May 7, 2021
Energy Policymaking in the UK: Ill-Informed and Incoherent
In March 2012, four former Directors of Friends of the Earth (myself, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper) wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron to warn him that the…
April 15, 2021
Net Zero Without Nuclear: the Case Against Nuclear Power
Even as the prospects for nuclear power continue to decline, the industry is spending more and more money seeking to persuade Governments, commentators and ‘gullible greenies’…
March 13, 2021
Why I really didn’t like Bill Gates’s ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’
So what are we to make of a guy who completely ignored climate change until 2006, only decided to ‘do more and speak out more’ in 2015, whilst continuing to invest huge sums of…
March 2, 2021
BP and Shell: Sinners into Saints?
‘BP and Shell are companies whose senior managers know, as an irrefutable fact, that their current business model threatens both the stability of the global economy and the…
February 2, 2021
2021: Make or Break For The UK’s Climate Strategy – instalment (C)
Both the Ten Point Plan and the Energy White Paper wax lyrical about the potential for CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage), using pretty much the same kind of language…
January 31, 2021
2021: Make Or Break For The UK’s Climate Strategy – instalment (B)
If renewables is the UK’s strongest low-carbon suit, energy efficiency in the built environment is by far the weakest. It’s absolutely critical that the UK puts efficiency at the…
January 28, 2021
2021: Make or break for the UK’s climate strategy
For all sorts of reasons, UK politicians do at last seem to have grasped that we are in the midst of an out-and-out Climate Emergency. Despite people’s worst fears that the whole…
September 23, 2020
Getting on board with the renewables revolution
The world is on fire (literally) on account of accelerated climate change, and the world of renewables is on fire (metaphorically) in response to accelerated climate change. More…
June 10, 2020
High Stakes for a low carbon future
In the third of our Corporate Leadership in the time of Corona series, Jonathon Porritt looks at the way companies in the energy sector are either digging in to protect their…
December 9, 2019
Friends of the Earth’s Disgraceful Manifesto Analysis
As a former Director of Friends of the Earth, I can say with certain knowledge that FoE is an organisation that makes its fair share of mistakes – as much under my watch as under…