Citizens' Climate Lobby UK

Category: Decarbonisation

  • The $5,000,000,000,000 Lie……Stephen Fry talks about the errors in the Michael Moore film, Planet of the Humans, and says not taxing carbon is a ‘much larger cover up’.

    The $5,000,000,000,000 Lie……Stephen Fry talks about the errors in the Michael Moore film, Planet of the Humans, and says not taxing carbon is a ‘much larger cover up’.

    This 15 minute You Tube film is a brilliant endorsement of carbon taxation in general and CF&D in particular (although Stephen Fry doesn’t name the policy as such). He points out that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is caused by humans and the IMF states that a 75$per tonne tax on carbon would keep global warming at under 2 degrees! He states that the IMF also claimed that if prices had been corrected in 2015, global carbon dioxide emissions would be 28% lower the same affect of removing all transport emissions, the economy would have grown faster and the death rate would have been halved!

    A great You Tube film to watch and good ammo for the climate deniers in your life! Do add a comment as this is an easy way to make people aware of CCL as an example I have posted this in response to……


    Any carbon tax is a direct tax on the working class make no mistake….

    Carbon Fee and Dividend or Climate Income taxes carbon production at source, it gradually increases so it becomes cheaper to develop renewables. The tax goes back to the citizen as a dividend which offsets the rising price of carbon in the interim. This is the policy Canada and Switzerland use. Unlike current green tariffs it doesn’t penalise the consumer and would make electricity cheaper than gas, thus, for example benefiting people having to use expensive electricity in UK social housing as well as being a market led method of encouraging decarbonisation and making carbon capture cost effective. Please see websites by Citizen’s Climate Lobbies such as https://test.citizensclimatelobby.uk/

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  • Very cogent argument for CF&D by a member of the centre-right think tank, Centre for Policy Studies. Useful information if you plan to lobby a Conservative MP!

    Very cogent argument for CF&D by a member of the centre-right think tank, Centre for Policy Studies. Useful information if you plan to lobby a Conservative MP!

    This article comes from a centre-right website CapX which…

    was founded to make the case for popular capitalism: now more than ever, it is vital that the case is made for markets, innovation and competition, and for policies that deliver for the masses as well as the elites.

    To that end, our team monitors thousands of news sources, blogs, academic papers and think tank publications to find the day’s most interesting ideas and most important facts and trends. We also commission opinion and analysis pieces by leading experts – though the views contained in any such article are entirely the author’s own.

    The author, Eamonn Ives, is a member of the centre right think tank the Centre for Policy Studies, specialising in energy and environmental policy. He also sits on the advisory board of Climate Assembly UK, and previously worked as a Researcher for Bright Blue, where he authored five publications.

    Eamonn adopts a techno-optimist approach to environmental issues, grounded in laissez faire economics twinned with proportionate government intervention to overcome challenges such as climate change, air pollution, and resource use. He is also interested in transport policy, urbanism, and innovation.

    Eamonn writes that….

    As temperatures outside begin to fall, the Prime Minister has detailed how Britain will help stop them heating up on a global scale. Yes, the long awaited ten-point climate plan is with us at long last – mapping out both policies and funding pots to limit the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

    Much of what it said was nothing new – we already knew what the plan’s broad-brush strokes would be thanks to plenty of pre-briefing in the media and other channels.

    To further decarbonise power, a big push is to be made on offshore wind, quadrupling how much electricity we produce via maritime turbines to 40GW by 2030. Support is coming for nuclear power, with a particular focus on developing advanced reactors and smaller, cheaper, modular units. Efficiency upgrades for public sector buildings and domestic properties, meanwhile, will limit the amount of energy we need to produce in the first place.

    To clean up transport, the big news was that 2030 will indeed mark the end of the road for sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans (with sales of the best hybrid models ending in 2035). Money has been made available to improve public transport, get more of us walking and cycling, and for research into cutting emissions in hard-to-reach transport modes, such as shipping and aviation.

    To green our industrial processes, investments will be made in hydrogen – which will also be deployed in domestic heating and heavy transport. R&D funding for carbon capture and storage technologies should help address emissions in the thorniest industries, such as cement and chemicals production.

