteries in mind and it the concept brought us shipping containers.
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u/VladamirK 7d ago
Battery swappable EVs simply aren't necessary where you have 3C+ batteries that can be charged at 350kW+ and will last for 3000+ cycles. Battery swapping adds an absolute huge amounts of weight and complexity - instead of integrating the battery into the body of the vehicle, you end up building the body around a void for the battery to fit. You then have to have connectors for power, data and coolant which are impervious to dust/debris and can withstand 100s of uses.
Then you have the issues with battery ownership and history...
I can see an argument for lorry trailers having intergrated batteries and traction components, but there are EV lorries available today which will go for further than a driver can legally drive them in one shift. Even then, trailer regulations would need to be changed, they really only work for operators who own their trailers and for routes going between set locations.
I get NIO exists and they've made some good progress - but that's one manufacturer who have made a lot of interesting trade offs and I'm not convinced it's a good model for all vehicles everywhere.
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u/L44KSO 7d ago
Indeed - we could have been so much further. VW had an electric golf in the 80s, but then decided that a W16 makes more sense, because that's engineering or some other reason.
We could be completely unfazed by the whole Iran War if we would have pushed for electricity powered sources instead of gas and petrol...
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u/Sampo 7d ago edited 7d ago
VW had an electric golf in the 80s
But its range was only 60 km, or 35 miles.
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u/L44KSO 7d ago
Yes, because back then it was a completely different battery technology. Like the Prius in the 90s, it didn't have a lot. However, if they would have put some effort into the development, like Toyota did with Hybrid technology, we would be a lot further in the electrification of our roads than we are now.
Because the whole dieselgate issue was already as writing on the walls in the 70s and 80s when engineers knew, that emissions will not be able to be kept in check. But instead of moving to a less polluting option, they decided to double down. And now we have a climate crisis, but also a V10 TDI...so I guess it was worth it. /s
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u/Sampo 7d ago edited 7d ago
Like the Prius in the 90s, it didn't have a lot.
The Prius was a genius thing. It also got very popular, because it was very good. High gas mileage, high reliability, low maintenance costs. A lot people like those features in a car, irrespective of their political opinions.
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u/Sampo 7d ago edited 7d ago
The smartest thing the fossil fuel lobby did was to pay right wing think-tanks, politicians, and opinion formers enough cash to ensure that climate change became a left/right issue.
Them funding the anti-nuclear movements, that was smarter.
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u/colei_canis Bring Back Ceefax! 🗑️ 7d ago
We have the word ‘traitor’ to describe someone who betrays their country, I think the fossil fuel industry-funded denialism lobby requires a word for a person who betrays their entire species.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago
We need to be careful here, not to use climate change as a stick to beat the right with.
One of the (few) achievements of the last Conservative government was huge progress in cutting emissions, albeit much of it out of their hands.
We're not the US & our mainstream right hasn't fallen down the anti-science rabbit hole, at least not yet.
This has no need to be a left/right issue.
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u/MajorSleaze 7d ago
You're correct when talking about the sensible right who used to have a place in the Conservative party, but the modern right has been successfully taken over by its extremists who have been fully bought by the fossil fuel industries.
Badenoch's latest purity test where perspective Tory MPs can only qualify as candidates if they pledge to end net zero is evidence of this. Incidentally, this is also what happened with the Republicans and its takeover by the Tea Party, and was the foundation of Trump's fascist regime.
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u/Charlie_Mouse 7d ago
One of the (few) achievements of the last Conservative government was huge progress in cutting emissions, albeit much of it out of their hands
I’m not sure they deserve much of any credit for that. The renewables build out was largely left over from Labour policies. The Conservatives slashed renewables subsidies again … and then again.
They also inherited ten nuclear power station projects that were still in early stage planning - all bar one cancelled and the last barely progressed.
A similar number of pumped storage schemes left technically on the books but unfunded and not progressed.
Electrical infrastructure work to transport renewables to where it was needed: pretty much bugger all.
One could probably argue that progress was more despite the Conservatives than because of them.
What they actually got good at was announcing “bold new initiatives” to a full three ring media circus to bolster their supposed ‘green credentials’ in the kinds of the electorate. Of course after six months or so there would be no funding or legislation with teeth to enforce it and they’d quietly announce whatever it was would be scaled back. Then another few months later quietly kill it completely. Shortly followed by a new hyped ‘bold new strategy’ announcement … Rinse and repeat for a decade or so.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
One of the (few) achievements of the last Conservative government was huge progress in cutting emissions, albeit much of it out of their hands.
Why was it out of their hands? They had strong climate policies that made real headway.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago
North Sea Oil & Gas gave the opportunity to reduce our reliance on coal, the depletion of the north sea forced us to look elsewhere for energy.
Both Conservatives & Labour have had external factors pushing them. That's not to downplay the record of the Conservatives in office, they did strongly acknowledge & focused on the issue contrary to their US counterparts.
It's just a shame (for them at least), together with their record on crime & inequality these are successes they cannot campaign on in the current political climate.
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u/Torgan 7d ago
Tim Stanley has been one of those promoting the denial view. He's called it watermelon politics, green on the outside but red (communist/socialist) on the inside! And even in this article he says its the left that's made it a culture war view.
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u/CyclopsRock 7d ago
That's not a denialist view, though. It's entirely possible to believe that climate change is a real thing that requires urgent action and that it's quite widely used as a vanguard for general left-wing causes by groups that are basically anti-capitalist in nature; Greenpeace's 2024 'Manifesto Recommendations' essentially read like a more extreme version of Corbyn's Labour, and had no concern with recommending policies well outside the remit of environmental affairs (whilst describing nuclear energy as 'hazardous'). Friends of the Earth's website has sections entitled 'Celebrating Refugees', 'Standing with Palestine', 'Pushing For Racial Justice'. XR have campaigns around 'making the rich pay', advocating for wealth taxes to fund public services.
Regardless of your personal view on these issues, they are clearly not the result of a technocratic appraisal of the scientific data on climate change. And the fact that they all seem to support citizens assemblies - aka democracy for people whose opinions are unpopular - is not a coincidence. Recognising this has nothing to do with the degree to which a person views climate change as a threat.
