Brexit- Clexit September update

55 / Media Misinformation

Perhaps most significantly, a new hardline organisation, based at 55 Tufton St, was launched and was given a very public blessing by the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson on 29 September. The Institute for Free Trade is led by Conservative MEP and climate denier, Daniel Hannan. It was given a prestigious launch at the Foreign Office with a speech by Boris Johnson. This speech led to fresh accusations that Boris Johnson had broken the ministerial code and should be sacked. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-brexit-sacking-ministerial- code-event-foreign-office-a7972676.html

Earlier in September, the Caribbean and the US were hit by catastrophic hurricanes- Harvey, Irma and Maria. Matt Ridley of the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s academic advisory council wrote in to question the link with , to assert that adaptation to extreme weather is more important than mitigation and to attack those he accused of “milking natural disasters for political gain.”https://www.thegwpf.com/matt-ridley-we-are-more-than-a-match-for- hurricanes/

Ridley’s claims were scrutinised by George Monbiot in the Guardian. He stated that Ridley’s “vision relies on downplaying or dismissing the predictions of environmental scientists.” The reality, as Monbiot pointed out, is “we cannot buy our way out of a process that could, through a combination of heat stress, aridity, sea level rise and crop failure, render large parts of the inhabited world hostile to human life; and which, through sudden jolts, could translate environmental crisis into financial crisis.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/13/hurricane-irma-capitalism-growth- economics-environment-financial-crisis

With, perhaps, fewer academic pretensions than Matt Ridley, Richard Littlejohn wrote a piece for the Daily Mail about the extreme weather, also criticising “the usual suspects” for “blaming so- called climate change.” He then considered the English Tsunami of 1014 and imagined how the 11th century versions of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace would have reacted. Richard Littlejohn did not seem to understand that there is no link between tsumanis and climate change. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4874804/Richard-Littlejohn-Great-British-Tsunami- 1014.html

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail was forced to acknowledge one of its earlier pieces of on climate was misinformation. It admitted that the David Rose article, which alleged that world leaders were duped by climate data manipulation was ‘significantly misleading’. This followed a complaint made by Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute for Climate Research https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/16/climate/british-press-watchdog-climate- change.html?mcubz=3

During September, the Labour MP Graham Stringer who is on the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s board of trustees was appointed to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. His role will be to ensure that Government decisions are based on sound scientific evidence but it’s quite possible he will use this role to dispute the scientific consensus on climate change. In 2014, Mr Stringer was one of only two MPs to vote against the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s acceptance of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of global warming. In a BBC interview in 2015 Mr Stringer falsely claimed there was no scientific evidence” linking climate change to the floods that ravaged Britain that winter. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/graham-stringer-mp-climate- change-science-and-technology-committee-global-warming-policy-foundation-a7946966.html

The media and Tufton St denier network distorted a paper on climate science that was published in September. The paper, published in Nature Geoscience evaluated how much carbon dioxide the world can emit and stay within the Paris climate targets. The paper looked at how many years we have to reduce emissions to zero and found that this could be done over a longer time period than previously thought. James Delingpole and Graham Stringer both took this up in the UK newspapers and attempted to undermine climate science. One of the papers’ authors, Myles Allen wrote about the inaccuracy of their comments in the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/21/when-media-sceptics-misrepresent-our-climate- research-we-must-speak-out

Climate denier, Roger Helmer of UKIP spoke up for UK energy inefficiency when the EU brought in new rules for more efficient vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners using more than 900 watts and emitting more than 80 decibels will be banned when stocks run out according to rules. Roger Helmer – who recently resigned as MEP amid an investigation into alleged misuse of funds- opined, "By all means let's make pathetic under-powered vacuum cleaners for export to the EU. But we must retain the right to make and use sensible full-powered appliances in the UK. This shows why we must not agree to be bound by EU rules after Brexit."

Roger Helmer had got confused. The European Environment Bureau (EEB) said: "Power doesn't always equal performance, though the misconception has become widespread. Some efficient models maintained high standards of dust pick-up while using significantly less energy - due to design innovation."

Vacuum cleaner salesman Howard Johnson, who works in Coventry, told BBC News: "People want a more powerful vacuum cleaner but they can't see that more power doesn't mean more suction. The lower power machines are perfectly adequate, and better for the planet".

According to the EU, more efficient vacuum cleaners could save the EU 20 TWH of electricity by 2020, and 6 million tonnes of CO2 will not be emitted. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41119355

Trump and Clexit.