    Plans to plant 30,000 hectares of tress every year will lock up more of the carbon already in the atmosphere while providing other benefits like habitat restoration and flood defences. Finally, the Government hopes that new rules will make the City of London the global centre for green finance and carbon offsetting markets.

    One cannot knock the Government’s ambition – the plan looks across the board and leaves little out of its scope. The money, regulatory provisions, and redoubled Government energy behind tackling climate change should all combine to getting the UK closer to its net zero goal – which it legislated for last year.

    But amid the flurry of spending promises and new targets, it was one seemingly unassuming line in the PM’s FT article – where the plan was first released – which piqued my attention. A cursory mention is given to the “carbon prices we will put on emissions”. If we assume this to mean further work is in the pipeline for carbon pricing across the economy, that could spell very good news indeed.

    As Rachel Wolf – co-author of the Government’s 2019 election winning manifesto – has discussed elsewhere on this website, carbon pricing makes those who bring carbon into the economy financially responsible for the damage it does to our climate. Simply put, carbon pricing would mean fossil fuel companies face a per tonne charge on the carbon dioxide their products will eventually release.

    We already have some carbon pricing – either explicitly, such as on electricity, or via rough proxies, such as fuel duty. But the current framework is confused – pockmarked by exemptions like different rates depending on where the carbon is emitted.

    This is regrettable, because as countless eminent economists and climate campaigners will attest, carbon pricing is conceivably the single best way of cracking down on emissions. Importantly, it does so in a way which is economically efficient, steering people towards addressing the most solvable problems first for the lowest cost, and then working towards tackling more complicated matters. It takes power away from vested interests who lobby politicians and civil servants to favour their clients’ pet projects over genuine climate solutions. If the revenues of carbon pricing were recycled back to citizens, it could be made socially progressive, and ensure that climate action is not shouldered by those with the least ability to bear it.

    Without a robust, simplified, and comprehensive price on carbon, the Government is depriving itself of a powerful tool to mitigate climate change – binding its hands and instead opting for more expensive, less effective policies.

    An 11-point plan might not be as media friendly, but bringing carbon pricing into the fold could take the PM’s strategy up a notch. The Government should waste no time in doing just that.

  • Writing to your MP about the Climate Coalition 10 Point plan – a great opportunity to remind them of the benefits of CF&D which they have already acknowledged!

    Writing to your MP about the Climate Coalition 10 Point plan – a great opportunity to remind them of the benefits of CF&D which they have already acknowledged!

    Many members may have received an email from the Climate Coalition requesting that they email their MP about the Coalition’s 10 point plan, (or could go to the website and find out about how to get involved).

    There seems to be no place for easily mentioning the benefits of CF&D in the email template. I decided to add a piece after my name, so it is right at the start of the email. I have also used the government’s own words from the carbon pricing policy report to mention the benefits of CF&D! This is an easy way to remind MPs that the government itself is aware of the advantages of using CF&D to finance the move to net zero and beyond!

    My name is Catherine Dawson.  I am also a member of Citizens Climate Lobby UK  and have written to you about the benefits of Carbon Fee and Dividend and was involved in the Time is Now Zoom meeting in June. As you are aware the Government in  its report on carbon pricing policy acknowledged that …..Placing a price on carbon creates the incentive for emissions to be reduced in a cost effective and technology-neutral way, while mobilising the private sector to invest in emissions reduction technologies and measures…..  It would make it possible to achieve many aspects of the suggested ten point plan without crippling the economy or deterring the market led economic model.

  • Leading scientists back promoting the use of carbon capture technology.

    A article in the Guardian (13/11/20) interviewing Michael Mann (author of the ‘hockey stick study) cites a letter signed by many scientists and activists, including James Hansen, which states that carbon capture technology, derided by many climate activists, has to be part of the solution. The beauty of CF&D, of course is that carbon emitting industries would get their money back in saved tariffs so it becomes cost effective…..

    Leading scientists, academics and campaigners have called on governments and businesses to go beyond “net zero” in their efforts to tackle the escalating climate and ecological crisis.