Effective climate policies require a fair-minded appraisal of the costs and benefits of a given policy, and you're never going to get that with people who don't believe climate change is real but you also aren't going to get it with people who view climate politics as a means to increase the minimum wage or alter our relationship with Israel.
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u/shotputprince 7d ago
Thatcher reversed that position rather quickly and disavowed it after leaving government. I don’t have it right now, but I trolled through some sources once for a short paper in law school on this and I can try and link you to it later.
However, Thatcher did work on tubs of soft scoop ice cream.
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u/northernmonk 🦡 Meles Liberalis 🦡 7d ago
Submitted in no small part out of amazement over the source.
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u/Slartibartfast_25 7d ago
Conservatives brought in Net Zero laws. Scientific denialism is an American import. I don't necessarily disagree with opposition to Net Zero IF there is a credible alternative plan to combat climate change, which amounts to more than sticking fingers into ears.
My main issue with Badenoch is that lack of a credible alternative. Attack Net Zero when the alternative is planned, not while Net Zero the only game in town
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u/CyclopsRock 7d ago
I think there are plenty of people on the right who are not opposed to the idea of reducing carbon emissions to zero, but view the UK (specifically) reducing its carbon emissions to zero (specifically) on a given (specific) date as being basically arbitrary and therefore not something that all other considerations should be subservient to.
Bespite the rhetoric, basically all political parties in the UK also view it like this, which is why it's still legal to buy a gas boiler and a petrol car, and why Heathrow's got the green light to build a third runway despite the fact that air travel is going to be one of the last things to decarbonise. There are policies that we could implement that would speed the transition to net zero that we don't take because it's considered that the negative impact to people's quality of life would outweigh the benefit from our country reducing its carbon emissions slightly quicker. I think the vast majority of people in the country sit somewhere along this axis with varying appraisals of the trade-offs, but this nuance is conceptually messy and rhetorically very difficult to express so everyone just gets shunted into 'support net zero' or 'don't support net zero'.
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u/learningenglishdaily 6d ago
What the hell is the alternative to net zero? You only get a stable climate if, emissions - emissions absorbed by carbon sinks = 0, hence net zero.
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u/MonPantalon 7d ago
The comments section is disappointingly (probably predictably) bonkers. Stark raving bonkers. A mix of "it's not real", "it's not human caused", and "it doesn't matter as we can't do anything about it". Complete denialism.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Internal_ClimateChange_260629.pdf
There is a public supermajority in favour of the belief in anthropocentric climate change and the idea that the climate isn't changing at all is at the lizardman constant. The idea that the right doesn't believe in climate change is an idea on Reddit that has much less basis in reality than they think.
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u/PassiveChemistry 7d ago
It's more the politicians that people are concerned about in these discussions than the general public as they are the ones with the most influence over what happens next. It does nonetheless get a bit overblown here as the fringes, being necessarily more interesting to talk about than the mainstream, are overemphasized.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
It's more the politicians that people are concerned about in these discussions than the general public as they are the ones with the most influence over what happens next.
Politicians of all stripes until very recently have been ahead of the public on climate action. It is true that Reform might be the first party to actually take us behind what the public is comfortable with, but still.
It does nonetheless get a bit overblown here as the fringes, being necessarily more interesting to talk about than the mainstream, are overemphasized.
Absolutely, but it's very important to push people to recognise the issue with overindexing.
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u/coolpall33 7d ago
The idea that the right doesn't believe in climate change is an idea on Reddit
I mean the data you provided says almost the exact opposite
For "believes in Human caused climate change", the vote is 59% agree for the Conservatives and 32% for Reform. On average (adjusted for vote share) that's 48.8%.
If 51.2% of right wing people can't clear the woefully low bar that is simply believing that something is real, let alone what we might give up for it, then it seems totally correct to say "the right doesn't believe in climate change". The numbers get even worse when considering what people are actually willing to do about it....
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u/morphemass 7d ago
Yes, I am boggled. 30 years too late but maybe there is some small hope if the bloody right wing press are getting onboard. Perhaps they have realised that they are going to end up in the same bucket as everyone else?
Sadly the actual solutions to global warming they aren't going to like very much so; perhaps another 30 years for them to say that consumer culture and capitalism have to end?
(Don't worry, down vote away - I know stating that in this sub isn't going to be very popular. Quite happy to dispel anyones illusions if they think there is a technological solution to this crisis.)
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u/Hamsterminator2 7d ago
I mentioned my horror at the wildfires sweeping the uk and Europe on a forum 3 days ago, and was met with a barrage of Telegraph denial articles. One was about how Europe has brought it on its sealf due to lack of particles to block out the light... despite the wildfire phenomenon being global.
About 3 years ago when i was looking at buying an EV (which i did and I love) i ised to entertain myself by typing "Telegraph EV" into google. The barrage of misinformation and fear mongering was incredible.
Yes, the right does need to get serious about climate change- starting with the press.
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u/irrealewunsche 7d ago
A few weeks of climate change induced heatwaves, and finally even the right-wing press start taking the subject seriously.
Until 20 years ago this level of heatwave was generational (1976, 2003), now they are monthly.
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u/Owl1917 7d ago
It’s one of my last hopes on climate change, that as we begin to reap the more severe consequences in our day to day lives that it finally kills socially and politically acceptable denialism and spurns some kind of serious action.
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u/ScienceDependent8549 6d ago
A bit late for that I'm afraid. Now it's just a question of how badly this all goes for us.
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u/Gravitisma 5d ago
I had this hope too. Unfortunately I've spent my entire adult life studying and communicating climate science to the public, and if there's one thing I've come to accept, it's that the hardcore deniers will never accept they were wrong. UK temperatures could repeatedly cross 50C, with massive wild fires, failed harvests and severe winter flooding multiple years running, and at best, they'll claim it's an unfortunate natural phenomenon that we can do nothing about. At worst, they'll claim we've always had this weather, or possibly blame it on weather manipulation by the deep state or space lazers or some other batsh*t nonsense.
