An extraordinary interview took place today on the PM programme on BBC Radio 4, between Evan Davis and Lord Deben of the UK Climate Change Committee. Here is my transcript:

Evan Davis [ED]: Lord Deben, thanks so much for joining us. I’ll start if we could with that interview we’ve just heard before the news summary about that Cumbrian coal mine. He thinks – er, that is the Leader of Copeland Borough Council, Mike Starkey, thinks – that permission will be given. Is that the right decision?

Lord Deben [LD]: No, it wouldn’t be the right decision. The fact is that erm this coal mine is not just for British steel. They’re going to export 80% of the coal produced. And the truth is that we’re moving towards the ability to produce steel in a much greener way. We really musn’t go back to old-fashioned ways of doing it, and it would set a very bad example for the rest of the world. And so I very much hope that the Government will say what they ought to say, which is that this is not a suitable thing and er we won’t have it. And the fact that the Cumbrian County Council did not er turn it down was simply because we still haven’t changed the er system, the planning system, to include the fact that all decisions must be made in the context of our battle against climate change, our commitment to net zero by 2050, and the fact that we’ve signed up to the Glasgow and the Paris Agreements.

ED: Mm, OK, you’ve made your view on that one very clear. Let’s go to the topics of the day, I suppose, which are, starting with Rishi Sunak. So he came round to the idea that he would go to COP27 and I’m assuming, Lord Deben, that you are pleased with that U-turn.

LD: Well, I said I hoped he’d go, erm, I thought that the original thing was not his decision at all, it was just the, er, I’m afraid, one of those occasions in which the Number 10 said I’ve looked at his diary and there’s no space in it, and it’s gonna be very difficult for him to do it because of the, I think, the G… the G7 meeting beforehand, but he will do it. I’m pleased about that, and he’s re-stated his commitment, which has been long-standing, to fighting climate change and realising there really is no economic future for us unless we do that.

ED: And do you believe him? Obviously, there’ve been words that say he is with the programme, the programme that you support, Lord Deben, but do you, do you feel there’s been any watering-down of this country’s commitment to net zero and the steps along the way since Boris Johnson stopped being Prime Minister, for example?

LD: No, not as far as he’s concerned. The problem is, even when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, was, we’ve got the right targets, we led the world on where we have to go, and how fast we have to do it, but our delivery has been appalling. We’ve erm only managed to cover well, less than 40% of what we have to do. That’s why, in our report, last June, the Climate Change Committee made absolutely clear that what we need is a much more detailed er plan as to how we reach what we’ve promised to do by 2030, what we’ve promised to do by 2035 and what we’ve committed for 2050, and so I’m looking for that, for that very practical man, Rishi Sunak, who, as Chancellor, did show his support for what needs to be done and I’m expecting him to continue to do that.

ED: You used the word appalling to describe the British Government’s record on delivery, as opposed to targets.

LD: Yeah, I’m very sad because, you see, we’re so good on the targets. We’ve done so well on that, the Government has to be congratulated on that, and whatever you think of, er of Boris Johnson, he really did er follow on from Theresa May’s er commitment to net zero, and we’ve really had the standards, we’ve led the world. But in the end, people will not believe you unless you show how your delivery’s gonna happen.

ED: Targets are pointless if they don’t actually lead to anything, you just keep revising the targets as you miss them. Do you think Rishi Sunak…

LD (interrupting): Well just a moment, you can’t revise the targets, because the targets are in the law, and they can’t change the law unless the Committee on Climate Change gives them permission, and we’re not going to.

ED: Oh, that’s interesting. Often we have changed the law when targets, child poverty, for example, we just, we missed the targets and changed the law.

LD: But unfortunately for those who would like that, you cannot do it under the Climate Change Act. The law says that once Parliament has voted for those targets they become statutory [sic] necessary, and unless you actually repeal the Climate Change Act, you can’t change those targets.

ED: Extraordinary. D’you know, I did not know that. Of course, you can sack the Climate Change Committee and appoint some other people, presumably, can you, Lord Deben…?

LD: Well, I, you can’t do that either, because…

ED (interrupting, laughing): This is so interesting!

LD: Happily, the Chairman of the Climate Change Committee is appointed, not by the Government alone, but by the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales…

ED (interrupting): Right.

LD: …and the First Minister of the [sic] Northern Ireland. I don’t think you’d get them to choose precisely the person that you’d want for that purpose, do you?

ED: No, well that is a really, really set of interesting, erm, interesting points. Lord Deben, we need to leave it there but, erm, absolutely fascinating, they’d better make sure we hit the targets, is what I might take out of that! (laughing). Lord Deben, thank you very much.

