Large Landspout Swirls Through Kansas

NOT A TORNADO

Storyful News & Weather

 Sep 20, 2023

What the National Weather Service said was a landspout was seen swirling near Nekoma, Kansas, as the area was under a severe thunderstorm warning on September 19.

Credit: Lindsey Broin via Storyful

 

WATERSPOUT

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MH370 

HE HAS A 'KIND' OF A POINT

Russian FM accuses West of direct fighting in Ukraine

AFP
Sat, 23 September 2023 

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reponds to a question during a press conference following his address to the 78th United Nations General Assembly (Ed JONES)

Western powers through their support to Ukraine have effectively entered direct fighting against Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.

"You can call it anything you want, but they are fighting with us, they are straight-up fighting with us. We call it a hybrid war, but that doesn't change things," Lavrov told a news conference at the United Nations.

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he is seeking to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia, a fellow nuclear power, and will not send American troops. His administration has also distanced itself from Ukrainian attacks into Russia itself.

But Lavrov pointed to the billions of dollars in Western military equipment provided to Kyiv since Russia attacked last year, as well as US and British intelligence support and the presence of Western military advisors.

Westerners are "de facto fighting against us, using the hands and bodies of Ukrainians," Lavrov said.

"I think everybody present here who pays at least some attention to... the situation in Ukraine knows very well that Americans, Britons and others are fighting, first of all, through providing more and more weapons," he said.

He also pointed to the presence in Ukraine of Western mercenaries. The United States and several other Western governments say that they discourage citizens from traveling to Ukraine and that such fighters have gone on their own.

Lavrov was taking part in the annual United Nations General Assembly, where all eyes were on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who flew to New York to appeal for greater support against the invasion.

Zelensky on Wednesday addressed a special Security Council session, in which he demanded that Russia be stripped of its veto. Lavrov showed up well after the Ukrainian president had spoken.

"I watched it on TV. He seemed rather grim," Lavrov said.

"But I have my own affairs to attend to. We all knew what he was going to say, so why waste time?"

Zelensky has promoted a 10-point blueprint for ending the war that would include a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territory -- including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014 -- and a special tribunal for accountability on war crimes.

Lavrov scoffed at Zelensky's plan and denounced the United States and European Union for backing it.

"It is not realistic and everybody understands this, but at the same time they say this is the only basis for negotiations," Lavrov said.

"We draw our conclusion that nobody wants to seriously show an understanding of what is happening," he said.

On ending the conflict, "under these circumstances, if they say it's on the battlefield, then fine, it'll be on the battlefield."

nr-md-sct/mlm/dw

UK

Business chiefs urge Labour to consider ‘fantastic’ plan to rejoin EU under new membership scheme

Adam Forrest
Sun, 24 September 2023

Labour leader Keir Starmer has ruled out rejoining the bloc if his party comes into power (PA)

Business bosses have urged Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to consider a bold plan to bring Britain back into the EU’s orbit through “associate membership”.

The French and German governments commissioned a report recommending a new outer tier for non-members, which could be open to the UK, in a bid to forge closer economic ties.

Under the associate membership plan, outer-tier countries would be expected to contribute to the EU’s annual budget in exchange for “participation” in the bloc’s single market.


Labour insisted the idea was a “non-starter” – but eyebrows were raised when it emerged that Sir Keir had told fellow leaders at a conference in Canada that “we don’t want to diverge” from EU rules.

British trade chiefs frustrated by Brexit red tape told The Independent that they welcome the idea of associate membership – saying it would be “fantastic” to remove tariff barriers and cut down on current friction.

It came as The Independent revealed that Sir Keir and French president Emmanuel Macron held secret Brexit talks in Paris and “covered all the difficult issues, not just pleasantries” – although Sir Keir has ruled out rejoining the bloc if Labour comes into power.

Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA), said: “Anything that makes trading with the EU more seamless would be a good thing – it would be a big improvement on what we have.”

He added: “I’d like to think Labour, and all parties, would keep an open mind about associate membership. When it comes to regulation and standards, at the moment we’re behaving as though we were in Europe – but with all this bureaucracy and costs that are damaging productivity and adding to inflation.”

The BMPA has backed Labour’s plan to seek a new veterinary agreement in an effort to remove some agriculture and food checks when Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal – the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) – is reviewed in 2025.

But Mr Allen said it is worth going further and exploring the option of associate membership if it would mean wider alignment with EU rules. “We would want to see full regulatory alignment,” he said. “It would make things a lot easier. We could still discuss with the EU some of the ways we would like to diverge at certain intervals, like Switzerland does.”

Keir Starmer discussed Brexit with Emmanuel Macron in Paris last week (Laurent Blevennec/Presidence de la Republique)

Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, said Britain’s food supply chain has suffered badly since waves of confusing new rules came into force with Brexit.

“A model that would see a more sensible economic arrangement between the two sides would be fantastic – so much better than the last six years. From a business point of view, we want the UK and EU to be as cooperative as possible,” he said.

But the supply-chain leader warned that full regulatory alignment would make Britain a “rule-taker” – an outcome that is unlikely to be popular with either a Labour or a Tory government.

