 What exactly is the Climate Change Committee?The Climate Change Committee (CCC) seems to want an extraordinary level of power over our lives, from dictating how much meat we can eat, to deciding how we heat our homes, and how often we get on a plane. So what is this influential organisation? We thought it was time to take a look and share with you.The CCC was set up as part of the Climate Change Act of 2008 with the stated purpose of advising "the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change." The CCC's claim of being "independent" is confusing. The CCC is a non-departmental public body or quango a taxpayer-funded body which is not directly controlled by a ministerial department. It is, nevertheless, very much part of the apparatus of the state - and, in the year ending 2023, managed to spend £6 million of public money. And the Committee is at the heart of the government's commitment to Net Zero. In 2019, in a report called Net Zero: The UK's contribution to stopping global warming, the CCC effectively set the 2050 target date for reaching Net Zero. An amendment was made to the Climate Change Act - notoriously waved through by MPs after a mere 90 minutes discussion - and we were stuck with the legally binding Net Zero by 2050 deadline.And so the real madness began. The latest bout of Net Zero insanity comes with the CCC's publication of its Seventh Carbon Budget. A new "Carbon Budget" is set by the CCC every five years, setting a legally binding limit on the total amount of greenhouse gases the UK can emit over a five-year period if we are to hit Net Zero. As Together's Ben Pile has explained, the low hanging fruit on Net Zero has all gone. As if spiralling energy bills and the war on motorists weren't enough, from here on out the intrusions into our lives in the name of limiting CO2 emissions can only ever get more uncomfortable. You may have heard about this latest Carbon Budget in the media with its stipulations about half of homes needing a heat pump by 2040, electric cars, and (more) flight taxes at a cost of £320 billion - oh, and kebabs. Explaining their recommendation that we cut our meat consumption by a quarter, the CCC's head of Net Zero Emily Nurse seemingly thought "one quarter" too difficult a concept for us dummies to understand, and hit upon an alternative we could all relate to. "If you think about the average amount of meat that a person eats in the UK, if that were all converted to doner kebabs... the average amount would be around eight a week... And in our pathway, we're saying by 2040 that would be six." Overseeing the publication of the Seventh Carbon Budget was the first major task of the CCC's new chief executive Emma Pinchbeck. Much has been made of Pinchbeck's degree in Classics and English from Oxford University. But it is fair and illuminating to point out that, since graduating, the 37-year-old Pinchbeck has forged a career in the climate change world. She's been Head of Climate Change at World Wildlife Fund UK, Deputy CEO of the trade body Renewable UK and head of Energy UK, focusing on "decarbonising" the energy sector. Pinchbeck's promotion of the Seventh Carbon Budget is a story in itself. She claims that the recommendations in the report have broad support from the public, based on a citizens' panel convened by the CCC. "The citizens' panel were often ahead of even our advice on some of the things they were willing to consider," she said. "They are interested and want to do their bit. The public really are proud of the UK's progress on climate action [and] we can't see any evidence that the public wants us to slow down."But delve into the details and that statement looks a lot less convincing. "Deliberations"The citizens' panel consisted of 26 members of the public from the Birmingham area. It was run by IPSOS and involved seven workshops, only two of which were face-to-face. You can find the report on the panel here. The first sessions began, in the words of the video the CCC made about the panel, with talks from experts about the Climate Change Emergency and "the kinds of choices households have to make". Participants were then taken through the "transport, home heating, diet and aviation choices that households are expected to make as part of the transition to Net Zero, in the CCC's analysis and advice to government." This doesn't sound at all objective or open but rather as though participants were "told" what to think. Not surprisingly, after some "persuasion", they came up with the conclusions the CCC wanted: "After presentations on what the changes were and how the CCC had landed on their pathways to Net Zero, participants overall supported the premise that these changes were necessary. Their discussions rarely raised concerns about the feasibility or the necessity of these changes, and instead focused on how these could be fairly achieved through policy levers." "After deliberation" and "following deliberation" are recurring phrases in the report. They signal the contrast between