Listening to the PM programme on BBC radio 4 this evening, I was somewhat taken aback by an interview conducted by Evan Davis. His interviewee was Emma Pinchbeck, the recently-appointed Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC). As Cliscep readers will know, the CCC is charged under the Climate Change Act (CCA) with monitoring the UK government’s progress in moving the country to net zero, and it also produces “carbon budgets” on a regular basis, with a view to guiding the government of the day in achieving its legally-binding obligations under the CCA. The seventh carbon budget is due to be published next month, and I have already written about the hell that it is likely to unleash on an unwitting UK public.

This evening the producers of PM, Radio 4’s flagship evening news and current affairs programme, seem to have decided to conduct a gentle interview with Ms Pinchbeck and to allow her to get away with a number of statements which – while not actually untrue – when taken together provided what I consider to be a very misleading impression of the road to net zero. Perhaps as alarmingly, I think the whole interview demonstrated significant complacency on the part of the CCC, or at least on the part of its Chief Executive. I won’t comment, by and large, on what annoyed me, save in one case where the misleading impression is just too significant for me to allow it to pass without comment. See how many statements you can find cause to disagree with. The interview is transcribed below (it starts just after 38 minutes in, here):

Evan Davis (ED): Now, 2024 – the year just gone – was the first year ever that wind power in this country became the single biggest source of electricity, overtaking gas. In fact, it was barely even close: 82,000 Gwh of electric power wind-gnerated – 82,000. 73,000GWh of gas-powered electricity. If you’re interested in where our electricity comes from for 2024, the league table goes – wind, gas, and then some way behind, imports, via connectors overseas, often from France, and then British nuclear. Those four make up the vast bulk of our electricity. Incidentally, that’s all about the generation of electricity. We also had some other figures today, on electric cars, and guess what? Britain overtook Germany last year to become Europe’s biggest market for electric vehicles – 382,000 battery-powered cars. That was up 20% on the year before. Germany had a massive fall, at a 27% fall last year. Let’s just talk about electricity, and wind in particular, with Emma Pinchbeck, the Chief Executive now of the independent [sic] Climate Change Committee, which advises government on climate change plans and net zero. And Emma was also Chief Executive of Energy UK till she got this job. Emma, is wind now always going to be the biggest source of our power now it’s sort of tipped over gas last year? Is that it now, for the foreseeable?

Emma Pinchbeck (EP): That’s a good question, about whether we’ll see the same this year coming. What we do know is wind is going to be the dominant source of power in our electricity system over the next decades, and whilst there’ll be some variation as the system changes, the story in the 2030s and beyond is that wind will be our big dominant source of electricity.

ED: What do we do about the windless days? Now they, I mean, obviously, it’s out in the sea [er, a lot of it isn’t] isn’t it, so I mean, how worried are you by the fact that it’s just not a very reliable supply all year round?

EP: I’m not very worried, but that’s largely because the National Grid aren’t very worried, and they’re the people whose job it is to keep the lights on. And that’s for a few reasons – firstly, wind in the time that I’ve been working has become much more reliable, in the sense that the wind turbines are bigger; as you said they’re out at sea, where there’s a lot more wind; they tip over at the slightest breath of wind, and that means that they can come on in more conditions. Secondly, we’ve got technologies available to complement and now, you mentioned gas, in the long run we’ll have to carbonise [sic] gas from the system to complement wind, but also things like nuclear, storage, other energy technologies. And lastly we’ve got smart technologies on the system now and better ability to predict things like weather patterns, which means we’re more able to run all those technologies together across the system. And all of that combined means that wind isn’t just good for climate change, in my current job, but in my last job, in the energy industry, when we were talking about it, it’s the cheapest, best way of running the energy system overall, so having a clean energy system is now a secure and cheap energy system.

ED: Yup. Tell me about that word “cheap”, because the one thing it doesn’t seem is that electricity, I don’t think you could say electricity is cheap, and I think we’re paying perhaps more for it than most other countries. I think from the tables I’ve seen, and it’s often very difficult to compare with complicated rates and the like, but, I mean, when do we get this so-called cheap, cheap electricity from, you know, home-grown sources, and all the stuff that’s been promised?

EP: Yeah, I’m very aware that when I come on the radio and tell people that electricity is cheap, and that wind is cheap, at a time when the price cap is going up again, it might feel counter-intuitive or that I’m simply making it up, but actually it’s largely the difference between what you’re paying on your bill, and the electricity at source in generation point is to do with policy choices and market design, and what the Committee have advised government to do is our top recommendation over the previous years, is to make electricity cheaper. And our primary recommendation within that is they move some of the policy costs put on electricity, off electricity, so around 20% of the price of electricity on the bill is, are, down to policy costs, and that ultimately is a political regulatory choice we would like to see changed.

ED: And if you burn gas directly – you burn it in your heating, for example – you pay less tax on that, less environmental levy on that gas you burn directly than if a power generator burns gas and puts it into the electricity grid?

EP: Yes. And the energy market is complicated. We could also talk about the fact, for example, that electricity prices still track the gas price, which means that while gas has been at record levels, electricity costs have also gone up. But I suppose the overall message people should take away is these new technologies are cheap, renewable electricity is cheap, passing that on to consumers should be a priority of government, and it’s certainly been a priority recommendation for the Committee.

ED: Do you need subsidies to get people to put wind out into the ocean? I mean, are we still giving guaranteed prices, Contracts for Difference, I mean is it still effectively underpinned by some kind of subsidy?

EP: Yes, we underpin it with a price guarantee from government through the Contract for Difference mechanism. Now, the good news about that is it operates as a sort of price control, in that when prices go above it and generators are making money, more money than expected, they pay back to government; when it goes underneat that, the government tops it up. The reason having a consistent price has helped for when you’re building giant skyscraper-sized wind turbines out at sea, is a lot of the funders of that in construction think that it’s still quite risky, and having a long-term business plan where you can talk to them about what the returns are like over twenty years helps them lock private inward investment. Overall, particularly through the period of the crisis those projects were paying back to the consumer, and of course having wind on the system avoids imported gas, which – particularly through the gas crisis – really helped with bills, and it, in the long run this should be a cheaper way of doing it even with the policy support in place.

ED: All right. Emma Pinchbeck, from the Climate Change Committee, on that fact that wind is the biggest source of our electric power. Thank you for that.

