Climate Politics
3 months ago
Guest Blogger
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Campaign group Net Zero Watch is again calling for an inquiry into the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the Government’s official advisers on decarbonisation. The move follows revelations at the weekend that theCCC’s chief executive, Chris Stark, had tried to use obfuscation to “kill” questions over the adequacy of its energy system model, rather than addressing them directly. This behaviour put Stark in direct breach of the Nolan standards for public officeholders.
The scandal, published in theSunday Telegraph, is just the latest of a series of controversies that have dogged the CCC since its inception.
- In 2013, it wasrevealedthat CCC chairman Lord Deben had a conflict of interest, retaining his position as chairman of a company involved in windfarm installations after his appointment. He had told the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee that he would divest himself of all such interests if appointed.
- In 2019, it wasrevealedthat Lord Deben’s family company was still taking large sums of money from businesses working in the environmental sphere.
- In 2023, it wasrevealedthat those payments to Lord Deben’s company were not properly disclosed in the Register of Interests.
- In 2021, it wasrevealedthat the CCC had used spurious weather data in their modelling, thus enabling them to reduce the capacity of electricity generation and storage equipment apparently required.
- It was alsorevealedthat the CCC used spurious figures for the cost of electric vehicles, thus reducing the apparent costs.
- The CCC tried tohide its modelfrom public scrutiny, spending tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayer’s money fighting a lawful Freedom of Information request.
- More recently, the CCC admitted that its electricity system modelling isinadequate. The resulting understatement of costs is as much as tens of billions of pounds per year.
- It has also beenrevealedthat the CCC “waves away” most of the cost problem, simply by assuming extraordinary cost reductions in future. With current technology, the cost of Net Zero will be hundreds of billions of pounds higher.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
‘The list of scandals at the Climate Change Committee seems to be endless, but Parliamentarians seem to want to let them get away with it. If the House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee again fails to launch an inquiry into the governance of the CCC, and in particular Chris Stark’s management and the adequacy of the modelling that underpinned the 2019 Net Zero report, it will look very bad.’
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Leo Smith
March 12, 2024 2:15 am
I think we all knew this years ago.
Hats off to NZW for making it overt.
33
Brad-DXT
Reply to Leo Smith
March 12, 2024 8:00 am
The authoritarians don’t care if it is overt. They are in charge, you are not, and they like rubbing your nose in it.
FJB
10
Bryan A
Reply to Brad-DXT
March 12, 2024 8:43 am
Inquiry??
Hell no!
Time for an Inquisition…hold their feet to the fire till they admit their wrongdoing
Brad-DXT
Reply to Bryan A
March 12, 2024 9:06 am
To have a meaningful Inquisition you need to be in charge.
A lot has to change for sane leadership to be in charge. Even then, a sane leadership would not condone holding their feet to the fire. More than likely, they would just disappear from public view after prosecution.
Preferably in a cell where their cellmate claims them for their bitch.
Jim Masterson
Reply to Brad-DXT
March 12, 2024 9:30 pm
Or be hanged like Epstein.
Phil Rae
March 12, 2024 2:38 am
About time, too! This group has “advised” successive governments to take some of the most ludicrous decisions with respect to energy and transport policy. They’ve helped hobble British industry and their tentacles delve into all manner of areas including farming. Many people have pointed out their conflicts of interest for years now yet their advice has been slavishly followed with hardly a query or any debate.
Every single report should be scrutinised and the extent of their duplicity exposed.
Jerry Mead
Reply to Phil Rae
March 12, 2024 6:42 am
John Selwyn-Gummer has long been one of the nastiest and greasiest little hypocrites to be found enriching themselves off the back of the climate scare. Period. The 3C will continue as it’s a convenient cut-out for politicians not wanting to be held personally responsible for making policy decisions that are quite obviously screwing the long-term welfare of the UK.
15
galileo62
March 12, 2024 2:58 am
Story tip: https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/03/08/record-negative-electricity-prices-hit-britain/
According to this article it’s all the fault of Nuclear power plants as to why wind and solar are so expensive. Who knew!
8
David H
Reply to galileo62
March 12, 2024 6:32 am
Story tip: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/america-s-radioactive-secret?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
Now its oil wells that are “radioactive” It’s always “fossil fuel” that is being sneaky and trying to kill everyone. The HORROR.