what members of the public thought about an issue initially, and the conclusion they arrived at with the "help" of the experts. This manipulative tactic worked even on the vexed issue of eating insects: "Participants were wary of more novel alternative proteins ... After deliberations, participants were less against these products." It was also used to bamboozle them into agreeing to higher taxes: "Following deliberations, participants were also open to policies that would adjust relative prices of meat and dairy products and alternative proteins. Some participants acknowledged that if 'nudge' policies proved insufficient for achieving Net Zero targets, adjusting the relative prices of meat and dairy and alternative products." This strategy seems to be a repeat of one used for the CCC's Sixth Carbon Budget which recommended that meat and dairy consumption should be cut by up to 40%. The Citizen Climate Assembly, which the CCC helped to organise, was used to convince Parliamentarians there was public support for such reductions. But as Ben Pile discovered, only a third of the 108-member assembly discussed the matter, and ultimately just ten individuals were used to represent the wishes of 66 million people. Producing on-narrative messages by any means possible seems to be core to the work of the CCC. It has promoted the privations of the Seventh Carbon Budget with the promise of cheaper energy bills, arguing that doing what they say will make annual energy bills for the average household £700 cheaper than today. Given the many broken promises given by the government about energy bills over the past couple of years, it's hard to believe that such calculations have any real basis. Writing in The Spectator, Ross Clark certainly doesn't think so. He argues that the CCC's projections for 15 years' time are in "the realm of outright fantasy". "The golden low-carbon economic future portrayed by the CCC is simply not credible," he writes, "though sadly it will fool many MPs just like its previous reports." At Together, we're not fooled either. But we recognise that many people, including those elected to serve us, seem to be. That's why we've been working hard to counter the Net Zero nonsense since members voted near-unanimously for us to campaign on the issue, exposing bogus claims and the interests behind the scenes, with research reports from Ben Pile and presenting the common sense point of view in the media. We do this, and the other aspects of our campaigning, on a shoestring - we don't have the kind of resources that government, billionaire-funded NGOs, or even the CCC(!) have. We are a grassroots organisation that depends entirely on support from ordinary members of the public.So please join us as a member here to support the fightback against Net Zero making us poorer, colder and less free.There are now clear signs that the Net Zero narrative is crumbling. But as the crazy recommendations of the CCC show, that is not enough without repeal or amendment of the Climate Change Act. With the prospect of more carbon based taxes and regulations coming from government almost every day, this is not a time toi let up our efforts. ...#together |
Just use our own gas instead of driving industry and tax revenue out of the UKMarch 14, 2025 The top three priorities for a successful industrial policy are cheap energy, cheap energy and cheap energy.The Uk with the dearest electricity of the advanced economies is performing the last rites for energy intensive industry. There has been a stream of closures of steel plants, petrochemical works, oil refineries, ceramics,glass, aluminium, foundries and much else.The Bowland shales run across England, from Lancashire through Lincolnshire to South Yorkshire. They are thought to contain enough gas to meet our domestic needs for several decades.Cuadrilla spent £200 million on drilling five exploration wells which found gas in Lancashire. Today they are instructed to pour plenty of concrete down two wells that could deliver us gas, to prevent them from ever being used. Mr Miliband doesn't merely want to stop them producing any gas for us now, but wants to stop them however serious our need for gas might become. Tipping concrete down these wells is needless and expensive vandalism.The Uk now imports half its gas. Much of it comes byLNG tanker. It produces three times as much CO 2 as UK piped gas given all the energy used to cool, transport and convert back to gas. It is dearer. All the tax revenue and well paid jobs benefit the exporting country, not us. This is madness, self harm on a huge scale.Developing North Sea oil and gas in the 1970 s helped the UK economy pull through despite the bankruptcy of the state brought on by Labour's over spending. Today the government's growth strategy desperately needs more energy. So drill, baby ,drill. Up would go tax revenues, investment and well paid jobs. Down would go world CO 2 as we stop importing LNG.....John Redwood |
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