Welcome to Climate Answers

Climate change is the most serious issue ever to have faced humanity. Rightly, it is now high on the public, political, media and business agendas. However, too much of the discussion is still about what we should not be doing or what we should be against. There is not enough discussion or information on solutions – what we can and should do to minimise dangerous climate change, and what should be done to make us not only safer and more secure, but also richer and happier.

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31 May 2016: The EU and domestic energy bills

Vote Leave is today claiming that, if the UK leaves the EU, domestic energy bills would be lower. They are wrong. Domestic energy bills could and should be reduced by changing taxes and tariffs. It is possible to do this without leaving the EU. Quitting the European Internal Energy Market – the single market for […]

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Brexit and Energy: cost, security and climate policy implications

The UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources and the UCL European Institute have released a new paper on Brexit and the impact on UK climate and energy policy. This paper, written by Professor Michael Grubb, UCL ISR and Stephen Tindale, Director, Alvin Weinberg Foundation analyses the implications of Brexit for the UK’s energy sector. Despite significant uncertainties, the […]

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19 April 2016: EU membership delivers cleaner air

The air in London is cleaner than it was in the 1950s, the era of infamous smogs. But it is still not clean enough. Every year over nine thousand Londoners are killed by air pollution, primarily from road transport (see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nearly-9500-people-die-early-in-a-single-year-in-london-as-a-result-of-air-pollution-study-finds-10390729.html) . British politicians of all parties have failed to tackle this problem adequately, for […]

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27 March 2016: I cannot vote for a pacifist as prime minister

If Jeremy Corbyn accepts that military force is sometimes justifiable, I will vote Labour in 2020. If not, and if he is still leader, I will not.

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Costa Rica’s achievements in perspective

costa rica

Costa Rica has been celebrated for its renewable achievements but are they too good to be true?

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15 December 2015: The Paris Agreement: good start – now let the real work begin

The fact that an agreement was reached is excellent. The agreement, signed up to by rich, poor and middle income countries alike, was indeed historic. But the agreement is only a set of political promises, and politicians have been known not to keep their promises. Attention must now shift to implementation: to policies and to money.

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7 December 2015: UK climate and energy policy: small steps forward, large steps backwards

The advance represented by Energy and Climate Secretary Amber Rudd’s ‘reset’ speech on 18 November has been pretty comprehensively destroyed by Chancellor George Osborne.

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Good news for EU greenhouse gas emissions

With the Paris climate COP about to begin, encouraging figures showing EU greenhouse gas reductions indicate there may be some hope amongst all the fears.

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19 November 2015: Well done Amber Rudd

UK climate and energy policy are not perfect, but are in significantly better shape this morning than they were yesterday morning

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14 November 2015: Trafalgar Square vigil for Paris victims

My thoughts on this vigil, terrorism, the EU and the Paris climate summit.

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