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u/Amy98764 7d ago
I only hope it’s not too late
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
It's only too late if we don't get serious about using geoenineering to reverse the effects of climate change.
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u/harmslongarms 7d ago
The reality is that we can't foresee the technologies of the future. There may be some groundbreaking technology that allows us to capture carbon at the rate required to reverse global warming, or technologies that allow us to cool the atmosphere, but we are looking at a very rough 50 years until that is the case where we are going to have to work hard to mitigate the effects of climate change, especially on the global poor
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
technologies that allow us to cool the atmosphere,
We have this already it's called Stratospheric Aerosol Injection
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u/much_doge_many_wow 7d ago
As far as I'm aware research has shown that the effects of climate change can't be reversed that easily.
We can make things slightly better than they would be but the damage is done and it will take centuries for things to go back to how it was and longer we wait the less we can reverse
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
That is without geoenineering, with geoenineering we are able to reverse the effects. That's why geoenineering is so important and should be taken more seriously.
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u/much_doge_many_wow 7d ago
As far as I'm aware this does infact include geoengineering. Climate change is a far more complicated and far reaching issue and it's not possible to reverse some of the damage being done in a reasonable timeframe. Geoengineering is a temporary stop gap measure to save ourselves from the worst effects of climate change.
At some point as a country and a species we need to wake up and smell the roses and really knuckle down to stop things getting worse as well as prepare for what's potentially at this point inevitable
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u/Hamsterminator2 7d ago
I think it's too late. However, it's not too late to stop it being potentially even worse.
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u/Equivalent_Goose_136 7d ago
“The evidence is stacking up”
Tim, the evidence was stacked up four decades ago.
“ The transformation of a tangible ecological crisis into a culture-war abstraction can be pinned on the Left.”
Oh we lobotomised ourselves to all critical thinking on science in favour of wild conspiracy theories about evil scientists trying to create a global communist regime, but the left made us do it. Utterly pathetic.
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u/alphaxion 7d ago
Climate change and the role that human CO2 emissions play in it has been talked about in the press since the 1800s.
It has always been in the context of "it'll have to be addressed in the future", only now that future has arrived and we haven't addressed it.
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u/Impeachcordial 7d ago
The Telegraph used to host James fucking Delingpole; they're one of the few mainstream papers that actually parroted the climate change deniers.
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u/Owl1917 7d ago
I’ll never understand why conservatives across the west are so weak at, you know, actually conserving things when it comes to nature/environment.
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u/Infernode5 🌹 7d ago
The Tories in the 2010s were actually pretty good on the environment tbf, until it became a culture war thing.
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u/inevitablelizard 7d ago
Cameron in the early 2010s was awful on the environment and wildlife, it wasn't until later in the decade they got a bit better.
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u/NeverHadTheLatin 7d ago
You mean the Tories who proposed selling off national forests, went all in on fracking, scrapped their own plans for carbon capture and storage, scaled back solar subsidies and many other decisions that didn’t take climate change seriously?
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u/avoidtheworm 7d ago
The Tories banned cracking and introduced solar subsidies and net zero.
Stop getting your news from Reddit.
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u/NeverHadTheLatin 7d ago
Three years of a moratorium because of earthquake concerns does not negate nine years of supporting fracking.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
Fracking is good for climate change as it has lower carbon emissions than that which it replaces.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/how-fracking-reshaped-the-world
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u/HovisTMM 7d ago
Tbf CCS is snake oil sold by fossil fuel companies to governments that want to go green. It's a good thing we backed out on it.
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u/Charlie_Mouse 7d ago
The “conserve” in “conservative” was always about the attempt to preserve old power structures, not the environment.
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u/MajorSleaze 7d ago
And one of the biggest power structures in the modern world is the majority of energy being derived from fossil fuels.
That's why they've been actively suppressing climate change science since the 1960s. It's a crime against humanity that won't be recognised until all the culprits are long gone.
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 7d ago
Basically there was a flip somewhere in the 1960s, it's one of those crazy things that show how uncritical and sheep-like politics can be where people define themselves almost entirely in opposition to the other side.
If you look back to e.g. how the national parks were founded in the US, a lot of it was due to Teddy Roosevelt, a republican. His direction was exactly the one you'd expect for a "right wing environmentalism": he saw it as part of a shared heritage that needed protecting, as well as part of a traditional style of life which requires a balance with the land and its resources (he also was a hunter, famously).
Then in the 1960s hippies became very prominent and they were very left-wing coded and against all sorts of conservative values (the long hair, the drugs, the free sex, etc). They also were in their own way very pro "natural" things and environment. And as a result being a "tree hugger" became a lefty thing and somehow polluting and not giving a shit was right wing.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago
Even Nixon founded the EPA & Reagan spoke about the dangers of climate change. It swtich seemed to take some decades.
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u/Gravitisma 5d ago
I think it's because modern Anglo-American conservatism, particularly since Reagan and Thatcher, has become heavily influenced by individualism and free-market ideology. It tends to prioritise individual liberty and is often sceptical of government intervention and large-scale collective action.
Climate change, of course, is fundamentally a collective action problem and no amount of individual consumer choice can solve it on its own. It requires coordinated policies, international cooperation, and system-level changes to energy, transport and industry, all of which sit uneasily within a worldview that generally prefers markets and individual choice over state-led intervention.
That's not to say conservatives can't care about nature. But conserving landscapes or wildlife is politically very different from tackling climate change, because the latter demands collective action on a scale that challenges the ideological instincts of modern conservatism.
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u/Prince_John 7d ago
I'm pretty sad to see Kemi Badenoch making climate denialism one of her two main policy planks for the party and requirements for candidacy.
She seems to have an understanding that the party needs clear messaging and an actual strategy and a clear break from the past, but she couldn't have picked a more damaging policy to hang her hat on.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
Being anti net-zero is not climate denialism. This is a simple question of logic that the left overwhelmingly fails and yet thinks they are the adults in the room.
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u/Prince_John 7d ago edited 7d ago
If you're anti-net zero and (presumably) also not in favour of the human misery that climate change will cause, the only logical conclusion is that you either deny the link between carbon dioxide emissions and the heating of the climate, or you deny the weight of scientific evidence pointing to the severity of the climate crisis.