3
bobpjones
Reply to David H
March 12, 2024 7:08 am
They’ll have to steer clear of Aberdeen then.
1
It doesnot add up
Reply to galileo62
March 12, 2024 6:36 pm
That’s an insidious lie. The nuclear is there in part to maintain adequate inertia on the grid. It only becomes a constraint when they can operate without any CCGT, which I have yet to see. They think they will be able to do it by using batteries to provide instant response and synthetic inertia, along with fast acting pumped storage and synchronous condensers.
However, I think their plans hit a hitch in December when there was a big frequency event that still has no public explanation, with a nadir of 49.275 Hz: not so far off automatic load shedding, which would have come in had the frequency fall not been arrested in about 4 more seconds. We do know the trigger was the loss of just 1GW on the IFA1 interconnector (there have been bigger losses with less drop in frequency). Take out the inertia from nuclear and the frequency would drop much faster – and we would have those blackouts.
Ron Long
March 12, 2024 3:18 am
So, the conduct of the CCC, and especially its Chairman, is not only shoddy and incompetent, but also outright illegal (as regards non-disclosure and enrichment). Shirley the appropriate legal oversight agency will file charges and pursue justice. But, wait, if you declare you are saving the planet you can engage in whatever conduct you think appropriate, like block traffic, destroy paintings, make personal money, etc. So, never mind.
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mkelly
Reply to Ron Long
March 12, 2024 7:50 am
Shirley you jest?
1
Jim Masterson
Reply to mkelly
March 12, 2024 9:27 pm
Don’t call me (him) Shirley! I know; it’s a stupid reference to a stupid movie.
strativarius
March 12, 2024 3:25 am
3CInvestigated?Seriously?
3Cis all about implementation of a political goal irrespective of science and evidence.Their first scalps came with the Grenfell Tower disaster…
“”Here Kensington and Chelsea Council was following government instructions. As the 2008 Climate Change Act made clear, ‘it is the duty of the secretary of state to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80 per cent lower than the 1990 baseline’.
…
In May 2012, the government’s committee on climate change (CCC) published its ‘advice on how local authorities can reduce emissions and control climate risk’ under the 2010 Climate Change Act. The CCC identified social housing as one of the key areas where CO2 emissions could be reduced by improved energy efficiency from greater insulation.
…
Professor Julia King, a member of the CCC, said in May of 2012 that ‘local authorities have the potential to impact significantly on the UK’s scale and speed of emissions reduction’. At the top of King’s list for action were ‘energy-efficiency measures for existing buildings’ – insulation, such as cladding, and new boilers.
…
The problem with cladding and other kinds of insulation is that they are add-ons that are imperfectly integrated into the original design of a building, often with unintended consequences. One unintended consequence is that many of the estates that were given extra insulation were unnaturally warm, even stifling. The whole block would become a tower of hot air. On a summer evening, many tenants of these blocks would open windows to let some cooler air in. This was another reason why the fire at Grenfell spread between floors.””
https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/06/26/grenfell-clad-in-climate-change-politics/
Amazingly 3C got clean away with it with the focus falling squarely on the councils, contractors and materials.Never once was the question why add the cladding asked.And it won’t be.Even if it were it would be directed straight at the councils and not the committee that demanded the action.
I wonder why Net Zero Watch missed that episode?
Any ideas?
16
It doesnot add up
Reply to strativarius
March 12, 2024 6:46 pm
If you look at the planning application for the installation of the cladding at Grenfell Tower you find it majors on precisely how green it will be, and how it will exceed the then building standards for insulation efficiency. If you actually calculate the value of the energy saving given the projected improvement in U values you find that the £10m project would have taken 200 years to achieve payback.
Further digging (including by Christopher Booker, investigative journalist) established that the insulation standards were the result of EU Directives transposed to UK law. In the process of tightening up the insulation standard no-one managed to check that the fire hazard standards were examined. Not entirely surprising, as the relationship is hidden by cross references across several documents that are hard to follow. But the reality was that the fire standards did not actually make the Grenfell installation illegal.
I think the enquiry managed to overlook the reality of the EU based regulation and its failure, too. I’m sure that the opinions of the CCC (and if not them, ministers like Miliband and Huhne) would have been influential in encouraging the EU to adopt the insulation standard.