I quite like Evan Davis as an interviewer. He’s polite, clear (always a help when transcribing interviews) and pretty good generally at getting to the heart of an issue. However, I have to say that was a very soft interview, where in my opinion Emma Pinchbeck really should have been pushed a lot harder on many of her claims. I said at the outset that I would take issue only with one particularly egregious part of the interview, so I will – I will leave you, dear reader, if you are so minded, to comment below as to the bits that bothered you.

For me, the spin put on the Contracts for Difference subsidies was the most annoying part of the interview. Emma Pinchbeck said that “[o]verall, particularly through the period of the crisis those projects were paying back to the consumer…”. Now I don’t believe that is true. They paid back only in 2022. Overall, the wind energy companies have received, and continue to receive, massive taxpayer subsidies (by the way, I love the fact that she said projects were “paying back to the consumer”, but that when payments went to the energy companies, they were paid by the government, not the consumer – where does she think the government gets its money from?). Great PR-speak. It’s just like the way costs are never costs, but are always described as investments.

As it happens, Net Zero Watch has today issued a press release about the Contracts for Difference scheme, and they say:

…subsidies paid to renewables under the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme hit new highs in 2024. The previous record, of just under £2.3 billion, was set in 2020. That figure was surpassed in the last few weeks of the year, and, by the time the full year’s data is available, the total is likely to hit £2.4 billion…

…The Office for Budget Responsibility is expecting subsidies under several other schemes – the Renewables Obligation Scheme, the Capacity Market, and the Warm Home Discount – to also break records in 2024–25.

The press release is accompanied by a graph, which demonstrates pretty conclusively that only in 2022 did the taxpayer receive a payment from the wind companies under the CfD scheme, and that the refund was less than the payments made to the wind companies in every other year. Worse than that, in most years, the taxpayer has shelled-out substantially more than that single years’ paltry refund and those payments are now reaching record levels.

One last point – at the end, when there was no time to pursue the issue further, the best she could do in answer to the question about why our electricity bills are so high, was to opine that in the long run this should be a cheaper way of doing it. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement.

55 Comments

  1. A few years ago in Britain detective work by the Telegraph and the Global Warming Policy Foundation revealed that the climate change committee advised the government to proceed with the climate change act of 2020 with their estimate of the wind supply based on one year when there was no serious wind drought (Dunkelflaute.)

    That legislation is now destroying Britain and the same thing is happening in Germany, due to neglect of the window droughts which would have been familiar to sailors at sea and millers on land for centuries.

    https://www.flickerpower.com/images/The_endless_wind_drought_crippling_renewables___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf

    They have been caught in the “wind drought trap.”

    Can the US escape the same fate?

    The US is only one Democrat administration away from following the catastrophic example of Germany and Britain. They are in the jaws of the wind drought trap and it is up to the Trump administration to get them out.

    The power crisis in Texas in February 2021 was a taste of things to come when a bitter cold spell and low winds overnight caused a partial blackout of the state. The inadequately winterised gas supply underperformed and a complete blackout was only narrowly averted, due to some coal and nuclear capacity.   Hundreds died and a complete blackout could have killed many thousands.

    That is the way things are going in all the grids in the US and in every other system where net zero policies are in place.

    The trap is set slowly over many years as subsidies and mandates for unreliable energy displace conventional power without being able to replace it. There is no way to firm unreliable energy by installing more unreliable energy.

    https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/renewables/21-7-intermittent-solar-and-wind-power-can-displace-coal-but-cannot-replace-it

    There is a “frog in the saucepan” effect because conventional power retires in small steps and that does not cause problems in the early years while there is spare capacity. That was the case in SE Australia before Hazelwood and Liddell closed. The trap only causes public alarm when it is too late, as we see in Britain and Germany.

    The US is moving rapidly in the same direction and grid managers are becoming increasingly agitated.  Apparently they have not effectively shared their concerns with the general public and there is no electoral pressure on the lawmakers to change course. The incoming administration will have to provide a crash course in wind literacy to change the public perception of wind power and explain the value of coal power, especially in extremely cold conditions.

    The trap closes when the conventional power capacity (traditionally dominated by coal) declines to a critical point, a “tipping point”  where there is not enough to meet the base load overnight. Then the grid is in a “red zone” where windless nights are potentially lethal because there is no wind or solar generation, regardless of the amount of installed capacity.

    The incompetence or negligence of the Government meteorologists around the world allowed this situation to develop because they didn’t issue wind drought warnings even though they know that high pressure systems cause low winds.

     Consequently, the Dunkelflautes came as a surprise in Europe although mariners and millers must have experienced them for centuries. 

    https://www.flickerpower.com/images/The_endless_wind_drought_crippling_renewables___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf

    The plot thickens when we discover that the World Meteorological Organization must have known about wind droughts because the first Assessment report of the IPCC recommended a survey of the wind resources of the world to assess the prospects for large-scale wind power. That would have been led by the WMO, working with the official meteorologists around the world.

    Moreover The WMO was a first mover in the climate alarm campaign in the UN and all the met offices have been hyperactive in supporting the scare by tampering with temperature records and attributing extreme weather events to climate change.

    The climate alarmists in the UN set out to wreck the capitalist economies of the west (to save the planet) and they have practically achieved that objective in Britain and Germany where the lights are kept on precariously with imported power while they deindustrialize to reduce demand.

    Australia is on the cusp and it remains to be seen how the old coal burners can keep running for a decade or three until nuclear power may be available at scale.

    Turning to the United States, there is no time to waste to avoid the trap by saving coal and gas generators from the impending EPA regulations that were designed to close them down. 

    Liked by 4 people

    Congratulations on transcribing this interview in double-quick time. I listened to this exchange and it struck me that Evan Davis knew exactly what he was doing: asking just enough questions to fend off any accusation of a whitewash, but not enough to seriuosly challenge the half-truths that Emma Pinchbeck was spouting.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Regarding the fact that wind has overtaken gas as the biggest source of electricity, I mentioned recently that on the Net Zero thread Paul Homewood cited this comment by the BBC’s Paul Murphy:

    According to a new report, wind energy generated 29% of the U.K.’s power in 2024.

    What Mr Trump sneeringly calls “windmills” are pretty important right now for keeping the U.K.’s lights on.