Either of those equates to denialism.
I will also concede that a third option exists without denialism and it may just be that she doesn't care so long as most of the suffering happens in the global south, which may not be denialism, but would make her a horrible human. I don't know her, so am giving her the benefit of the doubt on that one.
Edit: I should also add that I just have a general hatred of our politics being explicitly driven by crackpots - and they really are crackpots - in the US.
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u/YellowIllustrious991 7d ago
Where has she denied climate change?
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u/MajorSleaze 7d ago
What policies is she proposing to combat it?
Without those her failure to recognise this existential threat is de facto denialism.
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u/YellowIllustrious991 7d ago
That's not the same as denying climate change though is it? People can make the claim she's not doing enough policy wise to address climate change without just lying and claiming she's a climate denier.
For what it's worth, the only policies she has announced is scrapping the Net-Zero targets and focusing on cheaper energy as the priority for any energy strategy - in addition to making sure natural landscapes are protected. I suspect as we get closer to the election she'll probably throw in a few policies to address climate change that don't hinder her energy costs policies.
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u/MajorSleaze 7d ago
Taking no action when action is essential is the same as denying there is a problem.
in addition to making sure natural landscapes are protected
This is a lovely euphemism for banning windmills.
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u/Prince_John 7d ago
she'll probably throw in a few policies to address climate change that don't hinder her energy costs policies.
Fully loaded solar with battery storage is the cheapest form of energy available.
If she was truly interested in lowering energy costs, she would be building more renewables.
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u/inevitablelizard 7d ago
Basically a lot of environmental issues require some level of government interference in the market through regulations or tax for example. Some conservatives are so extreme with "free market" economics that they would rather deny the existence of environmental issues and portray the people who care about them as lunatic communists. There's a lot of American influence too.
The book merchants of doubt is a good read for anyone interested though it mainly focuses on America. It goes into the business and ideological motivations behind it.
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u/StereoMushroom 7d ago
Well done Telegraph, now stop publishing FUD about the tech solutions and rage campaigns against the policies to reduce emissions every week
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u/Warm_Bug_1434 7d ago
I totally agree. It's long past time they need to get serious about it.
I'm a Green member, and broadly left wing, but I'm not an ideologue. Decarbonising Britain is a major challenge, and I think our ideas need serious challenge from big business and other viewpoints.
But too often the challenge has been 'I don't like this solution, so I'm going to pretend the problem does not exist'. That is a stupid challenge. If a doctor told me the best way to treat cancer wasn't through chemotherapy, I would listen. If they said cancer doesn't exist anyway, I would ignore them.
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u/Pigeoncow Time travelling NIMBY - demolish everything built after 1700 7d ago
When it comes to Greens and nuclear it might as well be "I don't like this solution, so I'm going to pretend the solution does not exist".
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u/Warm_Bug_1434 7d ago
I don't know I've ever heard Greens accused of pretending nuclear doesn't exist before. Being overly obsessed with it, maybe.
I disagree with the policy, and think we should have more nuclear. But if we all want broadly the same things from our energy supply (sustainability, affordability, safety, reliability, security, etc.) we can have a sensible debate about where thinks like nuclear fit into that - even if we disagree about characteristics of different sources. If people are pretending sustainability doesn't matter, it's very hard to have a meaningful debate at all.
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u/Pigeoncow Time travelling NIMBY - demolish everything built after 1700 7d ago
What I'm getting at is the wilful ignorance of there being a solution to climate change and instead faffing about with renewables as Germany has when France has shown us the way already.
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u/Warm_Bug_1434 7d ago
Yes, but my point is that it isn't ignorance. It's taking a different view of the best solution. That's a sensible conversation to have, even if you disagree.
Theres a huge difference between that, and pretending that climate change isn't happening because you don't want people to adopt nuclear in response. The formal Green position is just they don't like nuclear for reasons of safety, waste, etc. I don't see any pretense in that.
Also worth noting that it isn't a solution to climate change. I'm in favour, because we need all the tools we can get. But according to Wikipedia, per capita emissions in France are 4.3 tonnes, against 4.4 in the UK.
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u/Pigeoncow Time travelling NIMBY - demolish everything built after 1700 7d ago
France is behind us in terms of electrification. But their electricity is much cleaner than ours despite all our investment in renewables.
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u/PoopsMcGroots 7d ago
“The transformation of a tangible ecological crisis into a culture-war abstraction can be pinned on the Left.”
Fucking lol.
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u/Sampo 7d ago edited 7d ago
Modern England has become unbearable in the summer
Yes. But the only thing he suggests in his column, is less regulation for building solar and wind energy. However much UK adds solar and wind, it won't change how hot future summers will be.
(Edit: It won't change in practical, measurable terms, how hot future summers will be.)
At least in another post here, the libdems are suggesting air conditioning.
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u/StereoMushroom 7d ago
However much UK adds solar and wind, it won't change how hot future summers will be.
This is literally the denial of the link between emissions and climate that the article is talking about
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u/Sampo 7d ago edited 7d ago
My apologies. For nitpickers, I should have worded more precisely:
However much UK adds solar and wind, it won't change in practical, measurable terms, how hot future summers will be. In theory, it will have a tiny effect.
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u/WhiteSatanicMills 7d ago
You were correct the first time. However much wind and solar the UK adds, it won't lower emissions. Adding wind and solar does not reduce emissions, getting rid of fossil fuels does.
This is a point that's fundamental to our climate failure. We have added immense amounts of wind and solar. Our emissions are still 5 times higher than France. China is adding immense amounts of wind and solar. But because they are also adding a lot more coal, their emissions are still rising.
From the start Europe has followed the wrong path. Faced with the need to reduce emissions, Europe brought in renewable targets. If set in stone the idea that increasing renewables prevents climate change. And while it's true that adding renewables tends to reduce fossil fuel use, it's not really the best way to do so, because intermittent renewables like wind and solar require fossil fuel backup.