3
Steve Richards
March 12, 2024 4:26 am
Most politicians are either naive, stupid or corrupt. Typically a mix of all three characteristics.
Once in a generation you will get a few very good ones.
14
bobpjones
Reply to Steve Richards
March 12, 2024 5:18 am
They’ve all cultivated fat @rses, so that they can burnish those green leathers benches with them, for £85K/yr.
2
strativarius
Reply to Steve Richards
March 12, 2024 5:22 am
I’m not so sure. Each generation is now receiving extreme indoctrination coupled with propagandistic media output that is absolutely brimming with the right messages and narratives – from gender to weather.
I would go as far as to say that anybody under 40 today must be somewhat suspect as a result.You only have to look at the marches every Saturday…
Our last great leader is now the devil incarnate. Churchill is a figure of hate for them.
6
Ronald Stein
March 12, 2024 6:28 am
Policymakers are clueless that ALL electricity came AFTER the discovery of oil !
ALL electrical generation from hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar are ALL built with the products, components, and equipment that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
Summary: Before the 1800’s none of today’s 6,000 PRODUCTS made from crude oil existed.
3
mkelly
Reply to Ronald Stein
March 12, 2024 8:06 am
I understand the sentiment I think timing was involved. Once steam locomotive was possible it is a short leap to electricity production via coal.
1
AWG
March 12, 2024 6:46 am
Explain to me how this isn’t like the Mafia. People making huge bank by terrorizing the population into meekness and compliance, paying off the politicians to look the other way, and strong arming any effort to expose the scam.
14
Frank from NoVA
Reply to AWG
March 12, 2024 7:51 am
‘Explain to me how this isn’t like the Mafia.’
Not possible. In fact, the basic rationale underlying the ‘State’ is identical to that underlying the ‘Mafia’, i.e., the coercive acquisition of the production of others.
3
Neil Lock
Reply to Frank from NoVA
March 12, 2024 9:20 am
Except that the state maintains the fiction that it has “sovereignty,” which gives it a moral privilege to do whatever dirty tricks it wants to us, without any kind of accountability. Oh, and the fiction that each of us has agreed to this, by signing a “social contract” with it. Whereas the mafia has to rely on more direct methods.
4
Frank from NoVA
Reply to Neil Lock
March 12, 2024 10:02 am
Yeah, I was probably being too hard on the Mafia, since consent to at least some of their ‘services’ is voluntary.
3
mleskovarsocalrrcom
March 12, 2024 8:33 am
They are political appointees in political positions. What do you expect?
Mr.
March 12, 2024 9:27 am
Story tip.
They write this as if it’s a bad thing.
(Sorry mods, I didn’t see a relevant post to drop this into)
1
Dave Andrews
March 12, 2024 10:08 am
Stark himself is about to leave the CCC and become CEO of the Carbon Trust in April – more gravy train.
3
DavsS
Reply to Dave Andrews
March 12, 2024 10:38 am
Once you get your foot in the door with the right crowd, it seems, the opportunities to pass from one sinecure to another seem to open up. Nice work if you can get it.
2
Frank from NoVA
March 12, 2024 10:12 am
There have many comments at WUWT re. the correlation between climate alarmism and membership in the more ‘posh’ segments of British society. FWIW, the same relationship is prevalent in the US. I think the inescapable conclusion is that our self-styled ‘elites’ not only roll to the Left, they’re actively looting us as well.
6
Andy Pattullo
March 12, 2024 10:32 am
The CCC is the solution to that very common problem of having too many resources, and not enough intellect to know what to do with them. Add in a dash of believing in magic and you have a new super weapon that can bring down even the most well structured society.
3
Bob
March 12, 2024 2:12 pm
Nice work Net Zero Watch, you are doing the heavy lifting. These CAGW mongrels are liars and cheats. We can no longer allow them to continue on. We need to get much more forceful and kick the buggers out.
Tombstone Gabby
March 12, 2024 5:40 pm
Nolan standards for public officeholders.
First time I’d heard about these principals. Read them. Sound good. But:
There never has been a ‘statuary law’ even that ‘prevented’ a particular action, from spitting on the sidewalk to murder. Behavioral ‘guides’ are all well and good, but without teeth/consequences, will not work.
Tar and feathers for a minor infraction would be a good start.
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