    Having described this as ‘a contender for the most absurd statement of the year‘, Paul said:

    We could shut down every wind farm in the U.K. tomorrow, and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference, given that wind power often drops close to zero when the wind does not blow.

    But shut down our gas plants and the electricity grid would literally collapse immediately.

    As I said – of course!

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Windmills generated 30% of UK electricity in 2024, up only very slightly on 2023, at 29.4%. Gas generated 26%, down significantly from 32% in 2023. That’s why windmills generated more power, not because we are surging ahead with the generation of ‘clean electricity’ but because the share of electricity generated by gas declined. And what took up the slack? No, not ‘clean’ solar, but imports – which the Greens dishonestly label also as ‘clean’ electricity. Wind generation capacity increased by just 3% in 2024 over 2023. We have got a long way to go before wind generates even half of UK electricity which, if we ever do get there, will mean that rationing of electricity will be a fact of life.

    https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/wind-is-biggest-source-of-uk-electricity-for-first-time-nh398k2jg

    Liked by 3 people

  6. Should be a cheaper way- not WILL be a cheaper way, not COULD be a cheaper way, but SHOULD, which the OED has as a definition “(formal) used to refer to a possible event or situation”. So Wind & Solar may possibly be a cheaper way, but equally, they may not be- if you repeat the lie often enough, you actually start to believe that holding up three fingers actually means four, three or two- the lie becomes whatever they say it is.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. “ED: What do we do about the windless days? Now they, I mean, obviously, it’s out in the sea [er, a lot of it isn’t] isn’t it, so I mean, how worried are you by the fact that it’s just not a very reliable supply all year round?

    EP: I’m not very worried, but that’s largely because the National Grid aren’t very worried, and they’re the people whose job it is to keep the lights on. And that’s for a few reasons – firstly, wind in the time that I’ve been working has become much more reliable, in the sense that the wind turbines are bigger; as you said they’re out at sea, where there’s a lot more wind; they tip over at the slightest breath of wind, and that means that they can come on in more conditions.”

    Well I’m comforted by the fact that “they tip over at the slightest breath of wind”, wonder what real world she lives in.

    Like

  9. Mike S says (and I agree):

    …it struck me that Evan Davis knew exactly what he was doing: asking just enough questions to fend off any accusation of a whitewash, but not enough to seriously challenge the half-truths that Emma Pinchbeck was spouting…

    It now seems clear that the interview was just part of a BBC decision to push a story around the growth in wind power, given this today on the BBC website:

    “Record year for wind power in 2024”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e3g9xv3ylo

    Wind provided more electricity than ever last year as the UK moved further away from planet-warming fossil fuels to power the nation, new data shows.

    Wind generated nearly 83 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity across Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), up from nearly 79TWh in 2023, show figures from the National Energy System Operator (Neso), which coordinates electricity distribution.

    Electricity generation from major fossil fuel power stations fell to just over a quarter of the total last year as other renewable sources, such as solar, also rose, along with electricity imports. [My emphasis].

    As Jaime pointed out, in fact the growth in wind power was surprisingly limited, given the £billions of extra subsidies that industry continues to receive, given the growing size of turbines (as Pinchbeck went out of her way to mention) and given the ever-growing number of the wretched things mushrooming all over the country (and in the seas surrounding it). The real stories, on which Davis should have pushed Pinchbeck much harder, are, IMO:

    1. Why is wind power performing so poorly? (wind droughts, dunkelflautes etc). Is it really a good idea to make our energy security increasingly dependent on the vagaries of unreliable weather?
    2. We are increasingly dependent on imports of electricity via the interconnectors. What happens if a bad actor interferes with them? What happens if we need electricity from abroad, due to the vagaries of the weather, but the vagaries of the weather (or other factors) mean that they don’t have a surplus to send us? This isn’t what energy security looks like. What about the fact that we tend to export (small amounts, when we have a surplus) at give-away prices, and import (large amounts at times of high demand) at high prices? This isn’t the way to get cheaper energy.
    3. As the BBC article says: But gas remains a crucial part of the UK’s electricity mix, helping to maintain power supply when output from weather-dependent wind and solar sources drops. Relegating gas in this way, and giving priority to renewables on the grid, makes the use of gas much less efficient and much more expensive. This way of running the grid adds to costs, it doesn’t reduce them.
    4. As micda67 said in the comments above: Should be a cheaper way- not WILL be a cheaper way, not COULD be a cheaper way, but SHOULD, which the OED has as a definition “(formal) used to refer to a possible event or situation”. So Wind & Solar may possibly be a cheaper way, but equally, they may not be. Mr Davis, instead of saying, in effect, “that’s a wrap”, should have challenged Ms Pinchbeck thus: What do you mean, should, over the long run. Do you mean this is guesswork? You’re keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for the best?
    5. He should have talked about the whole system costs of different types of electricity generation. On this basis (the only one that matters) the fact that the marginal costs of renewables are possibly lower than those of fossil fuels is irrelevant. Customers’ bills are higher, not because of policy choices and market design, as Pinchbeck asserted, but because the extra costs associated with renewables make them more expensive. It is those extra costs that customers are paying. NB, not all of those costs are evident from customers’ bills alone – many are hidden in our taxes that pay some of the subsidies.
    6. And he really should have pressed her much harder on the subsidies question. Renewables are costing us a fortune in subsidies, and they’re not going down. In fact, following AR6 (and no doubt in due course, AR6, AR7…) they are likely to keep going up.
    7. Storage and “smart technologies” won’t cover the shortfall during dunkelflautes if we carry on down the renewables road and reduce gas – as Miliband proposes – to just 5% of electricity generation by 2030.

    There is, no doubt, much more that could and should have been raised to ensure that Ms Pinchbeck was given a much harder time and pressed over her fantasy-land net zero nirvana. But the above will do for starters.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. PS, at the end of the BBC article we get this:

    Last month Claire Coutinho, Conservative shadow secretary of state for energy security, said Labour’s “rush” to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030 would push up electricity prices and cause more hardship for people across Britain.

    “We need cheap, reliable energy – not even higher bills,” she said.

    It’s good that she apparently now realises this. Why, then, did she and the Conservative governments of which she was part, also go down this road, just at a slightly slower pace?