    The former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the leading climate scientist Michael Mann are among a group of prominent environmentalists calling for the “restoration of the climate” by removing “huge amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere”.

    Net zero targets have been a focus of governments, local authorities and campaigners in their attempts to address global heating. The authors of Friday’s letter, however, say that although stopping emissions is “a necessary prerequisite”, governments and businesses must be more ambitious and work to “restore the climate” to as safe a level as possible.

    “The climate crisis is here now,” … “No matter how quickly we reach zero emissions, the terrible impacts of the climate crisis will not just go away … As such, no matter how quickly it is done, solely cutting emissions is not enough.”Hitting net zero is not enough – we must restore the climate.

    The idea of removing emissions from the atmosphere – either directly from the air or by capturing it from power plants – has been a strongly debated subject among environmentalists and engineers for years.

    Critics point out that it has proved difficult to replicate the technology at scale and that constructing the necessary machinery would itself be environmentally damaging.

    Many fear that the idea of carbon capture is a “technological fix” used as an excuse by corporations which are opposed to the radical changes needed to move to a zero-carbon economy. However, there is a growing body of evidence that natural solutions – protecting and restoring natural forests and habitats and allowing native trees to repopulate deforested land – could help remove large amounts of carbon.

    The letter, which is also signed by the Guardian columnist George Monbiot and several leading members of the global school climate strike movement, said their call for restoration was not about “promoting one specific removal technique, but supporting the basic aim of trying to restore the climate”.

    The letter adds: “We urge activists to start including restoration in their campaigning. We urge governments and companies to start acting, not only to reach net zero as soon as possible, but to achieve restoration as well. And we urge every citizen to do what they can to make the dream of restoration a reality.”

    Mann recently stated that it would be game over for the climate if Trump won again, luckily that scenario has been averted, though he has yet to concede… In an article in the Guardian (2/10/20) about the threat of Trump, Mann did, however, state that there is some good news which offers hope if we act now….

    ‘Our destiny is determined by our behavior’

    Fortunately, there is encouraging news about climate science as well. It was long thought that Earth’s climate system carried a substantial lag effect, mainly because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, trapping heat, for many decades after being emitted. Even if all CO2 emissions were halted overnight, global temperatures would keep rising and heatwaves, droughts, storms and other impacts would keep intensifying “for about 25 to 30 years”, Sir David King, the former chief science advisor to the British government, said in 2006.

    Mann says research over the last decade has overturned this interpretation. Using new, more elaborate computer models equipped with an interactive carbon cycle, “what we now understand is that if you stop emitting carbon right now … the oceans start to take up carbon more rapidly,” Mann says. Such ocean storage of CO2 “mostly” offsets the warming effect of the CO2 that still remains in the atmosphere. Thus, the actual lag between halting CO2 emissions and halting temperature rise is not 25 to 30 years, he explains, but “more like three to five years”.

    This is “a dramatic change in our understanding” of the climate system that gives humans “more agency”, says Mann. Rather than being locked into decades of inexorably rising temperatures, humans can turn down the heat almost immediately by slashing emissions promptly. “Our destiny is determined by our behavior,” says Mann, a fact he finds “empowering”.

    This reprieve will not necessarily spare polar ice sheets or evade tipping points that cannot be recrossed, the scientist cautions, and Earth is already experiencing “much more extreme weather … than we expected 10 years ago”. Greenland and Arctic ice is already melting after the current temperature rise of 1C, or 2.7F, above pre-industrial levels, and it will continue melting even without further warming. The resulting possibility of “massive sea level rise” is one example of why Mann says that humanity is “walking out on to a minefield” of tipping points: “The more we warm the planet, the more of those unwelcome surprises we might encounter.

  • A good argument for Carbon Fee and Dividend by a Free Marketeer

    A good argument for Carbon Fee and Dividend by a Free Marketeer

    Ambrose Pritchard, writing in The Telegraph criticises the proposed Democrat Green Deal as being a dirigiste policy with an ulterior motive of ‘fuelling’ the trade war with China. He gives a very cogent explanation of the mechanics of carbon fee and dividend and why he prefers this market led method of carbon pricing. He also argues why the dividend should go directly to consumers…

    Mr Biden’s new age Gosplan is not to my taste. Should the Democrats be pledging to install 500 million solar panels and 60,000 wind turbines over the next four years? Is such dirigiste planning the American way?

