One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison
It’s all a matter of taste
MARK HODGSON
I am not President Trump’s greatest fan – a long way from it. I don’t like him one little bit, and had I been an American citizen, I would never have voted for him. Even when I agree with him (sort of) about things like the mistake that is being made in the mad rush to renewable energy, I worry about the fact that he is on “the same side” as me. I have my doubts about the apocalyptic climate change narrative (I must have, or I wouldn’t write for a website called “Climate Scepticism”) but I think his grandstanding in front of the United Nations and calling climate change a “con job” probably harmed the sceptics’ cause more than it helped it. Very little in life is straightforward, many issues are highly nuanced, and blunt language such as that used by Trump strikes me as being likely to be very wrong (even when he’s sort of right) due to the lack of nuance. Using a slegehammer to crack a nut is, I hope, not my way. Having said all of that, I don’t think I suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome in the way that much of the mainstream media does. If anything, I confess, my derangement syndrome is around Mr Ed Miliband, a man who I regard as more dangerous to the UK’s interests than Donald Trump could ever be.
And so, when I saw a headline in the Guardian yesterday (“Trump’s hatred for renewables means the US is falling behind the rest of the world – As well as embracing ‘beautiful coal’, the president has set about obliterating clean energy projects”) it occurred to me that similar language could be used about Mr Miliband with regard to his diametrically opposite energy policy. Why not re-write it? That might be fun. The original Guardian article can be found here for comparison purposes. What follows is my re-writing of it. It’s not possible to produce a verbatim re-write (if you see what I mean), but I have tried to stay faithful to the style and format.
Miliband’s hatred for fossil fuels means the UK is falling behind the rest of the world – As well as embracing ‘renewables’, the Energy Secretary has set about obliterating UK fossil fuel use
In July 2015 Ed Miliband, who, then as now, was MP for Doncaster North in the once-thriving South Yorkshire coalfield, and just a few weeks earlier was Labour Party leader, attacked the then Conservative government’s Business Secretary as she condemned the Hatfield coalmine to closure. He said the government’s failure to provide more funding for the colliery was “wrong” and that it was a “harsh decision, not a one nation decision.” Going further, he also said “The miners feel they’ve had the rug pulled from under them. I do not believe this decision makes economic sense, industrial sense or is morally right.”
Today, his words are jarring. The world continues to dawdle politically in its response to the climate crisis and fossil fuels remain extensively used globally. Miliband, though, has shifted.
As the architect of the UK’s Climate Change Act his 2015 support for a coalmine was at odds with his political agenda (though a cynic might say his words had more to do with the fact that many of his constituents worked at the Hatfield colliery than with his actual beliefs). He has now become one of the planet’s foremost advocates of renewable energy, throwing the might of the UK government into a losing rearguard battle to persuade the world to ditch combusted carbon in favour of renewable energy. There is now no fiercer single opponent to fossil fuels than Miliband.
When world leaders gather for UN climate talks in Brazil next month, the escalation of Miliband’s hostility towards fossil fuels will be apparent, despite its making no difference at all to the global situation. The UK government claims it is “leading the world” with regard to climate change, yet it is unclear who, if anyone, will represent the UK, once the world’s leading economic and military superpower, but now a shadow of its former self, in Belem.
As in his first term as Energy Secretary, Miliband has thrown open more land and waters for wind turbines and solar farms, and set about dismantling planning protections that would have prevented the devastation of swathes of farming land and beautiful wild places across the UK. These rollbacks will drive a stake through the heart of environmentalism.
But Miliband’s latest spell as Energy Secretary has gone even further, to extremes that have surprised many onlookers.
Rather than simply boost a renewable energy industry that donated handsomely to Labour’s election campaign, Miliband has set about obliterating fossil fuel projects: seeking to ban new North Sea oil and gas licences, banning fracking from all UK land, and lavishing subsidies on renewables and electric cars (while also handing massive subsidies to a seemingly futile effort to “capture carbon”).
We are certainly in a different environment than we were in the first Milband term as Energy Secretary.
There’s a focus on environmental destruction rather than protection. Energy costs are going through the roof. It’s hard to watch. We’re just not present with regard to cheap reliable energy, and are ceding that ground to our competitors, which is not good for the United Kingdom.
Not content with jettisoning orthodoxy in the UK energy market, Miliband has sought to intervene in other countries’ climate policies, urging “his Chinese counterparts in Beijing… to re-start formal energy and climate discussions and demonstrate global climate leadership.”
Miliband has said that the “British way of life” as it currently exists is threatened without proper action”, and that while resilience policies were important, relying on them alone was “a complete betrayal, because then you’re essentially running up the down escalator. The problem will get worse and worse. We keep trying to adapt. It will keep costing us more, and we won’t be able to keep up.”
Miliband has tried to rewire language around energy and climate, too. Despite the environmental devastation being caused both on- and off-shore in and around the UK, he continually seeks to talk about a “nature and climate crisis”, wrongly equating the two.
All expenditure by his Department is described as an investment, never as the cost it really is. Any discussion of rising UK energy prices is shunned.
Renewable energy, meanwhile, has been rebranded. It always appears in the same sentence alongside the words ‘clean’ and ‘green’. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?
All of this has accelerated the loss of jobs in the UK: in a single week in September last year, south Wales steel works closed and a planned coal mine in west Cumbria finally hit the legal buffers. All of these adverse developments occurred in (for now) Labour-held districts.
Energy prices are rising for Brits as a result; and the world’s planet-heating emissions continue to rise.
This agenda is perplexing even on Miliband’s own terms, experts have said. Miliband has spoken of making the UK a world leader and of the need for jobs and new generation to fuel AI data centres, and yet has undercut this by attempting to stamp out fossil fuels.
If you are serious about UK energy security you need to drill, baby, drill. It’s puzzling and very strange to say fossil fuels have next to no role in the UK system when these are often the quickest and cheapest sources. There’s a real tension in the administration’s main messages.
The UK government’s endorsement of climate concerns raises broader questions about the UK’s place in the world, too. In the geopolitical struggle with China, two very different visions are being touted to the rest of the world: one that remains hooked to the manufactured goods, solar panels (made using Uighur slave labour) and wind turbines touted by the planet’s largest fossil fuel user, or one that pivots back to home-sourced fossil fuels, and energy and business security.
Miliband continues to embarrass the UK on the global stage and undermine the interests of Brits at home.
UK cities and councils committed to climate action are wasting their taxpayers’ money. Markets and sub-national governments will continue to shift, even if the government tries to halt Councils from cancelling climate emergency declarations. But from China’s perspective, the race to shape energy, and thereby alter the overall trajectory of this century, is far from over over.
“In China, this isn’t even treated like a competition. The UK is just not in the game.”
At home, Miliband may order mentions of the climate crisis and its impact to be used at every opportunity, and mock those who are sceptical about such things as “lunatics”, but the effects of an energy-depleted UK will continue to be felt, nevertheless.
Floods and fires in the UK, which are nothing new, can only be blamed on a non-existent climate crisis for so long, as can the lure of cheap, abundant fossil fuels. Miliband’s 2015 call for action on coal mining may have been forlorn, but it is unlikely to be denied globally.
The UK’s net zero policy is against the tide of what you see happening with energy in our biggest competitors. They are not just all in with fossil fuels, but really driving ahead.
All of this won’t go away because the problem hasn’t been solved. There will still be concerns about the environmental damage caused by renewable energy infrastructure, because there is no other choice.
The problem is still there and the realities of its impacts will just become more and more clear over time.
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