The US and its dependent territories were hit by hurricanes in September. Harvey caused a huge amount of damage with thirty inches of rain falling in less than 48 hours. By the end of the month the death toll stood at forty seven, tens of thousands had been driven from their homes and federal authorities estimate that half a million people will seek disaster assistance. The fingerprint of man-made climate change is clear: Warmer temperatures lead to greater atmospheric moisture, resulting in greater risk of major downpours and flooding. Likewise, rising sea levels result in an increased vulnerability to storm surges. Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University analysed it in detail and concluded “while we cannot say climate change “caused” Hurricane Harvey (that is an ill-posed question), we can say is that it exacerbated several characteristics of the storm in a way that greatly increased the risk of damage and loss of life. Climate change worsened the impact of Hurricane Harvey.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/climate-change- hurricane-harvey-more-deadly The tragic irony, of course, is that while Scott Pruitt accused people speaking of Harvey as a climate impact of ‘opportunism’, it came after eight months of intense activity by Trump, Pruitt and their colleagues in rolling back environmental protections and climate policies. Both George Monbiot and Naomi Klein wrote eloquently about the importance to challenge the silence about Harvey and climate change. Monbiot wrote, “I believe it is the silence that’s political. To report the storm as if it were an entirely natural phenomenon, like last week’s eclipse of the sun, is to take a position. By failing to make the obvious link and talk about climate breakdown, media organisations ensure our greatest challenge goes unanswered. They help push the world towards catastrophe.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/29/hurricane-harvey- manmade-climate-disaster-world-catastrophe

Naomi Klein wrote, “It’s also a hard truth that the window for having these debates is vanishingly small. We won’t be having any kind of public policy debate after this emergency subsides; the media will be back to obsessively covering Trump’s tweets and other palace intrigues. So while it may feel unseemly to be talking about root causes while people are still trapped in their homes, this is realistically the only time there is any sustained media interest whatsoever in talking about climate change.” https://theintercept.com/2017/08/28/harvey-didnt-come-out-of-the-blue-now-is-the- time-to-talk-about-climate-change/

Hurricane Harvey was followed by Hurricane Irma, one of the most intense storms ever to form over the Atlantic. As it approached Florida, the Mayor of Miami criticised the Trump administration for denying the link between climate change and more intense and destructive storms. Tomas Regalado said, “This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the EPA and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change. If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.” https://thinkprogress.org/miami-mayor-irma-climate-change-06f79acce55d/

At the same time, experts suggested that the Florida Governor’s denial of climate change had made the state more vulnerable to the impact of Irma. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/irma-florida-latest-hurricane-news-climate-denial-governor- infrastructure-a7937356.html

In spite of the extreme weather, the roll-out of climate denial and the roll-back of climate protection by the Trump administration continued. Trump announced that Republican Congressman, Jim Brindestine would run NASA. Brindestine, unlike previous NASA leaders, has no scientific credentials. In 2013 he demanded that President Obama apologise for funding climate research. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-names-climate-science-denier-to-run-nasa-c9a46a6f4a52/ Towards of the month the New York Times reported that Scott Pruitt of the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to cut off funds to Justice Department to enforce environmental protection laws. Currently, if a company breaks the law, the Justice Department takes action and is reimbursed by the EPA. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/us/politics/scott-pruitt-epa-justice- department-funding.html

In the middle of the month both Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster indicated that the US could remain in a re-negotiated Paris climate agreement. This was denied by the White House. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/17/trump-tillerson-mcmaster- paris-climate-accord-stay-in Brexit

Brexit continued to dominate the news, with pretty open warfare within the Conservative Party – and a virtual break down of cabinet collective responsibility.

Dozens of Conservative MPs wrote to ministers to warning them not to use a post-Brexit transitional period to remain in the EU ‘by stealth’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41187051

During September, Parliament voted through the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ (officially called the (Withdrawal) Bill’) amid widespread concern that the bill represented a ‘power grab’ by Government. It includes ‘Henry VIII clauses’ that will allow ministers to make and scrap laws outside of normal parliamentary accountability. Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now explained how this will take place, giving clear examples of human rights and environmental protections that could be threatened. He concluded “Parliamentary democracy depends on the ability of MPs to hold a government to account. It would be deeply ironic if Brexit, based as it supposedly is on reclaiming the sovereignty of our Parliament, does more to damage that sovereignty than any other event in recent history.” http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/great-repeal-bill-eu-withdrawal- democracy-rights-liam-fox-deregulation-a7934091.html At the same time environmental organisations wrote to and Liam Fox to say that the Brexit Bill ‘gravely threatens’ UK climate change protections. The Environmental Policy Forum (EPF), which represents several environmental professional bodies, said the Government's new Brexit legislation did not go far enough to protect existing environmental laws or offer parliamentary scrutiny on changes being brought forward. Professor Will Pope, EPF chair, said “We are calling for appropriate checks and balances to be established from the outset, to ensure we do not risk becoming the ‘dirty man of Europe’ again.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-uk-climate-change-policies-withdrawal-bill- threat-green-environment-warning-a7933171.html

