Increasing energy prices - why they will rise and rise and what we can do about it

Natural gas and electricity prices will get higher. British Gas increased electricity and gas bills by an average of 15% this January and is now signalling further large price increases. It claims that its profits have been hit by a 92% increase in the wholesale price of gas in the past twelve months and therefore [...]

Biofuels - we drive and the world starves

 
Sometimes you can only see a picture clearly if you step back from it, so you can see the whole canvas. So it is with energy. Without any doubt we are heading for an energy crisis. The oil will probably peak – that is to say reach its maximum production in ten years time. Oil [...]

Windfall profits but not from wind farms; the blighted emissions trading scheme

I have written in this web log about what I perceive to be the failings in the Emissions Trading Scheme, much beloved of the United Kingdom Government as the means of curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The scheme in effect licenses large emitter to produce so many emissions each year; if they produce less they can [...]

Christian Aid is lobbying for the wrong things

The Christian Aid charity is campaigning about climate change. There are advertisements in glossy magazines (I saw one in the Sky magazine) depicting poor southern Asians being flooded out of their homes by dirty flood water, with a call for readers to contact their MP to ask him to increase the emissions reductions in the [...]

Hopes,aspirations, signals, endless reviews and consultations- the 2008 Budget

Mr Darling’s Budget has been much as I feared; it shows a Government that is good at commissioning reviews and studies but lacking the political courage to make genuinely hard decisions.  
The Budget documents states: “Tackling climate change is the most serious and pressing global environmental challenge the world faces.” True. Unfortunately the policies announced under [...]

Carbon emissions will grow with the world

Climate change cannot be curbed by cutting emissions in developed countries without at the same time cutting emissions in the developing world. Indeed, over the next ten years I expect the developed countries to cut emissions on a per capita basis as more countries require the take up of carbon free microgeneration and as appliances [...]

Climate Change Conference -Statements of the obvious at Bali

It seems that the delegates at Bali’s Climate Change Conference have agreed that they will not set firm emission targets at this stage but will negotiate them over a two year period and that the new targets agreed in 2009 will replace those set down in Kyoto.
The developing countries, in particular China, thought that [...]

Gordon Brown’s solar panels and David Cameron’s turbine

Hilary Benn has been quiet this week because he has been very busy saving us all from global warming in Bali, although I do not think he has any takers for his Climate Change Bill, except of course the lemmings who always vote for their party, right or wrong, at Westminster.    
It looks like Bali will [...]

Climate Change Bill -Mr Benn makes the climate hotter

On the 16th November I blogged about Mr Hilary Benn boasting that his proud new  Climate Change Bill would show the world real leadership at the forthcoming Climate Change Conference in Bali. It was clear to me at the time that Mr Benn had lost the plot, as have the whole government of the United [...]

Mr Benn’s Climate Change Bill

The Environment Minister Mr Hilary Benn thinks that the Climate Change Bill (published yesterday) is a landmark in environmental legislation and will set us firmly on the path to the low-carbon economy fundamental to our future. Well, he got the bit about low carbon being fundamental to our future, although I would have used the [...]