The key event for the UK will be an election in May, at which Labour will win a majority. I think it will be a small majority, but it will be a majority nonetheless. This result might be a double-edged sword: it will offer the possibility of opposition to bonkers plans actually having some bite, but on the other hand it may lead to the Conservatives not learning the lesson the sceptics would like them to learn. The Budget will be a sad last throw of the dice in which the Chancellor will not even throw the dice. How nice it would have been for the government to cut the green crap and dare the opposition to promise to reinstate it. But that is not the path we are on. The likely bribe will be an increase in the personal allowance, probably by a grand, starting with the new tax year. Labour still wins. The present government has gone through more incarnations than Doctor Who and is exhausted, at the end of its tether.

Labour’s stated policy is a prescription for national destruction, but the optimist in me says that it will run aground on the shoals of reality before too much damage is done. This depends, as I may have mentioned before, on the extent to which we the great unwashed will swallow the gaslighting BS that they are shovelling down our throats. What we believe causes our woes – whether some external force or government policy – is a key matter for the country. You already know that I believe that, when it comes to climate change, the “cure” is worse than the disease. The disease is mild, and the cure is no cure at all, but poison. Alas too few are persuaded of that view for now. Too many fall for the seductive idea that because wind turbines produce free electricity, then the more of them you have, the cheaper electricity becomes. This is a completely wrong idea, but the germ of truth that it holds appears to have the power to override more complex arguments around what a civilised nation requires from its electricity grid. I expect Labour to quadruple down on stupid, but there are a couple of other factors here. The first is that there is no magic wand that can instantly produce serried ranks of wind turbines up hill and down dale. Even a manic approach to renewables will produce pain that escalates only gradually. The second point is the corollary of the first: as the roll out is slow, as the difficulty of hiding the true drivers of our woes grows slowly, slow will be the dawning of the realisation that we are sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

Earlier crunches are inbound, and we know that whenever people are personally affected by Net Zero BS, they begin to oppose it. A generalised and theoretical approval of the goal of Net Zero becomes a particular and concrete opposition to at least one part of it when each of us realises that our part in all this is not as a mere bystander. The challenge for sceptics is to help people to connect the dots. What are the earlier crunches? We have the boiler tax, where because boiler manufacturers are going to be fined if they do not meet their quota of heat pumps, they will be forced to cross-subsidise heat pumps by upping the price of gas boilers – i.e. the heating systems people actually want to buy. It may only be a few hundred quid initially, but even this may have an effect on public opinion disproportionate to its effect on folks’ pockets. So far the true costs of climate policy to the ordinary punter have been kept well hidden. In 2024 it can be hidden no more. Now at last it comes to the fore.

At the same time as the advent of the boiler tax, we will have the ICE vehicle tax – a rather more daunting 15 grand for each vehicle beyond the manufacturer’s quota. By how much manufacturers will be over, and how much they plan to cross-subsidise their EVs is to me an imponderable matter for now. It may be that small petrol cars will be wiped out by the policy. But again the hit on folks’ pockets and freedoms will be impossible to keep hidden.

My prediction: by the end of next year we in the UK will be in a worse position climate policy-wise than we are now, and there will as yet be little gain in momentum for a change of course. I think there will be glimmers of hope. As they say, hope dies last. Which means I think that good sense will win out in the end, even if it takes a hell of a kicking along the way.

Please do append your predictions for 2024, particularly if mine seem off beam.

Let the turn in the year be a time for optimism and good health to all Clisceppers.

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12 Comments

  1. A week is a long time in politics.

    In NZ we were in the grip of Jacindamania three years ago, with her having just won a massive majority. Her name is more or less dirt now. Her time in power considered a wasted opportunity, even by her strong supporters.

    We even have a government that actually doesn’t want to spend more, and that is hugely sceptical of climate policies (although it does not admit it openly yet).

    Because eventually people get sick of policies that don’t work. And when it becomes fashionable to say that the policies don’t work, suddenly all sorts of people start doing so who previously thought they were in a minority.

    I don’t know when the Green mania will break, but it will be quite sudden.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Meanwhile, from the BBC:

    “2024: BBC London’s experts make their predictions”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67789757

    Several issues could come to a head in 2024.

    The biggest is probably the Ulez. Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate, would scrap it if she becomes mayor – a stark contrast to the Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan who, amidst opposition, expanded it to cover all of the capital.

    Interestingly, we won’t have the data of what the Ulez has done to pollution levels by the mayoral election, but we have already seen the number of compliant vehicles reach 95%.

    Undoubtedly, the Ulez is unpopular in some quarters and supported in others. Considering the 95% figure and the fact that if you live in the Home Counties you don’t vote on the London mayor, the big question is: will the Ulez’s opposition – or support – translate into votes?

    Other issues to keep an eye out for are fare rises in a cost-of-living crisis and Transport for London’s quest to get £500m in funds from government for capital infrastructure. Without its investment, new Piccadilly line and Bakerloo trains could be delayed.

    More broadly, the decarbonisation of transport and the continuing switch to lower carbon transport could be challenging and the often-heated debate around who roads should be predominantly for in the capital – motor traffic, pedestrians or cyclists – shows no sign of abating.