    Liked by 2 people

  11. dfh,

    I’m not too worried about Dunkelflautes now because as long as we’ve got dear Emma around to spout hot air, all we need to do is take her to the coast and those giant wind turbines will start to tip over once more and power the nation. Thank heavens for our very own homegrown “expert in whole economy decarbonisation”!

    Liked by 2 people

  13. In response to Evan Davis asking about windless conditions, Emma Pinchbeck said:

    I’m not very worried, but that’s largely because the National Grid aren’t very worried, and they’re the people whose job it is to keep the lights on. And that’s for a few reasons – firstly, wind in the time that I’ve been working has become much more reliable, in the sense that the wind turbines are bigger; as you said they’re out at sea, where there’s a lot more wind; they tip over at the slightest breath of wind, and that means that they can come on in more conditions.

    I have news for her. Today the UK is freezing, and at the time of day most favourable to renewables, we are paying £367.46 (it was briefly £622.95) per MWh. The reason? Wind is providing 9.1% and solar 4.7% of our electricity. Gas is producing 53.8%, and as is so often the case, we are taking a net 10% or more from the interconnectors. No doubt we are paying top prices for it I suggest Ms Pinchbeck would be well advised to worry (I do) about these issues, and to be a lot less complacent.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Mark; according to the London South East website:

    “LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Britain’s National Energy System Operator has issued an electricity margin notice for 1600-1900 GMT on Wednesday, asking generators to more power available.

    The grid operator said there was a system margin shortfall of 1,700 megawatts compared with the amount it would like to be available.

    “We would like a greater safety cushion (margin) between power demand and available supply,” NESO said in a market notice

    “It does not signal that blackouts are imminent or that there is not enough generation to meet current demand.””

    Shame this didn’t happen during that interview. That’s a chunk of power they are scratching around for, equvalent to one of the HPC reactors.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. According to Wind Energy’s Absurd, earlier today:

    …although it’s on a downward curve now, the price peaked at 4.30 – £𝟏𝟑𝟓𝟐.𝟗𝟎/𝐌𝐖𝐡.…

    Like

  16. “Britons “Paying £2 Million an Hour” to Keep Gas Power Stations Running in Freezing Temperatures”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2025/01/08/britons-paying-2-million-an-hour-to-keep-gas-power-stations-running-in-freezing-temperatures/

    Cited section below is from the Telegraph:

    As freezing weather swept into the South East, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) warned that it expected power supplies to become particularly tight between 4pm and 7pm. 

    The crunch forced grid operators to pay huge sums to gas power plant owners to keep them running. The cost will ultimately be borne by households and businesses through their bills.

    At one stage, they agreed to pay the Rye House power station, in Hertfordshire, the equivalent of £1.8 million per hour, transparency data show.

    Three gas-fired units in Connah’s Quay, North Wales, were also paid a combined £2 million per hour.

    Neso declined to comment on the payments. 

    It comes as cold weather is expected to spark increased electricity consumption as more people stay indoors, watch television and use their gas or electric heating.

    At the same time, a sharp drop in wind power and low availability of power interconnectors with Europe is also putting more pressure on the grid.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Even the Guardian has this, if you look hard enough:

    “Two power station owners to get more than £12m for three hours of electricity

    Uniper and a subsidiary of Vitol able to charge 50 times recent market price to ensure supply during evening peak”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/two-power-station-owners-to-get-more-than-12m-for-three-hours-of-electricity

    Britain faced surging power prices after the grid operator warned it would need power plants to fire up in the early evening to have enough electricity to power homes and businesses within its normal safety limits.

    The National Energy System Operator (Neso) – which manages the energy systems in England, Scotland and Wales – said it faced a shortfall of about 1,700 megawatts (MW), roughly the equivalent of the amount of electricity needed to power about 850,000 homes.

    The electricity supply squeeze is expected to hand a windfall to the owners of two power plants in Hertfordshire, England, and Flintshire in north Wales, which will each be paid more than £6m to run their gas turbines between 4pm and 7pm when demand for electricity is forecast to reach its peak.

    German utility Uniper and a subsidiary of the Swiss commodities trading giant Vitol offered to fire up their gas plants during the evening hours in exchange for “super-high” payouts of more than 50 times the market price earlier this week, according to experts.

    Under the system to balance Britain’s grid when electricity supply is short, Neso encourages energy companies to bid prices at which they would be prepared to power up their plants.

    The Rye House gas plant in Hertfordshire, owned by VPI Power, a Vitol subsidiary, will generate electricity for a price of £5,000 per megawatt hour (MWh), which should earn its owner £6.15m over three hours, according to official market data. The larger Connah’s Quay gas plant in Flintshire, owned by Uniper, will earn just over £6m after agreeing to generate power for a price of £2,900/MWh.

    VPI Power and Uniper have been contacted for comment.

    The payouts are many times larger than the market rates recorded on Wednesday, which reached their highest level in more than three years due to a combination of freezing weather and low wind speeds, according to Karsten Walke, a senior data scientist at price reporting agency ICIS.

    The market price for electricity generated during the UK’s peak demand hours surged to highs of almost £1,000/MWh in a pan-European power auction, the highest intraday price recorded in the auction since December 2021 and more than 12 times the average price paid in January last year for the electricity generated the next day. In some cases trades of £2,000/MWh were recorded for certain periods on Wednesday, according to one source.

    “These are super-high prices,” Walke said. “Our models show that we don’t have a lot of electricity capacity left in the market; there’s not a lot of wind power available and there’s a lack of [cable] interconnection with neighbouring countries.”

    Walke warned that Britain should brace for further market price spikes by the end of the week when demand for electricity and weak wind power levels “look more or less the same as today”.

    All of which makes Emma Pinchbeck’s interview comments seem to be extraordinarily complacent. Perhaps Evan Davis should invite her back on for a follow-up? These costs are a feature of the switch to renewables, not a bug.

    Liked by 2 people

  19. “Fake It Until You Break It

    Dissembling politicians, advisors and tycoons faking expertise as they break our electricity system.”

    https://davidturver.substack.com/p/fake-it-until-you-break-it

    …Kathryn Porter has written an excellent summary of how close we came to blackouts. At 5.30pm on Wednesday evening, total available supply from our own generation and imports from interconnectors was 47.405GW, while peak demand was 46.825GW. This means the actual spare margin at the peak was just 580MW. Even a small power station trip would have triggered blackouts. It is fortunate that the Viking interconnector was able to recover from its partial outage just in time. Just a few hours later, two power stations with total capacity of 2,002MW tripped and did not expect to produce.