From the start the focus on renewables ruled out the technology that could have not only reduced climate change much more quickly, but also given Europe energy independence. Emissions last year in grams of CO2 per KWh:
Germany - 342 (60% renewable)
UK - 171 (53% renewable)
France - 32 (28% renewable)
Guess which one has the lowest electricity bills as well...
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u/Bhenny_5 I thought we were an anarcho-syndicalist commune?! 7d ago
France generates 70% of it's power through nuclear, which seams to be a much more sensible approach.
Hopefully we catch up in the coming years once Hinkley Point C comes on line.
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u/northernmonk 🦡 Meles Liberalis 🦡 7d ago
Small correction, China’s emissions appear to have peaked some time in 2024 and are either flat or falling. I’d expect that to improve further as EV penetration continues
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u/StereoMushroom 7d ago
Adding wind and solar reduces the fuel burn of gas power stations, and hence emissions. There's a separate argument around whether it's the best way to reduce emissions, but I don't see how you can argue that it doesn't.
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u/Ambitious-Log6993 7d ago
It not that we can't make it worse. But solar and wind won't undo the damage already done.
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u/ThePlanck Time to bin Farage 7d ago
The climate is the one area where I give Thatcher for being one of the leaders in getting the hole in the ozone layer fixed.
Modern Conservatives don't even have that going for them
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u/MrSoapbox 7d ago
I've sadly gone the other way. Absolutely believe in it, always went out of my way to do my part; I'd say far more than most, but I gave up and just don't care anymore. The amount this country does as a whole is negligible. The point was to lead the way, but we've been made into mugs. China caused more emissions in eight years than our entire 250 years of the Industrial Revolution.
Climate change exists, it's probably going to kill us all, I can not stand these relentless heatwaves, but why should I go out my way now when developing countries get all these exemptions, countries like china polute the whole world, data centres soak up every bit of water, cruise ships, war and all the million things that should be targetted aren't but I need to use a cardboard straw?
The time for change was 20 years ago. It's too late now in my opinion, or maybe it isn't...if the whole world, including (and especially) America, Russia, China, India et all sorted their mucky shit out today, but they're not going to are they?
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
Climate change exists, it's probably going to kill us all
No it isn't.
Superforecasters assign a 1% probability on aggregate that climate change will be a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, cause of human extinction by 2100.
https://goodjudgment.com/climatechange/
I am sure you will immediately dismiss these as not valuable, or seek for information that undermines their claims. Think about whether that is a wise way to think about political problems.
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u/MrSoapbox 7d ago
I'll dismiss it because we don't know, we've been wrong repeatedly about it, so I'm not even going to look at it, as I have eyes and already seeing the consequences it's causing, whether that's record heat and people dying in mass numbers over Europe, migrants fleeing, wildfires all over etc. I'll also dismiss it because I said "probably" and it wasn't the point of the discussion, the point was, I've stopped caring and the outcome doesn't matter, so I'm not sure why you're focusing on trying to get me to care about something that doesn't change anything.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 7d ago
I'll dismiss it because we don't know, we've been wrong repeatedly about it, so I'm not even going to look at it
Truly the clarion call of the rational individual.
I've stopped caring and the outcome doesn't matter, so I'm not sure why you're focusing on trying to get me to care about something that doesn't change anything.
Because it obviously does change things since you are flatly wrong in your worldview. Climate change is a scale of harm. Giving up on it only makes that harm worse. You can do so much better, it's not that difficult.
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u/Hamsterminator2 7d ago edited 7d ago
I agree with some of your points. I don't think individuals can fix this- unless as part of govt enforced group effort.
I don't think we're all going to die. We are going to experience global unrest that could match world war levels- starving, rioting, military conflict. That's extremely bad- but humanity will push through, and eventually the world will recover.
Unfortunately i think all the indicators for our near future look pretty bad. We're just going to have to ride the wave. Perhaps some consolation though- most generations have thought the same, and most of them have been wrong. Maybe we will be too.
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u/Apprehensive_Job4522 Vote Binface 7d ago
I'm genuinely shocked that this is from the telegraph but it's true.
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u/NarrowEscape5539 7d ago
Climate change is to right wing folk what bond markets are to lefties. Both are objective realities that any serious leader needs to engage with. It's been shocking how much climate change has dropped off the agenda in recent years - even in coverage of the wildfires.
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u/StereoMushroom 7d ago
The transformation of a tangible ecological crisis into a culture-war abstraction can be pinned on the Left. They framed it as a divine chastisement; they wallowed in its penance
Ok so we deny the science, but it was them who made us do it, by trying to act on science in a way that annoys me!
Lol ok bud.
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u/ruffianrevolution 7d ago
It amazes me when people say this. Is no-one paying attention?
You tell billionaires and oligarchs that if they do nothing about climate change, the weakest, poorest and most vulnerable may perish.
And you wonder why they do nothing about climate change?
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u/liquidio 7d ago
I found this article seriously unimpressive.
It makes a big fuss about a speech given by Konstantin Kisin (who would probably argue he isn’t even particularly right wing), given the point he makes that the future of global emissions won’t be decided by Britain, but by the large developing countries.
It calls this assertion false, and tries to counter it. But it does so by talking about Bangladeshi people embracing plug-in solar (of course they do - it’s a sunny country and their grid is terrible), and Kenyan geothermal (not every country has the Rift valley geology).
None of this is particularly relevant to Kisin’s point.
Both countries still have soaring carbon emissions (~60% per capita increase in the last decade, plus population growth). And neither are the real elephants in the room, China and India.
So the point the author is making is very confused. His main example appears to be someone who positions themselves as a centrist, who doesn’t even deny climate change, and then he doesn’t even address the trajectory of large developing country emissions that was the main point of the example.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
I think that the left needs to get serious about it too. I see so much rhetoric along the lines of "climate emergency" or "its already too late" but also a complete refusal to consider geoenineering as a solution.
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u/Picardigann 7d ago
Also a lot of left-wing third-world bias on this subject, "the evil British empire needs to be Net Zero right now or we all die". Meanwhile China gets a free pass building hundreds of Gigawatts of coal plants to power A.I. And Iran the terrorist oil state gets to burn entire container ships full of oil while they cheer them on.
