Ross Clark

Has a well-meaning international effort to cut pollution from ships contributed to a sudden warming of the waters in the north Atlantic this year? That is the extraordinary claim made this week in an article in Science magazine, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It asserts that limits on the sulphur content of fuels used by ships have helped reduce sulphur pollution from those vessels by 80 per cent – but at the inadvertent cost of reducing cloud formation over the oceans and so speeding global warming.   Previously, well-used corridors of the Atlantic Ocean were covered with ‘ships tracks’ – yellowish, elongated clouds which followed the paths of passing ships.

What is duty on alcoholic drinks for: to raise revenue or to make us better, more sober people? A close reading of the new duty rates which were announced in the spring budget, but which come into effect today, provide little enlightenment. You can read them for yourself, but here is a summary: On beer or cider less than 3.5 per cent alcohol by volume (ABV) you will pay £9.27 per litre of alcohol in the product. (Wine of that strength would be taxed the same, but it wouldn’t be much of a wine, more a part-fermented grape juice drink.) On beer between 3.5 percent and 8.5 per cent ABV you will pay £21.01 per litre of alcohol. Unless, that is, you are drinking draught beer in a pub, in which case you will pay £19.08 per litre of alcohol.

Rishi Sunak has shown no indication that he is considering dumping the government’s legal commitment to achieve net zero by 2050. Nor, so far, has he indicated that he will relax any of the controversial targets for the next decade or so, such as banning new gas boilers or petrol and diesel cars. But his visit to Aberdeenshire today does mark a very sharp change in direction from the government’s green policy in Boris Johnson’s day. Sunak’s policy can be summed up in three words:  Just Continue Oil. For years, government policy has been predicated on the idea that oil and gas are declining, doomed industries and that therefore there is little point in investing or supporting them. Instead, the future lies in renewables.

The lesson from the Uxbridge by-election was clear to both parties: the public will not accept green policies at any price. Whilst in general, the public support cutting carbon emissions and other forms of pollution – support drifts away fast when people are confronted with measures which threaten to make them poorer and their lives more difficult. But now Rishi Sunak risks falling into another trap: aligning himself too closely with his party’s Mr Toad tendency. Announcing a Department for Transport review into low traffic neighbourhoods (LTN), the Prime Minister this morning has sided heavily with motorists, declaring 'the vast majority of people in the country use their cars to get around and are dependent on cars.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has declared that ‘the era of global warming has ended, the era of global boiling has arrived’. As if that were not enough, Guterres declared that ‘the air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable’. Something is raging out of control but it isn’t the temperature: last week’s famous ‘heat domes’ have subsided, with only a few patches of southern Europe over 30ºC this afternoon. It is hyperbole over the climate. What does Guterres – who appeared to be breathing normally as he delivered his speech – hope to achieve by using language that tries to make out that life on Earth is no longer sustainable? We are in an arms race of extreme language, with everyone falling over each other to outdo each other.

The Uxbridge by-election has thrown Labour into a civil war, or at least a civil skirmish. Keir Starmer has told Sadiq Khan to think again on Ulez, and Khan has shown great reluctance to do so. But it has exposed a schism in the Conservatives, too. Yesterday, Rishi Sunak declared that efforts to reach the government’s net zero target should not be allowed to push up the cost of living for struggling families – leading some to predict that some policies, such as the ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2030, could be scrapped. This has brought out the Tories’ net zero enthusiasts to defend the target, even if it does cost households a great deal of money.

It was, to adapt the famous Sun headline from the 1992 general election, Ulez wot won it. The Conservatives’ narrow hold of Uxbridge and South Ruislip was, as Angela Rayner admitted this morning, down to London mayor Sadiq Khan’s dogged determination to inflict a £12.50 daily charge on the drivers of diesel cars more than seven years old and petrol cars more than 15 years old. It shouldn’t have taken much to work out that a highly-regressive tax on the relatively poor was not going to go down well among Labour voters – yet so blinded are many in the party on green issues that they just couldn’t see it. That includes Keir Starmer who two weeks ago told the obvious fib that Sadiq Khan had no choice but to expand Ulez.