    It is clear we missed a major blackout by the skin of our teeth. It is amazing how quickly reality bites and demonstrates what clueless clowns we have running our energy system.…

    …This is the stuff of Soviet era five-year plans, not a modern thriving economy. For the sake of clarity, the dire state of our electricity system is entirely down to increasing the proportion of intermittent wind and solar on the grid at the same time as shutting down and then blowing up reliable power stations.

    There is a saying in Hollywood that sometimes you have to “fake it until you make it.” What we have had is a series of clueless, preening popinjay energy ministers from Hohn, Davey and Rudd through to Shapps, Coutinho and now Ed Miliband who wanted to “fake it until you break it.” Well, they nearly succeeded yesterday. They are supported by a vast array of dissembling clowns in DESNZ, NESO, the CCC, academia and industry who seem hell bent on feathering their own nests at the expense of the rest of us, all to “save the planet” of course. The near miss we experienced yesterday should be a wake-up call and a signal we need to change course, but I fear we will need an actual blackout before they can be made to see sense.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. Mark – quote’s from your Ms Pinchbeck link –

    “The Government expects most homes to switch to heat pumps, which work most efficiently when run consistently at a lower temperature than gas boilers.” – not sure what that means, best guess, to warm a house it needs to run all day?

    “However, take-up of the devices has stalled amid consumer concerns over high upfront and running costs, as well as a lack of familiarity with the technology.” – or are happy with existing combi gas boilers maybe.

    “People will still have warm, comfortable homes, they will still turn their heating on as they do now,” – not in winter if “heat pumps, which work most efficiently when run consistently at a lower temperature than gas boilers”

    Like

  23. “UK has enough gas, says network after storage warning”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7vd57qzlqpo

    The UK has enough gas to meet winter demand, the network operator has said, after British Gas owner Centrica warned about “concerningly low” storage levels.

    Centrica, which owns the country’s largest gas storage facility, said the UK had “less than a week of gas demand in store” due to colder-than-usual weather.

    But National Gas, which owns the UK gas network, said the UK gets its gas from “a diverse range of sources” and that storage “remains healthy”.

    Energy analysts said even if gas storage did run low, the UK could buy in more from Europe and other countries.

    Centrica has said that UK gas storage facilities are currently about half-full.

    “Plunging temperatures and high demand for gas-fired power stations have reduced UK winter gas storage to concerningly low levels,” it said…..

    Let’s read that again:

    the UK could buy in more from Europe and other countries.

    That’s not what energy security looks like, nor is it how we avoid those fluctuating prices that Miliband is always warning us about.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. UK hit with ‘concerningly low’ supply ahead of new Met Office snow warnings

    “Since January 9, gas reserves have been 26% lower than the same time last year, Euro Weekly reports, which leaves supplies around half full. Chris O’Shea from Head Centrica, which owns British Gas, said that reserves were “concerningly low”.

    He added: “We are an outlier from the rest of Europe when it comes to the role of storage in our energy system and we are now seeing the implications of that. Energy storage is what keeps the lights on and homes warm when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, so investing in our storage capacity makes perfect economic sense. We need to think of storage as a very valuable insurance policy.””

    But fear not – “A spokesperson for National Gas commented: “The overall picture across Great Britain’s eight main gas storage sites remains healthy.

    “Britain obtains its gas from a diverse range of sources beyond that already in storage, meaning we are well placed to respond to demand this winter.”

    The UK has one of the smallest gas stores in Europe, with capacity for just 12 average days or 7.5 peak winter days.”

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Perhaps Emma Pinchbeck isn’t totally complacent, after all. She does recognise that net zero isn’t actually popular:

    “Labour warned it risks losing support for net zero if costs not spread fairly

    Exclusive: Chief climate adviser calls on Starmer to make ‘strong, confident’ case for green UK that public can buy into”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/01/labour-warned-risks-losing-support-net-zero-costs-not-spread-fairly

    Ensuring that the costs of decarbonisation are shared fairly across society must be a top priority for ministers or they risk losing public support for net zero, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.

    This sentence is rather telling:

    But politicians of all parties had difficulty grasping the scale and speed of the shift to a low-carbon economy…

    But then complacency took over:

    …despite the huge economic benefits it could bring…

    Partly hilarious, partly worrying, is this:

    Bringing down electricity costs would also make a difference. “We would like to see the government taking action to make electricity cheap,” said Pinchbeck. “Cheap electricity helps everyone and everything.”

    One way of doing that would be to take the green levies that help to fund renewable energy off bills and add them to general taxation. 

    The drive to net zero is pushing up the UK’s energy costs, as this implicitly implies. Moving the costs from energy bills to general taxation doesn’t alter the fact that renewables are expensive. We will still all be paying those extra costs. Hiding the costs by burying them in general taxation instead of alerting the public to the reality of higher costs when they receive their energy bills, is profoundly wrong IMO (and it still won’t save us any money).

    Liked by 1 person

  27. “Pinchbeck Incoherent in Parliament

    Testimony to Parliament demonstrates the new CEO of the CCC does not have a clue.”

    https://davidturver.substack.com/p/pinchbeck-incoherent-in-parliament

    His conclusion:

    In fact, the level of questioning from the politicians was very weak indeed. Not a single elected representative challenged Emma Pinchbeck’s assertions that renewables were cheap. Nobody asked the obvious question why we need to worry about moving green levies from electricity bills if renewables are cheaper, nor indeed why we need to subsidise renewables at all if they are so cheap. We are led by ignorant clowns being fed incoherent lies by a cheap imitation Climate Change Committee and the whole process is a sham. This does not bode well for the CCC’s new carbon budget to be released later this month.

    Liked by 2 people

  29. “Rich should fly less to protect poorer families’ summer holiday, UK climate adviser says

    CCC has urged ministers to limit aviation emissions to ensure Britain meets its net zero target”

    https://www.ft.com/content/8cf77a01-253e-468c-959a-a82f7f3ced3f

    Rich people should cut down on flying to ensure poorer families can take one sunny holiday abroad a year, the chief executive of the UK’s statutory climate adviser has said. Emma Pinchbeck said on Wednesday that the Climate Change Committee’s most recent advice to government had been designed to protect the “annual family holiday to somewhere sunny like Spain”. In contrast, higher-income travellers should aim to take one fewer flight a year, “rather than taking that flight off low-income households”, she said in an evidence session at the House of Lords….