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  4. I have no predictions, but you can see which way the wind is blowing if you look carefully. Mark points out above the growing resistance to Net Zero in Europe. That will continue in 2024 as politicians double down on the prescriptive agenda. Politicians and the media will also seek to expand the ‘climate crisis’ psyop by engendering yet more fear and alarm in the populace, whilst at the same time deligitimising or even outlawing sceptical voices. Chris Morrison at the Daily Sceptic:

    “Noted climate hysteric Saffron O’Neill has been a past speaker and she is on record as speculating on the need for “fines and imprisonment” for expressing scepticism about “well supported” science. There is something very disturbing about a climate activist from a State-reliant broadcaster attending a course funded by narrative-driven billionaires with a speaker who has suggested that sceptical climate scientists and writers be locked up in prison.

    In a recently published essay, two OCJN organisers give chapter and verse as to how this is being directed on the course. It is designed to allow climate journalists to “move beyond their siloed past” into a strategic position within newsrooms “combining expertise with collaboration”. The “pick your mango” strategy is designed to make climate change “less abstract” and delegates are told to pick a “beloved fruit or activity that everyone in your country or region seems to care about, and seems to capture attention when impacted by climate change”.
    ‘Less abstract’ is one way of summing up this pseudoscientific hogwash. ‘Infantile’ might be better. None of it is based on a scintilla of scientific proof.”

    So expect much more pseudoscientific hogwash in the press re. alleged climate change impacts, especially those that affect us personally, in order to try to justify the Net Zero punishment beating. Expect also a lot more ‘extreme weather attribution’ garbage and a crackdown on those who question the ‘settled science’. I think it no coincidence that the pioneer of extreme weather attribution, Peter Stott of the Met Office, has been awarded an MBE for his services to both climate science and fighting climate change denial.

    “Much the same can be said for a presentation by Dr. Friederike Otto who uses computer models to claim her green billionaire-funded World Weather Attribution (WWA) team can attribute individual bad weather events to human-caused climate change. Following Otto’s presentation, attendees are reported to have shown a “massive jump in self-confidence” when attributing individual weather to the long-term climate change.

    The distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jnr. is scathing about weather attribution calling it a new “cottage industry”, adding that the need to feed the climate beast leads to a knock-on effect of creating incentives for researchers to produce studies with links to climate – “no matter how tenuous or trivial”. At the BBC, weather attribution has always been very popular. Writing in a WWA guide for journalists, the former BBC Today editor Sarah Sands says attribution studies have given us “significant insight into the horseman of the climate apocalypse”. Former OCJN attendee, Ben Rich, the BBC’s lead weather presenter, has used the “science” of climate attribution “to help explain to audiences when and how scientists can link extreme weather to climate change”.”

    We will start the New Year of course with hysteric proclamations of the ‘hottest year ever due to man-made climate change with a small contribution from El Nino’. They will milk that for a few months then move on to the extreme weather propaganda once again in time for spring and summer. There will be renewed and more urgent calls to censor ‘climate deniers’ I’m sure.

    https://dailysceptic.org/2024/01/01/speaker-on-bbc-verify-correspondents-six-month-sabbatical-course-has-called-for-jailing-climate-contrarians/

    The reaction to all this garbage from the general public is the critical unknown.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Alas the UK does not really have a populist party that people can rally behind in opposition to the climate draconian policies. In any case, we are so far buying it.

    As a commenter on WUWT pointed out today, the UK has the second-highest retail electricity prices in the world (I think this is true, although the figure in Statista says “selected countries” so there may be worse). Where are the protests?

    We in the UK are second in the league table to Italy. Perhaps more renewables will help?

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/

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  6. I perceive a great deal of fear that scepticism and sceptical voices will soon be suppressed. I understand the fear but do not believe the reasoning behind it. Voices calling for free speech are both varied and numerous. Even in halls of climate change belief, like UEA’s Environmental Science, sceptical voices like mine were present.

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  7. “A government grant scheme to support the installation of heat pumps is set to benefit from another £1.5bn in funding.

    It is among the schemes to be funded from a £6bn package announced in the 2022 autumn statement for energy efficiency measures.

    The funding covers the period 2025 to 2028, with ministers now confirming which new and existing schemes will benefit.

    The boiler upgrade scheme in England and Wales, designed to encourage a shift to heat pumps, will benefit, with £1.25bn also going to a social housing decarbonisation fund.

    A new local authority retrofit scheme for low-income homes will also open in 2025, backed by £500m. A new £400m energy efficiency grant will also go to households, again from 2025, to fund bigger radiators and better insultation.”

    Energy secretary Claire Coutinho said: “Cutting energy bills is my top priority. Today’s funding will help those who are most in need and keep around a million more families warm during winter.”

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/funds-heat-pumps-scheme-energy-bills-b2465709.html

    More windmills and more heat pumps running on the world’s second most expensive electricity, plus another token effort to improve home insulation is going to cut the cost of energy bills and keep millions more warm in winter! I can’t believe the majority of the British public are THAT stupid as to believe this, but they are extremely apathetic and tolerant.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Like Jaime I have no predictions for 2024. And I agree with Jit that Labour’s policy is a ‘prescription for national destruction’. But as I’ve said elsewhere (and again like Jit), I’m fairly optimistic that that policy ‘will run aground on the shoals of reality before too much damage is done’. Reality is the best of all arguments.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. My predictions – the UK CCA is repealed, the CCC is disbanded, net zero is scrapped, fracking begins plus new nuclear builds, all green subsidies & levies are removed, the DENZ Dept is renamed DoE and generates a 25 year plan for indigenous, reliable, secure, affordable energy for all, JSO and XR become proscribed organisations and King Charles stays out of politics

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