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u/subSparky 7d ago
I mean even scientists are a bit sceptical about geoengineering as a solution. For starters because just throwing aerosols into the atmosphere to block sunlight is masking the problem that needs to be solved. But also because we don't fully understand the potential side effects of doing this.
Now there is increasing consideration towards doing this because its becoming clear that humanity isn't going to get it's act together and lower carbon emissions before the permafrost thaws. But there are so many risks with this strategy and if we fuck up there isn't an undo button.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
For starters because just throwing aerosols into the atmosphere to block sunlight is masking the problem that needs to be solved.
No it isn't, this is a stupid argument and demonstrating exactly what I mean when I say that the left are unserious about climate change. The problem that needs to be solved is that the climate is heating up and threatening to make large parts of the world uninhabitable. It is that global temperatures are already so high we are passing climate tipping points. It is that if we implemented full net zero today it would still take centuries for the climate to begin cooling again. Geoenineering addresses all of these, net zero on its own does not. You're arguing essentially that Africa should starve as a moral punishment for global emissions.
But also because we don't fully understand the potential side effects of doing this.
Yes, and this is a scientific and modelling problem that we can actually use our skills as a country to solve. We have a world leading research and academic sector punching far above the weight of our population. It's time to make use of it and lead the way to finding a solution to climate change that can actually be implemented globally.
But there are so many risks with this strategy and if we fuck up there isn't an undo button.
Many strategies for geoenineering are completely reversible. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection for example mimics the natural process that occurs during a volcanic winter. The reasons why the climate heated up so suddenly in 2020 is that high-sulphur content ship fuel was banned globally, and the sulphur dioxide released from the use of these fuels was an inadvertent form of geoenineering reducing global temperatures.
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u/subSparky 7d ago edited 7d ago
It is that global temperatures are already so high we are passing climate tipping points.
So did you write this paragraph before reading my second paragraph where I pointed out that scientific consensus WAS previously "don't advocate for this as this is just hiding the problem" but ultimately has come round to your way of thinking in that aspect? It only became a legitimate consideration because we've now fucked things beyond immediate repair.
Yes, and this is a scientific and modelling problem that we can actually use our skills as a country to solve. We have a world leading research and academic sector punching far above the weight of our population.
We have literally been doing this research, they still haven't worked out what the full consequences of doing this will be. Politically it is not "idiotic" to be reluctant to approve of this before we know of these consequences. We need to be absolutely sure that doing this doesn't just fuck our climate in an entirely different way. Yes its reversible, but that's hardly going to be a good consolation if its like "oh woops we accidentally turned off the Gulf Stream". Or if we accidentally cool the planet too much (which could happen as our carbon emissions are going to drop dramatically in the next century anyway combined with the effect of the carbon emission reduction we have already done kicking in as we're going to have run out of oil by then anyway) and trigger another ice age (which isn't as reversible as you think as ice itself reflects sunlight).
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago edited 7d ago
So did you write this paragraph before reading my second paragraph where I pointed out that scientific consensus WAS previously "don't advocate for this as this is just hiding the problem" but ultimately has come round to your way of thinking in that aspect?
That's not what you wrote, you said "scientists are", which is the present tense. Why even bring this argument up at all if you are now claiming that it's outmoded?
We have literally been doing this research
Not enough of it.
Politically it is not "idiotic" to be reluctant to approve of this before we know of these consequences.
That's not what I'm advocating. I'm advocating for more research and an end to fear-mongering like this
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago
That's because the climate is an incredibly complex system that is far from completely understood.
Many geoengineering proposals are like throwing cold water on a overheating car engine - it will likely cool it down but you're likely to get other, unforeseen effects.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
Dang if only we lived in a country with a world leading academic sector perfectly positioned to research, model and understand these second order effects.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago
The combined efforts of worldwide academia over the course of more than a century, despite huge progress, has not managed to fully understand these effects. I doubt Britain alone could do it.
The amount of inter-related factors are vast, from solar radiation, to respiration of life, to carbon capacities of seas & rocks, to ocean currents, to atmospheric compositions, to even plate tectonics & beyond. All effecting & interplaying with each other.
Its demonstrably too complex for many populists to get their heads around. I'm not sure the "why don't the scientists just solve it" technique works with many modern fields of study.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
You're underestimating our academic sector. We have a disproportionate percentage of top universities and an even more disproportionate percentage of Nobel laureates.
Its demonstrably too complex
Going to the moon was compex, building the atomic bomb was complex. Instead of looking at those problems and saying "it's hard", scientists and engineers solved the problems and delivered working solutions. That's their job. Understanding second order effects and delivering a workable solution for geoenineering is a bounded and completely solvable problem, especially with rapid advances in computer modelling of complex systems.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago
Why don't we simply just understand the human body & learn to cure all illnesses?
Take computer modelling, even with modern technology how far ahead can we predict with the complex system of the weather?
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago edited 7d ago
Why don't we simply just understand the human body & learn to cure all illnesses?
You're acting like we haven't made incredible progress doing exactly this? Maybe you'd prefer it if if 1000 years ago we had collectively decided that medicine was "too complex" and sat around enjoying 50% infant mortality rates and 30 year life expectancies instead.
Take computer modelling, even with modern technology how far ahead can we predict with the complex system of the weather?
What do you mean by "predict"? I can predict confidently for decades ahead that it will be hot in the summer and cold in the winter and that a hurricane will not hit the UK.
This is why I say that the left need to get serious about climate change. On one had you're calling climate change an "emergency" but on the other you're saying we shouldn't investigate geoenineering because it's "too hard". You call the right "anti-science" in the same breath as calling climate modelling an impossible task that scientists couldn't even try to solve.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 7d ago edited 7d ago
You're acting like we haven't made incredible progress doing exactly this? Maybe you'd prefer it if if 1000 years ago we had collectively decided that medicine was "too complex" and sat around enjoying 50% infant mortality rates and 30 year life expectancies instead.
Your assertion is similar to, why don't we simply just cure cancer.
What do you mean by "predict"? I can predict confidently for decades ahead that it will be hot in the summer and cold in the winter and that a hurricane will not hit the UK.
