climate change

The Met Office have changed their decadal forecast for the next four years from a predicted 0.54 degree rise to a 0.43 degree rise, measured relative to the 1971-2000 average. This doesn’t sound all that exciting, even to real climate geeks like us, but then Lord Lawson’s climate denial outfit, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, got hold of the story and turned it into ‘Global Warming at a standstill’ in the Telegraph and similarly dramatic variations on the BBC’s Today programme and elsewhere.

The clock is ticking. From today we have a chance to influence the final EU law that could force car companies to produce greener cars.

Friday was a brave day for Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls to hug a solar panel. Britain had awoken to the - albeit sensationalist and misleading - headline news that households could be paying £170 a year by 2020 to fund renewable energy projects. (The reality being nearly half that cost and overall savings if we get our act together on energy efficiency). But Ed Balls, MP for Morley and Outwood, pulled up to renewable installation company Eclipse Energy in Leeds enthusiastic, engaged and ready to – literally - embrace clean energy.

If a year is a long time in politics, then 2016 is a lifetime away. Yet the government has decided not to commit the UK to clean electricity until after the next election.