    The laissez faire way is to set a carbon price that ratchets up predictably, letting business respond to the price signal, and letting Schumpeterian competition find its own answers. All former chairmen of the Federal Reserve and a cast of economists of all ideological stripes have backed HR 763, a bipartisan House bill for a carbon tax and dividend.  

    It starts at $15 a tonne and ratchets up $10 every year until CO2 emissions are almost eliminated. The money raised is rotated back into people’s pockets. The higher the carbon price, the bigger the cheque, and the poor do best. 

    Needless to say, Ursula von der Leyen’s variant in Europe aims to siphon off its carbon tax to fund the Commission’s apparatus. The EU seems to have learned little from the gilets jaunes and the sociology of revolt. 

  • Virtual mass lobby – useful, but not the only chance

    Virtual mass lobby – useful, but not the only chance

    I have been a member of CCL for just over a year, having been persuaded by a talk by Prof. David Waltham that this was a group which had an effective and doable solution to climate change and a democratic and sensible way of achieving their goal. 

    I wasn’t really sure how much the mass lobby last year had achieved and signed up to attend this one with some trepidation, especially as our Devizes CCL group had already started correspondence with our new Conservative MP Danny Kruger and a Zoom meeting at which we had managed successfully to get him to agree to look into the current government thinking on climate policy issues and report back to us. I was worried that the virtual lobby may  jeopardise the good rapport we had built (which is so embedded in the principles of CCL but not in that of other pressure groups).  

    We started thinking about strategy in advance and decided to use a question based on the carbon pricing report published earlier in the month (which we would have lobbied our MP about even if the mass lobby hadn’t happened) and to suggest all CCL lobby participants used it.  This was a question which all MPs could do something about, by agreeing to ask about this issue in parliament, and could be the ‘beginning of a beautiful friendship’ or at least a productive one between CCL groups or individuals and the local MP. 

    The Constituency Office had asked for questions to be submitted beforehand which meant the MP could be prepared to a certain extent and time wouldn’t be wasted. We decided that one person who had been most active in engaging with our MP and building a good rapport would field the question. I think this helped the MP to feel comfortable with the process. Strategy was finalised in a Zoom meeting the night before.

    I think because of the rapport we had built with Danny Kruger he decided to have our question first, which was a huge relief because I was worried that the lobby would be taken over by lots of vague demands that no Conservative MP would be likely to have truck with and we would have no time to field our question. We were allowed to ask secondary questions, ‘putting a hand up’ in the chat box if we wanted to ask a question, the MP could then decide who would speak next. 

    MP Danny Kruger in the Zoom virtual lobby

    The Government’s plan to revive the economy had also been published the day before and this also enabled the other questions fielded to be very ‘concrete’  (pun intended) as they were asking about the emphasis on new build and roads rather than investing in retrofitting which had even been promised in the election manifesto. One participant was an expert in passive house construction, again this meant sensible questions could be asked about policy which the MP was capable of looking into. The chat function also enabled participants to add facts or links to information, I copied this to the CCL participants and the MP after the lobby as I am not sure what happens to the content of ‘chats’ afterwards. 

    The hour long ‘lobby’ went very well and was a means of showing our faces. I do feel that the success of the lobby owed a lot to the fact that we had already built a working relationship with the MP before the lobby, he knew that our approach would be respectful and positive and we knew his background and interests (as a new MP we had to do the research and know what not to mention!). In short, the lobby was a useful tool but should not be seen as the only opportunity to engage with your mp so if your voice wasn’t heard don’t despair, write a letter and hopefully get the ball rolling!  

    Judging by Danny Kruger’s constituency newsletter released on Saturday the 4th the lobby has achieved what we had hoped for! Danny has gone public on his commitment to discuss carbon fee and dividend (aka climate income) with the government and to look into the retrofitting issue further. Result!