    The FT is jealous of its copyright, so I won’t cut and paste more, but the article does seem to be free from the FT paywall. The interesting point is that they are coming for your holidays, they do seek to force behaviour change on you.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Mark – wonder who will decide/and how “Rich should fly less to protect poorer families” flights/hols. How much do taxpayers pay for this garbage advice.

    “This advice highlighted the importance of consumers taking responsibility for cutting their own carbon footprints. This includes by switching to heat pumps and electric cars when home heating systems or cars reach the end of their life.”

    “Pinchbeck also said on Wednesday that she had written to all parties including Reform and the Conservatives to offer advice on its most recent carbon budget. There was “remarkable consistency” in public support for climate action, although this dropped as the cost of living increased, she said.”

    Makes you wonder if Emma Pinchbeck just spouts nonsense because she is never challenged.

    Like

  32. dfhunter,

    There was “remarkable consistency” in public support for climate action, although this dropped as the cost of living increased, she said.”

    That’s why they are so desperate to downplay the costs of net zero and to argue for shifting extra electricity costs onto the price of gas. If the public understands what net zero is costing, it will become hugely unpopular, and they know it.

    Like

  34. “The CCC Clams Up and Goes Insane

    The CCC refuses to answer FOI requests and the 7th Carbon Budget repeats an earlier mistake when calculating storage requirements.”

    https://davidturver.substack.com/p/the-ccc-clams-up-goes-insane

    …Remarkably, the CCC say they do not hold any information on capex, opex, and low-carbon technology take up rates if the cost of renewables remains at AR6/AR7 level. Apparently, further information on sensitivities they have run will be included in the Seventh Carbon Budget Methodology report, to be published 21 May 2025. It does seem rather odd that it takes three months to release the methodology used to produce the original report. It’s almost as if they made it up as they went along.…

    …By refusing to answer perfectly reasonable FOI requests, the CCC appears to be clamming up and trying to retreat into its shell. The lack of response reveals the weaknesses in its original report. How on earth can they report on the costs of Net Zero as the difference between their Balanced Pathway and their notional baseline without having the either the pathway or baseline figures readily available. How can any report of this significance be considered robust if they have not considered a sensitivity analysis on their key assumptions about the cost of renewables? The fact they have repeated the same mistake when calculating the amount of storage required reveals further weakness and a lack of seriousness in their analysis.

    Yet, the Government is supposed to take this advice and enshrine it in law. In evidence to the House of Lords, when chair of the CCC, Lord Deben was particularly revealing:

    “The structure is remarkably good. It has been remarkably resilient through all the years since its inception because its independence is guaranteed. It gives its advice to Parliament. When Parliament passes the budgets, which we have to produce, they become law and cannot be changed without reference to the Climate Change Committee, which would have to give permission were it to be changed.”

    The CCC writes the budgets, Parliament cannot change the advice without seeking permission from the CCC. We will join the CCC in the asylum if we make the mistake of letting yet another incompetent and damaging Carbon Budget report become law.

    As always, well worth reading in full.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Jit – thanks for that Telegraph link, well worth the read.

    After looking at the article lead pic of Pinchbeck https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2025/04/03/TELEMMGLPICT000417615044_17436984755060_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=1280

    I couldn’t agree more with this from the comments below –

    “Catherine Longstaff 2 days ago

    The usual self-satisfied smirk worn by so many of these people who just live to impose their ridiculous ideas on others”

    Liked by 1 person

  37. “The CCC Reveal Their Errors

    The cost of renewables in the 7th Carbon Budget are a complete fantasy.”

    https://davidturver.substack.com/p/the-ccc-reveal-their-errors

    Conclusions

    The Climate Change Committee is a public body that should adhere to the Nolan Principles that include selflessness, integrity, objectivity and openness. Moreover, there should be a general expectation of competence and a duty of care to the public.

    Sadly, we can see that their estimates do not pass the objectivity nor the integrity tests and they have fallen woefully short of the level of competence that we have a right to expect from public bodies making recommendations about spending our money. The Seventh Carbon Budget is the result of either institutional incompetence or wilful negligence. It should not be taken seriously by anyone.

    The Government should reject their advice and ask them to come back with more realistic estimates for the cost of their fantasies.

    Like

  38. Complacency at the Climate Change Committee, and at the BBC if its headline is anything to go by – strictly accurate, but creating a deeply misleading impression:

    “More people buying electric cars and heat pumps than ever before”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjqzj8rnvyo

    That’s a bit like the BBC’s claim the other day that the hottest day of the year so far was a “record”, even though it was neither the hottest day on record for that day or for that month. Just as we tend to get warmer days as we move further into summer, so it’s inevitable that with all the sticks being wielded and carrots being offered, more people will buy EVs and instal heat pumps. But sales of EVs remain way behind target, and heat pump installation levels are a joke compared to official targets:

    More people are buying electric cars and installing heat pumps than ever before, but those numbers need to increase even further, according to the government’s climate advisers.

    The independent Climate Change Committee said that the government needed to make sure that households benefit from the switch to cleaner technologies through lower bills.

    “The government has made progress on a number of fronts, including on clean power, [but] they need to do more on making electricity cheap,” Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the CCC, told BBC News.

    In response Energy Secretary Ed Miliband thanked the committee for its advice and said it was committed to bringing down bills….

    The levels of complacency on show are astonishing, as is the failure to connect with reality. We are told:

    …Nearly one-in-five new cars sold in 2024 was electric...

    We aren’t told how far below one in five the number is. We are also told:

    …While new electric cars remain more expensive to buy than their petrol equivalents, the CCC expects them to cost the same in a couple of years.…

    Maybe, maybe not. But the CCC’s expectations have something of a poor track record.

    We are also told:

    …Sales of electric heat pumps are growing quickly too, up by more than half last year, thanks partly to grants introduced under the Conservatives, the CCC said. But they still remain well below target.…

    We aren’t told that by “well below target” they mean something like less than 10% of the required numbers.