Lord Deben did at least acknowledge that Parliament could repeal the Climate Change Act, but that seemed to be his sole concession to the concept of democracy. To this listener, at least, he sounded like a tin-pot climate dictator, absolutely confident in the knowledge that his position is unassailable, and that he and his colleagues are going to ensure that the targets adopted under the Climate Change Act must be treated as holy writ. What a marked contrast in those comments, to his comments earlier in the interview regarding the planning process. In that respect he sounded to me as though he thinks that the planning process should be treated, not as as the law currently provides, but as though “all decisions must be made in the context of our battle against climate change, our commitment to net zero by 2050, and the fact that we’ve signed up to the Glasgow and the Paris Agreements”, even though – as he acknowledged – “ we still haven’t changed the …planning system” to make that the law.

As for this:

Well just a moment, you can’t revise the targets, because the targets are in the law, and they can’t change the law unless the Committee on Climate Change gives them permission, and we’re not going to.

Who “they” are wasn’t made clear, but it sounded to me as though he was talking about Parliament. If you thought that we live in a democracy, perhaps you should think again.

16 Comments

  1. With all due respect, Lord Deben and his oals on the committee should be told to eff off and be frog marched out off their offices. The nerve of a […]to claim veto power over democracy is truly disgusting.

    hunterson7, thanks for the comment, and while I’m inclined to agree with your words which I’ve edited out, I don’t want to risk libelling anyone. That always has to be the bottom line.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Thanks Mark.

    I heard this live and was spitting feathers for most of it. It’s not unusual for me to be shouting at the radio to try to tell Evan Davies what questions he should be putting. But today’s performance from Gummer was nothing short of disgraceful. If this does not awaken a few qualms in some of our MPs, then I despair for their collective intelligence.

    I would like to thank Gummer for turning me into a vegetarian 30 years ago with a different piece of stupidity, but in this voter’s opinion, he should stand down now, go home and keep his own counsel for a decade or three.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. “Well just a moment, you can’t revise the targets, because the targets are in the law, and they can’t change the law unless the Committee on Climate Change gives them permission, and we’re not going to.”

    from that I take it he means his committee will block any changes from any present & future UK gov.

    he seems to be Lord of a nice little fiefdom.

    ps – I wonder what they mean by “target”, can it really be a binding/law statement?
    I know in engineering you set targets for projects, but most times, everybody involved knows they will not be met.

    Like

  6. Like Christiana Figueres former exec sec of UN Convention on Climate Change admitted, CC was not about the climate but about changing the world economic development model. Socialists have a plan and to make it work , everyone must be persuaded to pull together, Officialdom’s end must be our end… no criticism will be countenanced. Hayek saw this

    80th EDITION SERF UNDER_GROUND JOURNAL

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  7. Searching the interweb for Lord Deben news – thinking that surely Mark cannot have been the only one to have been offended by his nonsense on PM – I found no opinion articles about that but I did find:

    “Lord Deben: The UK’s net-zero review is an opportunity to accelerate delivery, not an excuse to water down ambition”

    The CCC’s 2022 progress report to Parliament stated that the UK is making “scant progress” on decarbonisation. The Committee stated that, despite strong headline targets, there have been a string of “major failures in delivery plans” – both in design and implementation – that have hampered progress in high-emission sectors such as buildings, transport and agriculture.

    And much more in the same vein. It is quite obvious that politicians have no right to declare targets for a generation and a half down the track. The only things they can deliver on are the things that they themselves will see to fruition. This is why the absurd target of Net Zero gives politicians no collywobbles – it’s just a can-kicking exercise. Of course, there will come a crunch point, and the project will be abandoned or revised to 2100.

    https://www.edie.net/lord-deben-the-uks-net-zero-review-is-an-opportunity-to-accelerate-delivery-not-an-excuse-to-water-down-ambition/

    [edie is not an acronym; it’s a sustainable-business enthuser, apparently named after the tea lady.]

    Here is Deben taking the award for lifetime achievement in making the next generation poorer.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. If the coal for steel making is mainly being exported, is that because British steel makers are gone because of the Net Zero policies? If most of UK steel is imported, possibly made with UK coal, does that not just show the hypocrisy of the virtual signallers? If it’s made elsewhere, we can pretend it’s clean attitude? That makes a good attack line.

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  9. Beth: thanks for the history lesson. I see echoes of Net Zero in these warnings from the past!

    Chris, in his history of World War 2, Churchill makes a lot of how much steel each country can make, seeing in steelmaking the currency of power. The UK does not have much steelmaking left now, and what little is left is demanding handouts to keep running. I would not put this down to Net Zero, since it has been dwindling for decades.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. The metal and other mineral requirements for the UNFCC/IPCC/IEA/OECD “consensus net zero pollicy” have recently been calculated by Finland’s Geological Survey and published at https://www.gtk.fi/en/current/there-are-bottlenecks-in-raw-materials-supply-chain-a-glimpse-of-the-systemic-overview-is-here-discussion-and-the-development-of-the-solutions-have-started/ . It takes a while to read but highlights the massive quantities that must be extracted, refined and turned into wind turbines, solar cells, nuclear power stations etc. I have demanded that the CCC MUST explain itself in the light of this peer reviewed publication.