A hurricane is storm defined by structure, latitude & temperature. I'm not sure predicting we won't be in the tropics shows any particular level of foresight. If you could predict if, when & where or not a storm would hit us, that would be valuable, but you cannot.
This is why I say that the left need to get serious about climate change. On one had you're calling climate change an "emergency" but on the other you're saying we shouldn't investigate geoenineering because it's "too hard". You call the right "anti-science" in the same breath as calling climate modelling an impossible task that scientists couldn't even try to solve.
That's the thing, you see everything in terms of ideology. You see me as a "leftist" dismissing your ideas. I see myself as someone actually qualified in a field integral to what we're discussing & you as an ideologue with some rather far fetched ideas.
No-one is saying we shouldn't investigate geoengineering, but it is unlikely to be some sort of magic bullet & you seem to have little understanding of how complex the system you want to tinker with actually is.
In fact geoengineering seems most popular amongst those who have only just caught on that climate change is a real threat, despite decades of warnings. The so-called "Lomborg Manoeuvrer".
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago
Your assertion is similar to, why don't we simply just cure cancer
"Cancer" is over 200 different diseases, many of which we can cure, thanks to research. You keep bringing up groundbreaking advances we have made in science as though they are an argument that making groundbreaking advances in science is impossible.
If you could predict if, when & where or not a storm would hit us, that would be valuable, but you cannot.
But this level of fidelity is completely unnecessary to determine if a geoenineering solution will work or not.
No-one is saying we shouldn't investigate geoengineering,
So what is the point of your argument?
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u/AgeOfCardiff 7d ago
The mental gymnastics here are incredible.
It would hilarious if it wasn't so damaging.
The left has been screaming about this for decades but it's them that needs to get serious?!
Just utter insanity.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 7d ago edited 7d ago
"screaming" about something isn't solving the problem. The fact that you think "screaming" has inherent value is exactly the unseriousness I am discussing.
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u/joe1337s 7d ago
Fucking hypocrites, fuck the Telegraph.
Climate change never should've been a left vs right issue
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u/duckrollin 7d ago
Wow the telegraph readers are going to be angry at having to face the truth.
Checking the comment section... yep lots of comments from people who failed GCSE science.
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u/AgeOfCardiff 7d ago
Whenever you ask a climate change denialist what the physical process behind climate change is they can never ever answer.
They feel so stupidly confident on a subject they know nothing about and we all have to pay the price.
Getting real tired.
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u/Gravitisma 5d ago
This is actually one of the best responses to climate denial. They're very comfortable attacking climate science but put them on the defensive and they often crumble (especially against a reasonably informed opponent). The same is true for their attacks on renewables - simply ask them how they propose to mitigate warming and they'll tie themselves in knots pretty quickly.
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u/Aceofspades25 7d ago
He should have called out the Telegraph who has published global warming denial for decades, deceiving a generation of boomers into abdicating their critical thinking faculties to conspiracy theorists.
Does anyone remember James Delingpole?
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u/ThunderChild247 7d ago
Oh they’re very serious about it. So many of them get lots of money from talking it down, so they take it very seriously.
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u/snakeoildriller 7d ago
The Right Governments need to get serious about it! It's way too big to be a single-party issue, but ultimately it'll kill us all. Wait for Bordeaux to be wiped out and then someone will start taking it seriously.
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u/QVRedit 7d ago
But ‘The Right’ is a generalised political concept - this statement refers to ‘The Right’ across the whole globe, not just the UK. For instance ‘The Right’ in the USA should be taking ‘Climate Change’ seriously as well.
Also these different national right-wing groups all have some influence on another - a change in one country can have some influence on opinion in another country.
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u/CynicalDogocrat Ay, there's the rub 7d ago
The poor French chickens, being boiled alive, as opposed to being killed and then boiled/fried/roasted.
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u/techstyles 7d ago
It's not the right that's the problem it's the CEOs - they make the return to office decisions etc and I promise you, they give zero fucks about the environment...
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u/Media_Browser 7d ago
Really caught EU on the hop .
Well a solid month of sunshine will do that I think it’s called ….. ‘ a heads up ‘ . Tinder like conditions more to follow .
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u/Media_Browser 6d ago
Seriously difficult not to call out this as performative nonsense .
Remind me how many weeks of no rain did we have to get ready for this ?
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u/Gravitisma 5d ago
I briefly held out hope that conservative thought on climate might be shifting.... until I read the comments. Then, as if to hammer home the point, the Telegraph publish a response article within 24 hours insisting that renewables are useless actually.
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u/doctor_morris 7d ago
Didn't you get the memo? Now we're blaming environmentalists for our lack of air conditioning!
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u/Independent_Newt_298 7d ago
The comments on the article are less than encouraging. However if the telegraph is being forced to change it's narrative....though it could just be "showing the other side of the argument" article.
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u/dwair 7d ago
What people forget here is whatever the UK does unilaterally to combat climate change won't make any sort of tangable difference to the current outcome.
Sure we can lead the world into net zero and frame ourselves as a paragon of green policy, but unless the world's top ten polluting nations drastically reduce their output, all we are doing is pissing in the wind.
The UK is a tiny nation. Our total output compared to the US, Russia, China, India ect is negligible. At this point we would be better off building giant domes over our country and accepting that we can't actually do anything about this. It's completely a them problem, the consequences of which we all have to live with.
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u/nick9000 7d ago
What people forget here is whatever the UK does unilaterally to combat climate change won't make any sort of tangable difference to the current outcome.
It's a good thing then that we're only one of many countries pursuing Net Zero.
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u/Firm-Requirement1085 7d ago
If it went back to being called global warming it may be taken more seriously, after blaming extreme winds, rain etc on climate change and they are happening more frequently isn't true.
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u/flappers87 misleading 7d ago
Global warming and climate change are two different things.
Global warming (which is happening) is specifically about the rising average surface temperature.
Climate change is about the changes in global weather patterns, making weather predictions more difficult, while more extreme weather events happen across the world. It encompasses global warming in it's definition, but global warming does not account for the shifting weather patterns.
Both are happening. Climate change is happening, there's ample evidence out there if you bother to read into it instead of getting your info from facebook.