    It’s amazing how clever use of words can tell the truth while at the same time being deeply misleading:

    …The single largest reason for the rise in household electricity prices in recent years is the increase in wholesale costs, driven by international gas prices, the CCC says.…

    Can you spot it? The single largest reason….Well, if you treat each of the green subsidies and levies as a separate reason, then maybe that is true. But the greatest factor making electricity expensive is the drive to expensive renewables, and the ongoing subsidies, not just of historic projects, but of new ones too, plus all the other costs associated with problematical renewables – the costs of stabilising the grid, constraints payments, the additional costs associated with ramping gas up and down in an inefficient way to cope with the unreliability of renewables, and so on.

    But never mind, our complacent CCC sees a way to gaslight us all:

    …But the committee adds that electricity bills are artificially high because charges are added to them to support largely older renewable energy projects – which were more expensive – as well as energy efficiency upgrades.…

    …Removing them from household electricity bills too would be a quick fix to the UK’s high prices, making it much cheaper to run an electric car or heat pump, the committee says..

    However, even the BBC spots the flaw in this “reasoning”:

    But these costs would have to go somewhere, potentially onto general taxation.

    It would take “about £200 off the average [household] bill but at a cost of about £6bn per year to the Exchequer,” said Adam Bell, director of policy at Stonehaven Consultancy and former head of energy strategy at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

    And that’s just the cost of the subsidies. It still ignores all the other whole-system costs associated with renewables.

    Liked by 1 person

  39. I heard this on R4 this morning. The tone had shifted, the reporter said, from the previous CCC outburst. We are back on track for the hallowed Net Zero. But to encourage the take up of the green options, the leccy bills had to be made less expensive. It did not say how this was to be achieved, but general taxation is one option, and of course the green devils have taunted us with the possibility that subsidies for electricity could be shifted onto gas bills instead.

    Nowhere was there even a hint that the project was off the rails.

    I lack the will to read the report itself right now.

    Like

  40. Mark,

    It’s just another attempt to manipulate pluralistic ignorance.

    It’s the CCC doing the nudging, but where would they be without the BBC?

    Like

  41. “The Climate Change Committee’s 2015 Fifth Carbon Budget Over-Estimated the Price of Gas in 2025 and Under-Estimated the Price of Renewables”

    tic.org/2025/08/21/the-climate-change-committees-2015-fifth-carbon-budget-over-estimated-the-price-of-gas-in-2025-and-under-estimated-the-price-of-renewables/

    Behind a paywall, unfortunately.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. Mark – tried to find a link, but failed. However my search found this from “The Conversation” –

    The UK’s year of climate U-turns exposes a deeper failure

    Seems Kevin Anderson Professor of Energy and Climate Change is not impressed with the CCC.

    “As carbon budget and energy policy researchers, we believe the UK’s official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), are failing to hold the government accountable for backsliding on climate action.

    Worse still, the CCC’s recommendation that the UK reach net zero emissions by 2050 does not align with international commitments to limit global warming to 1.5°C and “well below 2°C”. It also fails to reflect the UN principle of fairness and equity whereby wealthier nations like the UK cut emissions earlier and faster than poorer countries.” 

    Like

  44. dfhunter: thanks for the ink to Kevin Anderson’s remarkable rant in The Conversation. It’s extraordinary that someone in such a prominent academic position should apparently be so absurdly unaware of the realities of international climate action and of international climate politics. I say ‘apparently’ because he surely must know for example that the 1.5ºC target has been hopelessly unachievable for a long time, that the reason emissions are increasing is because major economies are not interested in controlling them and that Britain’s in no position to do anything about any of this. So what I wonder is his motivation?

    Unfortunately TC doesn’t allow comments so there’s no opportunity to interrogate him.

    Liked by 1 person

  45. Further to my comment above I decided to email Anderson. Here’s what I said:

    I saw your article in The Conversation yesterday setting out your views on the failures of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. I thought it most interesting. But one thing struck me in particular: your assumption that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5ºC target is still achievable – albeit a considerable challenge. That surprised me. I thought the impossibility of achieving that target was well established. Here’s why:

    In its 2018 Special Report (para C1) the IPCC recommended that, to achieve the target, global emissions should ‘decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030’. As global CO2 emissions in 2010 were 34.0 gigatonnes (Gt), they would therefore have to come down to 18.7 Gt by 2030 to meet the target. But, just three countries (China, the US and India) already exceed that (by 2.2 Gt) and all are likely to increase (or at best stabilise) their emissions over the next five years. Therefore, if the IPCC got it right, it’s certain that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5ºC target will be exceeded. And note: that’s true even if over the next five years every other country in the world reduced its emissions to zero and shipping and aviation ceased altogether.

    So either there’s no realistic possibility of the target being achieved or the IPCC got it wrong. Is that a fair conclusion? And, if so, which is it?

    His reply – if he chooses to send one – might be interesting. And BTW a similar process demonstrates that the ‘well below 2ºC‘ target is also unachievable

    Liked by 2 people

  46. I’ve had a reply from Kevin Anderson. Commendably prompt. Here’s what he says:

    I don’t think we claimed 1.5°C is possible, but rather that our Government & CCC claim that it is still aiming for 1.5°C and that the CCC’s balanced net zero pathway represents the UK’s fair proportion of the necessary effort (aligned with CBDR). This is all nonsense.

    My take is that that we need to pull out all stops to meet the “well below 2°C” commitment. If global emissions stay as they are today, then during the early 2030s 2°C will be then where 1.5°C is today – ie. impossible to achieve. The period for delivery is not post 2030, but between now and 2030.

    As it is today the CCC and the IPCC (working group 3) are betting the future on highly speculative (at scale) carbon removal technologies; they both remain unable/unwilling to contemplate any socially transformative change.

    Hope that clarifies my position.

    I’ve read his article again and it certainly gives the impression that he believes 1.5ºC is still (just about) possible. But I’m happy to give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that he regards its achievement as impossible. But that brings us to the ‘well below 2ºC’ target which he does believe is still possible – if we ‘pull out all the stops’. But I think the evidence indicates that that’s also unachievable. So my next step is to reply to his email to that effect.

    I’d obviously also like to know why he thinks the actions of the UK are so important in view of the fact that Britain is the source of such a tiny share of global emissions. But I think it’s best to keep this simple. Maybe I’ll ask him about that on another occasion.