    Catherine Dawson took part in The Climate Coalition’s The Time is Now virtual lobby on 30th June 2020. More than 30 people, of which a third were CCL UK members, took part in the Devizes Constituency meeting with Conservative MP Danny Kruger.

  • The response to the Covid 19 Emergency is influencing the response to the Climate Emergency (and mostly in a good way).

    The response to the Covid 19 Emergency is influencing the response to the Climate Emergency (and mostly in a good way).

    Christina Figureres wrote in the Guardian of June 1st about how many international institutions and corporate leaders are learning the lesson of governmental responses to Covid 19 to call for ambitious green economic stimulus packages.

  • Avoiding a shock to the system

    Avoiding a shock to the system

    No system is perfect. Corvid-19 has shown us that. As Britain grinds to a halt, what would have happened if we had tried to carry on as normal as the work dried up, employees laid off with no pay, companies went bust, and no benefits or sick pay for days? Our High Streets could close for good during a terrible recession, led by the biggest fall on the stock markets since 1987. 

    And, thank goodness, despite that we have a government traditionally of low taxation and a small welfare state, there was a quick realisation that our free market economy – which has given us a safe, stable country – could not cope. It was time to throw in a lifebelt and shore up the weaknesses of the system: relaxing benefit rules, paying salaries.

    From a fiscally-Conservative point of view it works because people still have jobs and money to spend which protects growth.

    From a socialist or populist-Conservative point-of-view it works because it looks after people.

    Now, think about something else that’s killed millions of people, not only those with underlying health conditions but, in fact, has given people underlying health conditions.

    Of course I’m talking climate change and air pollution. These are caused by another failure of the system: encouraging that which creates monetary wealth irrespective of the poverty it causes to the environment and climate.

    To abate this problem, we could simply stop burning fossil fuels (and meat farming).

    But the Coronavirus crisis has shown that putting the brakes on the usual run of things shocks the market and throws it under a bus. You save the climate but chuck the world into chaos. People lose their livelihoods. Anxiety and poverty is rife. And the effect would quickly be temporary.

    So we can’t ban burning fossil fuels overnight, even though that may feel the obvious solution to desperate times. We need to make them redundant, make them a bad investment by easing them out of our economy and giving the market fair warning. Prices will go up so people need a financial cushion before more cheap clean energy comes online. And the fix would stick.

    It works because it protects the economy, it protects jobs and the people the economy is there to serve.

    This is the beauty of a Climate Income.

  • COP 25 and a future for an international carbon market

    COP 25 and a future for an international carbon market

    Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), most countries are treaty-bound to avoid “dangerous climate change”. Countries who signed and ratified the 2015 Paris Accord then had to produce nationally defined contributions (NDCs) to meet the decarbonisation targets.

    As the twenty-fifth annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP) begins in Madrid, attention has been focused on Article 6 of the Paris Accord and how this may shape global carbon markets.

    Article 6 of the Paris Accord lays out an opportunity to implement the NDCs through cooperation mechanisms. These mechanisms seek to assist the existing targets and raise the ambition of future targets and forms the legal framework to allow market-based solutions, with an option for a common, cross-border carbon market potentially also linked to existing schemes such as the EU emissions trading system (ETS). This could be de-centralised through bi-lateral cooperation or centralised through an international body designated by COP. And another sub-section in Article 6 leaves the door open for non-market-based approaches although this has yet to be defined. The best way to proceed and enact this Article is to be decided at this year’s COP.

    This is in response to the virtual collapse of the previous regime- the clean development mechanism (CDM). This was the world’s only global system for trading carbon which was designed to allow developed countries to achieve compliance through purchasing offsets from CDM projects in developing countries. This collapse was brought about by a myriad of factors coming together, such as the US’ refusal to ratify Kyoto; emerging economies classified as developing, such as China and India, meaning they have no emission reduction targets; and the recession and Eurozone crisis throughout Europe.

    Eighty-eight of the countries that have continued to commit to the Paris Accord, representing more than half of global emissions, have stated that they plan to use or are using carbon pricing as a tool.

