Environment

The two-week COP26 climate change summit starts this weekend, with 100,000 expected on a protest march in Glasgow. And tomorrow, we at The Spectator will hold our own (virtual) summit looking at what lies ahead — and asking if history is about to be made, and how much of this is likely to be political theatre. The morning will open at 9.30am with a keynote speech from Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at New College, Oxford: I'll be in discussion with him afterwards. His book, Net Zero, is perhaps the best primer you'll read on the topic: he supports the objective but is sceptical about the "jaw-jaw" of climate summits as a means of pushing through meaningful change. Then Kate Andrews will discuss the elephant in the room: nuclear power.

I am not generally given to conspiracy theories, but I have to say there was a point last week where I started asking myself whether there are people in government saying to each other 'these queues at petrol stations – they are exactly what we need if we are going to persuade people to buy electric cars and phase out petrol and diesel by 2030'. It seems I wasn’t wrong. Except, that is, Zac Goldsmith, a foreign office minister, isn’t saying it quietly. He said in an interview with the Independent of the petrol crisis: “It's a pretty good lesson on the need to unhook ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels. You're not seeing the same problems with people who have electric vehicles.

This gas crisis has hit Britain because we rely too much on gas. That’s not a reason to abandon net zero. It’s a reason to do it. Gas prices are soaring, energy companies are failing. A few people are blaming government environmental policies for that. Their apparent hope is that Boris Johnson proves wobbly on green causes and backs away from net zero. I think they’re wrong, both about the policy and about the politics. Start with the policy. The net zero decarbonisation of the UK economy isn’t the cause of the gas price crisis. It’s the solution.

Britain is caught in an energy crisis of the government’s own making. It is true that gas prices have spiked all over the world — but Britain is suffering more than most. Energy suppliers are going out of business, thanks to the government’s price cap. Even fertiliser companies are going bust, with serious knock-on effects for the food industry: the British Meat Processors Association says shortages could hit within a fortnight. The trigger for this crisis has been the sudden surge in demand for gas as the global economy recovers from the Covid lockdowns. Gas prices have doubled in the United States, for example. In Britain, however, prices are five times higher. Why? Because America exploited fracking technology and capitalised on its huge inland gas reserves.

What have environmentalists got against commuters? Not for the first time a group of bedraggled climate nuts have taken their argument for ‘radical’ action on global warming not to Downing Street or to Parliament Square, but to ordinary people just trying to go about their business. Junctions have been blocked along the M25 near Kings Langley, Heathrow, Swanley, Godstone and Lakeside. This is the work of Insulate Britain, a single-issue Extinction Rebellion offshoot demanding action on home insulation. So far 42 have been arrested. The protesters tweeted that they were ‘disrupting the M25’ to ‘demand the government insulate Britain’.

Climate change is once again dominating the news agenda. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that even if emissions are cut rapidly, the effects of global warming will be felt across the world. The report – which Boris Johnson has declared sobering reading – leads the news today, with the BBC dedicating seven stories on its homepage today to climate change. So just as well then that BBC staffers were recently treated to an internal audience research briefing telling them how best to convey messages about climate change to different audiences.

It is a notable feather in Nigel Farage’s cap that his new evening show on GB News has already become essential viewing for Tory high-ups. Last week brought a series of reports by well-connected commentators suggesting that Boris Johnson was worried about Farage highlighting the government’s chaotic failure to stem the cross-Channel flow of migrant boats. The issue has suddenly shot up the list of issues mentioned by Tory voters, with new polling from Redfield & Wilton Strategies now identifying immigration as their top concern. This week the former Ukip leader has touched another nerve with some Tory MPs by wondering aloud whether their party’s green obsession is reaching a pitch that is going to put off many of its core voters.

Dorian Lynskey recently wrote a piece celebrating Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday entitled 'Bob Dylan doesn’t like you'. The article highlighted the disdain Dylan has for fans, critics, journalists, and even the Nobel Prize Committee. Feted as the voice of a generation, and often acting like it, he still has nothing but scorn for those who acclaim him as such. Another 'voice of a generation', some three generations removed, Greta Thunberg has been acclaimed by many politicians for her climate activism. But there is little sign that Thunberg has anything but scorn for them in return. It would be fair to say to most world leaders 'Greta Thunberg doesn’t like you'.

It is not unusual for governments to focus on a big event after a period of crisis. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was meant to rejuvenate the country after years of post-war austerity and rationing. The 2012 London Olympics, presided over by Mayor Boris Johnson, supposedly announced the UK’s recovery from recession with a £27 million opening ceremony. But games are intended to be boosterish. A 12-day summit on the environment is not an obvious crowd pleaser. Yet this government is determined to turn COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled to be held in Glasgow in the first two weeks of November, into a great event to put Britain on the map.