A secondary objective is now becoming apparent, with demands being placed on Western countries to provide ‘reparations’ for the damage supposedly caused by historic past emissions. This is a smart move since it plays on liberal guilt for the sin of living in richer and more economically successful countries, achieved through their own innovation, invention, and industry. Western countries such as Britain have been flagellating themselves incessantly by parroting the belief that extreme weather events are caused by ‘climate change’ rather than the natural phenomenon known as weather. Extreme weather events have occurred regularly for countless centuries but it is only in the last few decades that they have been blamed on the climate change scam. So it is no surprise that poorer countries have opportunistically taken the logical step of starting to demand financial compensation for developed countries past sins.
Since the start of the miners strike in 1984 the number of collieries has declined from 152 to zero, the last closing in 2015. During the same period about fifty coal fired power stations have been closed, and just two remain operational today. Ironically, the left wing activists who opposed pit closures during the miners strike under the slogan ‘coal not dole’ are today the most fanatical opponents of fossil fuels.
It is worth examining what the political parties had to say about energy in the years immediately after the miners strike. The Labour Party manifesto declared that ‘we have huge reserves of coal which will last for centuries’ adding that ‘efficiency in industry and security in the community both depend on reliable and safe supplies of energy available at acceptable cost. Britain's oil reserves have a limited life’. Labour opposed new nuclear power stations and promised increased support for renewable energy projects.
The Liberal Democrats promised ‘continued modernisation and development of the coal industry, including new coal-fired power stations’ adding that ‘existing capacity and planned coal-fired power stations are enough to meet our needs for some time to come and we see no case for proceeding with new nuclear power stations at the present time’. The Liberal Democrats also promised greater support for renewable energy projects.
The Green Party recognised that ‘coal, oil and gas will continue to play a vital part in our energy strategy, but their use must respect the necessity for conservation.’ However, ‘nuclear power must be phased out’ promising to ‘close down all nuclear reactors within four years’. There was a strong emphasis on developing ‘widespread energy conservation programmes and renewable energy supplies’.
The Conservative Party stated that ‘coal will continue to meet much of the steadily rising demand for electricity. Renewable sources of energy can make some contribution to the nation's energy needs’ adding that they would ‘proceed with the next phase of our nuclear programme’. They stressed the importance of North Sea oil ‘so successfully developed by free enterprise, but it is an advantage that will not last indefinitely’. Curiously, the Conservatives were the only party to mention the climate: ‘the world's resources of fossil fuels will come under increasing strain during the 21st century; so may the global environment if the build-up of carbon dioxide the so-called "greenhouse effect" significantly raises temperatures and changes climates’.
So all the political parties agreed that fossil fuels, including coal, would continue to be needed in the foreseeable future. They recognised that North Sea oil was finite and thus there was a need to conserve fossil fuel stocks by the greater use of renewable sources. The main disagreement was over the use of nuclear with only the Conservatives unambiguously supporting it. In the event no new nuclear power stations were authorised during the next quarter century. So during this period we lost a reliable source of energy, coal, and failed to invest in another reliable source, nuclear.
The discovery of ‘greenhouse gases’ dates back to the 1890s, but concern that they may lead to global warming only began in the late 1980s. This is unsurprising as between 1940 and the mid 1970s global temperatures fell despite CO2 continuing to increase. The biggest concern during the 1970s was the fear that we may be entering a new ice age caused by pollution from fossil fuels dimming the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the planet, as outlined here. (http://bit.ly/27RaoNr)
So for well over a century until the present time the science has remained the same namely that the existence of greenhouse gases raises the global temperatures by a sufficient amount to allow human civilisation to exist, and that without them most of the global population would freeze. Despite the unchanging nature of the science, since the late 1980s climate alarmism has continued to grow exponentially, based on nothing more than computer projections, and predictions about how the climate might respond if these projections were ever realised.
There is currently a target to try and limit the global increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees. However, the baseline for this figure is the end of the little ice age more than two centuries ago. The alarmists believe that this was a period when the climate was supposedly in perfect equilibrium, but this is far from the case. During that time Europe regularly suffered bitter winters and poor harvests. The 1.0 degree rise since then has provided much of the world with a more benign climate. It should be remembered that far more people die in cold weather than in hot weather.
If the past is any guide the projections for global temperature rise for the rest of the century have been greatly exaggerated. In reality, with so many variables and unknown factors, it is impossible to predict what global temperatures might be at any given time in the future. The alarmism over ‘climate change’ is not scientifically driven as repeatedly claimed, but is motivated by a Marxist political agenda to destroy the capitalist system. Protest organisations such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are nothing more than a fake environmental cover for the Occupy movement that was active a decade ago. The government should stop surrendering to their agenda, concentrate instead on developing reliable sources of energy, and end the folly of trying to meet the net zero target.