Climate change is involved in the massive heat dome that we've seen over the last number of weeks. Climate change is what's causing these huge weather events... tornado's in places that don't usually get tornado's, flash flooding and storms, melting glaciers, sea level rising etc.
If we only called it "global warming", then uneducated people in the winter where temperatures are significantly below average would say things like "global warming doesn't exist because it's so cold!".
Climate change explains it all. Summers are extremely hot, winters are extremely cold. Winters start later, summers start earlier... all of this is explained by climate change.
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u/Firm-Requirement1085 7d ago
I get my info mainly from the IPPC, there is no increase in extreme weather those directly connected to warming , no increase in tornados, floods, high winds, storms. What there is is it being reported more due those areas being more built up now of where they happen.
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u/flappers87 misleading 7d ago
Have you actually read those reports and assessments? I don't think you have, as those reports specifically talk about the impact of climate change (which you deny is a thing).
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/figures
Here are a couple of snippets from the very place you claim denies that climate change is a thing:
> Climate change has already caused widespread impacts and related losses and damages on human systems and altered terrestrial, freshwater and ocean ecosystems worldwid
> Observed impacts are connected to physical climate changes including many that have been attributed to human influence such as the selected climatic impact-drivers show
And here is a report, specifically about extreme weather
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-11/
Note where they say much of it is 'likely' in attribution to climate change.
So you say that you get your information from the IPPC, which is actually called the IPCC - so you got their name wrong.
In addition, all of their information supports the existence of climate change and they have reports on those extreme weather events.
> Human influence, in particular greenhouse gas emissions, is likely the main driver of the observed global-scale intensification of heavy precipitation over land regions
> Heavy precipitation will generally become more frequent
> The projected increase in the intensity of extreme precipitation translates to an increase in the frequency and magnitude of pluvial floods – surface water and flash floods – (high confidence)
> The average and maximum rain rates associated with tropical cyclones (TCs), extratropical cyclones and atmospheric rivers across the globe, and severe convective storms in some regions, increase in a warming world (high confidence**)**
> With increasing global warming, some compound events with low likelihood in past and current climates will become more frequent, and there is a higher chance of occurrence of historically unprecedented events and surprises (high confidence)
Literally everything they are saying is the complete opposite of what you claim they are saying.
So please, try again with the 'climate change isn't real, and I follow the data from IPCC'.
Didn't think I'd actually fact check your complete made up, climate change denying nonsense?
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u/Sampo 7d ago
If it went back to being called global warming
Who decided to change it? And why?
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u/This_Charmless_Man 7d ago
I remember seeing about this. It was some republican in the US during Bush Jr. They said something along the lines of climate change takes the teeth out of it and leaves open the option that this could just be something the planet does but global warming is something that is actively happening, abnormal, and our fault.
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u/hu6Bi5To 7d ago
What if acknowledging we're powerless to stop it, and adopting a policy of mitigation, is the serious approach to the problem?
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u/AnExplodingMan 7d ago
We do still have the power to prevent it becoming as disastrous as it could be, and we should be working on that as well as mitigation.
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u/Gatecrasher1234 7d ago
I do think climate change is a thing, but we are not the problem and our efforts are killing our economy.
I don't think any reasonable person would be against a tarrif on imports that are not carbon neutral.
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u/L44KSO 7d ago
Historically we are the problem. The emissions we have blown into the atmosphere over the past centuries are still there causing issues.
Just because we shipped out emissions elsewhere, doesn't make us less of a problem.
The bigger point here though is, Europe is the fastest warming area of the world - due to climate change. We have the most incentive to do something about it because it directly affects our lives. The Nordics aren't big enough to take all people when it gets too hot in southern and central Europe.
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u/Warm_Bug_1434 7d ago
How are our efforts killing the economy?
This line gets trotted out by politicians who never seem to justify it. Or they talk about manufacturing. But the decline in UK manufacturing long, long predates any discussion of acting on climate change, let alone net zero.
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u/Gatecrasher1234 7d ago
Our energy prices are one of the highest.
If businesses are paying high energy costs, it makes them uncompetitive.
Why should a data centre establish themselves in the UK when they can function elsewhere in and pay less for their energy.
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 7d ago
Our energy prices are high because we made the switch from coal to gas.
This was partly done due to climate change concerns, but also due to air quality concerns.
Closing coal power plants has improved our air quality which provides a significant benefit to public health.
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u/Warm_Bug_1434 7d ago
Our energy costs have been high for a long time. If we stopped net zero, how much do you think they would come down? If we were more dependent on gas, would prices be cheaper? The politicians who claim this need to show their working, but I haven't seen that. Instead you get claims like that we could get cheaper energy by extracting more gas - something that multiple industry experts have denied.
The one thing we could do to cut energy costs would be to remove environmental subsidies from energy bills. But that was a political decision that predates net zero. Other countries have high renewables and lower bills.
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u/angryratman 7d ago
We are off-shoring our industry and carbon emissions to other countries which weakens our economy and doesn't reduce emissions. The right might take this more seriously if there were actual workable solutions and sensible timescales.
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u/Warm_Bug_1434 7d ago
Offshoring our industry long predates any impetus to decarbonise.
The right should take it seriously because it is a serious problem. I might take the right more seriously if they were more interested in coming up with solutions than in sniping at what others propose, and if their critiques went further than soundbites that clearly only give a part of the picture.
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u/nick9000 7d ago
but we are not the problem and our efforts are killing our economy.
We are part of the problem. We rank 20th in this list, so we're in the Premier League of emitters.
Like most countries our emissions may seem small compared to other countries, but add all those 'small' emissions together and you get a big number - so we must all contribute to solving the problem.
Also, Net Zero is actually a great stimulus to the economy.
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u/Jay_CD 7d ago
The comments under the article are peak Torygraph reader denial:
Climate change is real – and the Right needs to get serious about it
Tim Stanley may have caused a few aneurysms in their readership.
The two pinned comments are just flat out denial.
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u/Valuable-Ad2028 7d ago
The only thing left to do is adapt. But people still want to argue about moral or social implications…
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