    Like

  47. Well, his reply is a better effort than some of the nonsense I have seen, but it still lacks both sense and credibility to me. Your point is the critical one. “We” (the UK) can’t affect his desired outcome at all, and most of the rest of the world is interested, so what’s the point?

    A related issue is what’s the difference between 1.5 and well below 2? It doesn’t sound like a lot to me, so if 1.5 is unachievable, how is well below 2 achievable, and what difference will it make anyway?

    Liked by 1 person

  48. Mark: I’m sure you and I and most Clisceppers can easily answer your questions. But can Anderson – obviously an intelligent person – also do so? I suspect he can. But of course his agenda is very different from ours. Anyway, I responded to his email as follows:

    I reread the TC article and can see now that you do not specifically say that the 1.5ºC target is achievable. So thanks for clarifying that.

    You stress the necessity of pulling out all the stops to meet the ‘well below 2ºC’ target. But I fear that target is also no longer achievable. Here’s why:

    In its 2018 Special Report (para C1) the IPCC recommended that, to limit ‘global warming to below 2°C’ – i.e. to achieve the Paris Agreement’s ‘well below 2ºC’ target (Article 2.1 (a) – global emissions should ‘decline by about 25% from 2010 levels by 2030’. Therefore, as 2010 global CO2 emissions were 34.0 Gigatonnes (Gt), they’d have to come down to about 25.5 Gt by 2030 to meet the target. But the emissions of just 9 countries (China, the USA, India, Russia, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Turkey) already exceed 25.5 Gt and these are all countries that are likely to increase (or at best stabilise) their emissions over the next five years. Therefore, if the IPCC got it right, warming of at least 2ºC is a certainty. And that’s true even if over the next five years every other country in the world reduced its emissions radically (for example by ‘pulling out all the stops’ and reducing them by 50% or more) and emissions from shipping and aviation were reduced pro rata.

    So, if the IPCC got it right, there’s no realistic possibility of the ‘well below 2ºC’ target being achieved. Do you agree?

    As before, his reply (if he continues the exchange) should be interesting.

    Liked by 1 person

  49. Having had a prompt reply from Anderson to my first email (where he agreed that the 1.5ºC was unachievable), I’ve not yet had a reply to my subsequent 2.0ºC email.

    I’ve had another look at his first reply and see I missed something: re the IPCC and the CCC he complains that they ‘both remain unable/unwilling to contemplate any socially transformative change‘. So it seems he’s more concerned about social change (and not just any old change but ‘transformative‘ change) than he is about the climate. Interesting.

    Liked by 1 person

  52. “CCC Dissembles in Response to Coutinho

    New chair of the CCC now complicit in Carbon Budget deceit”

    https://davidturver.substack.com/p/ccc-dissembles-in-response-to-coutinho

    Anyone who was harbouring hopes that the appointment of Nigel Topping as the new chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) would herald a new era realism has had those hopes cruelly dashed. Last month, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Claire Coutinho wrote to Topping challenging the cost assumptions in their recent Seventh Carbon Budget (CB7). On Tuesday last week, he responded with a rambling letter full of tendentious drivel and deflection.…

    Conclusions

    The CCC’s model of the cost of net zero relies on their ridiculously low capital cost estimates delivering unrealistically low electricity prices. Realistic capex estimates will increase the up-front costs and sensible estimates for the cost of electricity mean their assumed operational savings out to 2050 will simply evaporate. Their entire model is built on fantasies and untruths.

    Nigel Topping was not in post when CB7 was published, so is not to blame for the initial report. However, in his first public letter he has backed the findings of CB7 and doubled down on the flawed model at its heart. It might have been possible to blame the original publication on mistakes made by innumerate arts graduates, but after publicly boasting of his mathematical prowess he is now complicit in the big lie underpinning Net Zero.

    The CCC implicitly admits that renewables are expensive by calling for what they euphemistically call levies and policy costs to be removed from electricity bills. These are subsidies for renewables that the CCC said in its fourth carbon budget should be “forced on the market whether cost effective or not.” Now they want to cover up their earlier mistakes and bury the costs in general taxation or transfer them on to gas bills.

    Doubling down on junk models, ignoring the costs of real projects, calling for the costs of renewables to be hidden and effectively misleading Parliament and the country demonstrate a truly staggering level of deceit. We must be getting close to triggering charges for misconduct in public office.

    Liked by 1 person

  53. “Weakening net zero policy ‘will spook investors’, warns UK’s climate adviser

    Nigel Topping says shifting course risks deterring capital, as he urges ministers to hold firm on green transition”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/15/weakening-net-zero-policy-will-spook-investors-warns-uks-climate-adviser

    It seems the benefits [sic] of net zero are a bit like climate change. While we always have a few years (but only a few years) to save the planet from climate catastrophe, the “benefits” of net zero are always ten years in the future. Meanwhile, the costs keep mounting up:

    …“Like any investment, there’s an upfront cost. Our advice shows that it’s about 0.2% [sic] of GDP [most of which will come from the private sector]. But by the back end of the next decade [from 2035] you reap the benefit.”…

    Liked by 1 person

  54. That’s facile by Topping. Why don’t we just see how other countries get on with Net Zero: if they do well, we’ll copy them. If not, we won’t.

    Liked by 1 person

  55. Mark & Jit(related to your separate post) – the quotes from Topping & Ed’s separate but connected, made think of this –

    How to spot a scam – Which? – partial quote –

    “Is the offer too good to be true?
    Scams will often promise high returns for very little financial commitment. They may even say that a deal is too good to miss. Use your common sense, if a deal seems too good to be true, it inevitably is.

    Are you being pressured to make a decision?
    Fraudsters often try to hurry your decision making. Don’t let anyone make you feel under pressure – it’s OK to take a break and think things through if you’re not sure. It’s also a common technique for scammers to use a countdown timer on scam websites to pile on further pressure. Genuine companies should always give you time and space to make an informed decision – anyone who tries to rush you should not be trusted.”

    Also from the Guardian article – “Topping, who spent 18 years in manufacturing before moving into climate advocacy in 2007, was the UN high-level champion for climate action at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021. “The evidence is very strong that we can do [net zero] and it will be to the significant benefit of the economy, both macroeconomically and microeconomically,” he said.”

    Well he would say that wouldn’t he.

    Liked by 2 people

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