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  11. “Devolved leaders reject shortlist for climate watchdog chair over Tory links
    Refusal by Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish leaders to approve candidates means whole recruitment process may have to be rerun”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/01/devolved-leaders-reject-shortlist-for-climate-watchdog-chair-over-tory-links

    Ministers in Westminster have been accused of trying to blunt the teeth of the UK’s net zero watchdog by appointing a Tory loyalist to the post of chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC).

    The leaders of the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have refused to approve any of the six shortlisted candidates, saying they are all too close to the Conservatives and lack diversity.

    The row has significantly delayed the UK government’s attempts to appoint a successor to John Gummer (Lord Deben), the committee’s first chair and a former Tory minister, who repeatedly challenged ministers for being insufficiently radical in their policies on combating global heating.

    Since the CCC has a statutory duty to oversee climate policies for the UK government and all three devolved administrations, the shortlist requires consent from all four nations….

    Casual misinformation is everywhere, not least among those, such as the Guardian, who complain about misinformation. It doesn’t matter what the CCC says, nor what policies the UK government adopts, the UK cannot “combat” (nor even make a measurable difference to) “global heating”.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. “Big UK emissions cut needed, says climate watchdog”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62jrn55n6yo

    The UK needs to make huge cuts to its greenhouse gas emissions this decade to help the world avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures, the government’s climate watchdog has said.

    The Climate Change Committee (CCC) says the UK has the technologies to do this, but meeting the goal would require much greater investment in renewable energy, electric cars and heat pumps.

    While the UK has already cut its emissions by more than 50% since 1990, the CCC says it should extend this to 81% by 2035, which would make a “credible contribution” to the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

    A spokesperson said the government would carefully consider the CCC’s advice.

    If the government commits to the suggested target, it would represent a significant advance on the UK’s current international pledge to cut emissions by 68% by 2030.

    It is, however, broadly in line with the UK’s legally-binding carbon-cutting path towards net zero emissions by 2050….

    Three observations from me:

    First, it’s good to see that the language used is more careful than perhaps it has been in the past. Now we’re told we need to do this “to help the world avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures” rather than to “deal with” climate change or some other similar absurd choice of words.

    Secondly, the targets remain absurd, and patently while most of the rest of the world is happily increasing its emissions, even the watered down form of words starts to look meaningless. As the costs and pain of ratchetting up net zero bite ever more deeply, I anticipate an increasing push-back, given the lack of interest in much of the rest of the world.

    Thirdly, we keep being told that it’s “legally binding”, as though it’s somehow written in tablets of stone and can’t be tampered with. Yes, it’s legally binding (for now), because the Climate Change Act (as amended by statutory instrument passed after 90 minutes’ “debate”) makes it so. However, Parliament is supreme, and the Act, the Climate Change Committee and the “binding” emissions targets could all be scrapped very quickly if Parliament wakes up and sees sense.

    Liked by 4 people

  13. It gets worse. Even the CCC’s absurd demands aren’t enough for some:

    “Campaigners call for steeper cuts to UK greenhouse gas emissions

    Climate Change Committee advised Ed Miliband to cut level by 81% but activists want bigger promises”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/26/campaigners-call-for-steeper-cuts-to-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions

    ...campaigners urged the government to go further in order to demonstrate global leadership and spur innovation and a low-carbon economy. Mike Childs, the head of policy at Friends of the Earth, said: “With climate change spiralling dangerously out of control, the recommended 81% cut should be seen as the very minimum carbon reduction target the UK government should commit to. Ramping up ambition to make even deeper cuts in practice would show real leadership in global efforts to avert the worst of climate breakdown.”

    Catherine Pettengell, the executive director of Climate Action Network UK, said: “[This] should be the floor, not the ceiling, of the UK’s ambition and action. A more ambitious and fair target could be achieved if the UK brings its full economic and political will to the table.”

    Meeting the new target will be a stretch. The UK is far away from meeting the international target in place of a 68% reductions in emissions by 2030, which was set by Boris Johnson before the UK hosted the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, according to analysis by Friends of the Earth.

    Doug Parr, the policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “True leadership means the government must also set out tangible plans to deliver on its 2035 target.” He called for the fulfilment of Labour’s promise to end new oil and gas licences, at least triple renewables and double energy efficiency rates by 2030, and support workers to transition away from polluting industries.…

    Liked by 2 people

  15. The CCC recommends that the UK’s NDC commits to reduce territorial greenhouse gas emissions by 81% from 1990 to 2035. This is based on the CCC’s advice on the UK’s Seventh Carbon Budget, due to be published in February 2025. It is informed by the latest science, technological developments, and the UK’s national circumstances.

    https://www.theccc.org.uk/2024/10/26/ccc-advises-81-reduction-in-emissions-by-2035/

    Where is this ‘latest science’? CCC doesn’t link to it anywhere that I can see. Pinchbeck is supposedly an “expert in whole economy decarbonisation” though she has no formal scientific or engineering qualifications. MPs and the public should demand to see this ‘latest science.’