The Government power grab continued with legislation to ensure that the Conservative Party dominates House of Commons Select Committees which will have an important role in scrutinising legislation Theresa May’s speech on Brexit in Florence which signalled a more open approach and one which laid out the Government’s hopes for a transition period was sandwiched between two ‘salvos’ from Boris Johnson in which he proposed a more hard-line approach to Brexit; the first in the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/15/exclusive-boris-johnson-yes-will-take- back-350m-eu-nhs/ and the second in the Sun http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41441444 Amid divisions over Brexit, there was perhaps inevitably, increased speculation about Theresa May’s successor. Jacob Rees-Mogg came under the spotlight for his opinions on abortion and food banks. Less well known are that he is a climate denier and opposed climate action. An overview can be seen here https://www.desmog.uk/2017/05/16/general-election-2017-which- seats-are-climate-science-deniers-trying-win and seen in an interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=81&v=frs1Glq8pmw

The month ended with Conservatives arriving for the Party conference in Manchester – weakened and divided, increasingly autocratic and leaving the public unclear about Brexit will mean for the nation, the economy and the planet.

Government backtracking on climate policy

The Government broke its most recent promise on the long-awaited Clean Growth Plan by not publishing it in September. (It’s now at least nine months late.) https://www.cleanenergynews.co.uk/news/solar/publication-of-clean-growth-plan-remains-unclear-as- beis-ducks-questions

Meanwhile lawyers began legal action against the Government over its failure to increase carbon reduction target in the Climate Change Act in line with the latest science. The current 80% reduction by 2050 target is no longer adequate or in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The Climate Change Act always allowed for increases in the ambition of carbon reduction targets. 18 months ago Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom promised a 100% emissions reduction plan. The Clean Growth Plan has yet to appear and revised targets have failed to appear in law. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41401656

The Government’s backtracking on energy efficiency after 2015 was roundly criticised in a new report by the UK Energy Research Centre. Dr Jan Rosenow, a co-author told BBC News: “The government has slashed spending on energy efficiency over the past few years, arguing that it would reduce energy bills. “It just is ludicrous to cut efficiency programmes to bring down bills… you want to increase spending on efficiency to bring down bills.” Nick Eyre, Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford, said: “The ‘Green Crap’ reduced energy bills. Until that’s understood and acknowledged we’re not going to make any progress on this agenda.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41167853

In terms of rhetoric on climate change, the Government seemed confused. On the one hand, Theresa May criticised Donald Trump for pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement at the UN. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/20/theresa-may-speaks-out-against-trump-climate- change-stance-at-un On the other hand, Government minister Alan Duncan reacted to comments on the extreme weather in September in a way that was reminiscent of the Trump administration and the climate denial voices in UK media.

Following Irma, Gaston Browne, the leader of Antigua and Barbuda said “The science is clear. Climate change is real – in the Caribbean we are living with the consequences of climate change. It is unfortunate that there are some who see it differently.”

When Caroline Lucas quoted him in parliament and challenged the Government on its climate policies, the minister, Alan Duncan accused her of ‘deeply misjudging the tone of the house.’ He went on to “show a bit more urgent and immediate humanity, rather than making the point that she has made today”. This echoes Trump’s EPA chief, Scott Pruitt’s accusation that those who speak about climate change in relation to hurricanes are ‘insensitive’. Caroline Lucas analysed Duncan’s outburst in the context of on-going mismatch between climate rhetoric and appropriate climate action. She concluded, “The Government needs to stop shutting down the debate. Ministers need to stop slashing green measures. They need to halt the ban on onshore wind and end fossil fuel subsidies. They need to get serious about supporting solar. And they need to stop sitting on their hands while hurricanes plough through people’s houses and ruin livelihoods.” http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hurricane-irma-climate-change-caribbean-caroline-lucas-house-of-commons-green-energy- a7935106.html