    Now, the question is whether the tool will be fit-for-purpose and be all-encompassing. There is potential to create a sensible international carbon trading market that is fair for all countries- whether their economies are developing or developed. The simplest, transparent and most complete solution is the Climate Income from the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

    The UK is a successful case-study in implementing a carbon price that has the desired effect. The carbon price floor (CPF) policy was initiated to support the ETS in 2013 and since then electricity generation using coal has decreased to almost zero. However, the CPF only covers electricity generation, which is not the largest sector of emissions, and the pound per tonne of carbon dioxide (£/tCO2) was frozen at £18/tCO2 in 2016. Although the CPF worked as designed it could be more ambitious by targeting all sectors equally; using  pound per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (£/tCO2e) to also capture methane emissions and other greenhouse gases; and not allowing a freeze on the price, instead investing more into the alternatives that mature or returning the revenue collected to the public, such as the Climate Income.

    Climate Income works by, through new legislation, charging the businesses that extract or import fossil fuels, according to the amount they burn (£/CO2e). Import fees are levied on products imported from countries without a price on carbon along with rebates to UK industries exporting to those countries, discouraging businesses from relocating where they can emit more greenhouse gases.

    So, a global carbon market that encourages participation across all countries, taxes the emitters at source, gives the revenue back to the citizens of the country from which the tax was collected, and accounts for importing or exporting sources of emissions sounds like the way forward and hopefully this will be discussed and realised at COP 25 with a commitment to implement this essential global carbon market.

  • Skylarks and Wind Turbines

    Jo Waltham at Westmill wind and solar farm

    Last Sunday I stood beneath an 80m tall wind turbine—its blade tips rushing past at 100 mph. It was a dramatic sight but the loudest sound I could hear was the singing of skylarks. This was quite striking as, a few days before, I’d been reading objections placed in 2015 against placing of a wind turbine at Chapmanslade (near Westbury) and one of the concerns had been about noise.

    I’m not suggesting that noise was the deciding factor in the rejection of the Chapmanside proposal but the wind farm I was visiting, Westmill wind and solar farm a few miles north-east of Swindon, has 5 turbines generating 6.5 MW of electricity and their soothing whisper was far less disturbing than that from cars on the minor road running past the farm. Noise really wasn’t an issue.

    Westmill is well worth a visit (details at http://www.weset.org). Free tours are run by the Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust once a month through the Spring, Summer and Autumn whilst special visits can be laid on for larger groups. Our volunteer guides for the two-hour walk around the site—Sarah James and Mim Norvell—were extraordinarily knowledgeable. I don’t think there was a single question, the seven of us on the tour asked, that they couldn’t answer:

    How much electricity does the site generate?—the wind and solar farms combined generate enough electricity for 4100 homes.

    How long did it take for the site to prevent more carbon dioxide emissions than produced by building it?—about 8 months for the wind farm and 2.5 years for the solar farm.

    How did the locals react to the wind-farm proposal?—there were many objectors but there were even more supporters.

    How long did it take to get planning permission?—16 years for the wind farm but the solar farm was approved very quickly.

    How has it affected farming?—the wind turbines have a very small footprint and crops are grown around them whilst sheep graze beneath the solar panels and benefit from the shelter that gives them.

    What’s the effect on birds?—there’s been no problem at Westmill although siting of wind farms should avoid bird migration routes.

    How about bats?—bats do seem to be attracted to wind turbines and this has caused problems at other sites.

    I’m sure you can guess where I’m going with this. To prevent dangerous climate change we need more wind farms and many of the objections don’t add up. They’re not noisy, it doesn’t take 40 years to get the energy back and, with sensible siting, they are not a problem for birds or bats. Of course we do need to be sensitive about exactly where we place them—even I wouldn’t put a turbine in the centre of Stonehenge—but we also need to relax the harsh anti-wind planning rules introduced by the government in 2015.

    For a start, Wiltshire Council needs to designate areas where wind-farms will be allowed, this is a step they haven’t yet taken with the result that new wind farms are banned across our county. As I said in a previous column, onshore wind farms are the cheapest form of electricity and they have to be an important component of preventing excessive global warming at an affordable price.

    First published in Marlborough.news