    Liked by 1 person

  16. I have just been sent (very kindly – transcribing is tedious work) a transcript of Lord Deben’s interview on 11th November on BBC Radio 4’s World at One (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024w8b at 36 minutes). IT contains quite a few highly dubious claims that sceptics would probably say shouldn’t have been allowed to pass without pushback or challenge (no prizes for identifying the most):

    Sarah Montague: With the world warming by more than 1.5 degrees this year it is not really possible to keep that as an aim that warming should be under it. Lord Deben, former Conservative Environment Secretary and former Chairman of the Climate Change Committee joins us. Good afternoon Lord Deben.

    Dr Luteru [Samoa’s spokesman at COP who had been interviewed just before Deben] there saying he is hopeful about the whole “One-point-five – keeping it alive” but this year is past it – is it realistic, shouldn’t people face up to the fact – look we need to address the fact that it’s no longer a possibility.

    Lord Deben: No! I think it is absolutely  important to keep it – we have to fight for it, because when you see what has happened, for example, in Spain, with a temperature increase of just over 1.2  – that sort of level – you see what happens then, just imagine what will happen if you went to 1.5. If you go to 2 you have no idea what that will do for example to the oceans. We could have unbelievable disruption because the oceans won’t work in the way they do now and if you challenge, for example, the Gulf Stream it might be not global warming for us but global freezing.

    S M: Yes! My point wasn’t that we want it there, it’s just being realistic about what we’re facing. And, of course, we’re talking after the US election last week. As we’re actually talking, the US climate envoy is on the stage at COP (John Podesta) he of course represents President Biden, so he would say that wouldn’t he. But he does say that it’s clear that the next US administration will try to take a U-turn and reverse climate progress. Does getting back to 1.5 become harder with Donald Trump in the White House?

    Lord Deben: Well, of course it becomes harder, but, in the end, whatever Donald Trump says, climate change is happening – and it’s happening all over the US and what we will have are many cities and states actually taking the steps as they did the previous time that Donald Trump was in power. In the end, however much you shout and say, you have to accept the realities. That is why Mrs Thatcher went to the UN to say “we may not like it, it’s very inconvenient , but climate change is happening and we have to fight it”.

    S M: Well, of course, China is now the biggest emitter, the biggest polluter – is it doing what is necessary?

    Lord Deben: Well, it’s doing better than most countries. It’s increasing its offshore wind, its onshore wind and its photovoltaics. It’s actually turning the whole economy round in that way. It’s committed itself to reach net zero by 2060 – I’m prepared to take a small bet (I’m rather too old for this I suppose) that they’ll actually reach it by 2050 when the Rest of the World has signed-up. They are being remarkable but of course it gives them huge strengths – they are weaponizing it – they are selling the photovoltaic cells, they are producing more and more electric motor cars. They’ve seen that, if climate change is happening, they know it’s happening therefore if it’s happening they are going to make money out of it.
    Why the blazes we capitalists haven’t seen that as well, I really don’t understand.

    S M: On the COP – it’s the finance COP – we’ve heard Dr Luteru there talking – he wouldn’t commit to the suggestion that a trillion needed to be raised.
    But when you speak about what the actual adaptations they want that for, its things like sea walls. Given what you’re talking about, is that the best way to spend money?

    Lord Deben: Well, some of it is – if you take Bangladesh, for example, the whole country is below sea level. That’s 200 million people. If you don’t adapt you’re going to have 200 million people with no home to go to. And those people who are most worried about migration – the far right – ought to realise that, unless you fight climate change, and enable countries like Bangladesh to adapt then you’re going to have absolutely huge numbers of people moving – not because they want a better life but because there is no life where they are. So we either do this or we set ourselves and the whole of our civilization the threat of mass migration across the continents.

    S M: I wonder, though, what your feeling is about the likelihood it’s going to happen?
    I know you talk very well about it has to happen – this is the awful situation – but I’m just wondering whether you feel optimistic like Dr Luteru said?

    Lord Deben:  Yes, I am. I’m optimistic because so much has already happened which we didn’t expect: the Paris Agreement – the whole World signing up and the fact that we’re moving in the energy transition much more quickly than people thought and the fact that it’s actually cheaper to do what we are doing than to go on with business as usual.

    And I’m a capitalist and I believe in the end the money will pay and in the end we will do it.

    S M: Thank you Lord Deben.

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