Mr Brennan said a bespoke “equivalence” agreement on some mutually shared regulations might be better, adding: “It’s all about the details. If associate membership is about regulatory equivalence, to remove a lot of the friction in the movement of goods, it would be attractive.”

The Port of Dover has seen continual disruption in the wake of Brexit (AFP/Getty)

William Bain, head of trade at the British Chambers of Commerce, said associate membership is an “interesting idea” – but added that the UK remains “substantially down the list” when it comes to the EU’s desire to open up talks on a new trading relationship.

Asked about the prospect of Labour picking up the idea, Mr Bain said: “A new political dynamic can change things, but it’s difficult to see any appetite in Brussels at the moment to substantially rewrite the TCA or come up with a bespoke agreement.”

Germany and France commissioned an EU overhaul blueprint, dubbed “Macron’s onion”, which proposes the creation of three new tiers. The most closely aligned states would form an “inner circle”, with a secondary group of less closely integrated members and an outer tier of non-members with access to the single market.

A European diplomatic source told The Times that the plan had been designed with Labour in mind, despite Sir Keir having ruled out rejoining the EU single market.

A video clip of an event in Canada showed Sir Keir suggesting that the UK could have a stronger economic relationship under Labour because the party has the same ideas as Brussels on regulation.

“Most of the conflict with the UK being outside of the [EU] arises in so far as the UK wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners,” the Labour leader said.

He added: “Actually, we don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, working standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it.”

The Tories accused Sir Keir of plotting to “unpick” Brexit. The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said: “I think those kinds of comments about not wanting to diverge will worry a lot of people that what he really wants to do is to unpick Brexit.

“And we are going to make a tremendous success of Brexit. We’ve already started to do so. And there’s lots more to come.

“We want to be good friends with our neighbours across the Channel. But I think any suggestion that you want to align our laws and regulations with the EU will worry a lot of the people who voted for Brexit.”

Scottish port feels force of UK fishing storm


Véronique DUPONT
Sat, 23 September 2023 

The industry has faced a wave of complications and added financial costs (Andy Buchanan)

In Peterhead, a major port in northeast Scotland and Europe's largest wholesale market for white fish, Brexit was supposed to offer "a sea of opportunity" for locals.

Instead they have suffered a wave of complications and added financial costs in recent years, even before the impact of surging inflation.

"Careful what you wish for, it hasn't turned out as they promised," Mark Addison says in front of his trawler, the Benarkle II, which is moored just behind Peterhead's fish market.


"It's been the hardest three years," he tells AFP. "Brexit followed by the (Ukraine) war was just a double whammy."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring worldwide, with the fishing industry hit hard by rocketing fuel prices and large cost increases for key equipment such as nets.

Even though fishing represents just a small fraction of Britain's economy, it became a key negotiating issue in the country's new trade deal with the EU, as UK politicians rallied behind the island's rich maritime history.

- 'Make it work' -

In 2019, Boris Johnson, prime minister at the time, visited Peterhead as he sought re-election for his Conservative party on a platform of Brexit promotion, telling locals: "It's a sea of opportunity up here."

Johnson also made a trip to Grimsby, a major fishing market in northern England.

But for Addison, he was "sold a lie" over Brexit.

"There's been issues with queues, passports, paperwork... There's always something, which is a big problem with fresh-produce fish," he says.

Delays to UK exports have caused the prices of some white fish to drop.

Together the problems have offset what Addison calls a welcome increase in fishing quotas for the UK in the English Channel and North Sea waters separating the island nation from mainland Europe.

Although the quotas are larger, Addison says he must be more selective in what he catches. Fish whose flesh spoils quickly are no longer worth catching.

Before Brexit, his family business caught as much as it was allowed to, with the assurance of earning a good price at the Peterhead auctions.

Despite the changes, "you have to make it work", he says with a look of resignation. "I have three sons on that fishing boat."

In a hall the size of a football pitch, hundreds of boxes of fresh-caught fish are lined up under a pale neon light, ready to be sold.

Around fifty sellers, wearing plastic boots, raincoats or padded jackets to guard against the chill inside, will have sold 6,000 cases of fish in under two hours to the bidders gathered in the early morning.

- Labour shortage -

Graeme Sutherland, co-director of Whitelink Seafoods, was in favour of Brexit but says promises made by the UK government have yet to bear fruit -- and he remains hopeful of even higher quotas.

"It's still not delivering at the moment, we're still hoping," he says with a smile.

His family business, which catches and processes fish, employs nearly 200 people. It has been hit by a cost-of-living crisis, resulting in less income from the sale of prime produce such as monkfish.

Brexit ended the free movement of people between Britain and the EU, which means for Alistair Brown, operations director at Nolan Seafoods, finding staff has become difficult.

"Labour shortages are crazy. We need foreign people for processing," he says.

"Fishermen thought Brexit was going to be utopia for processors. It's been a disaster, it only brought extra costs. Everything is strained because of costs, inflation in the end."

Fisheries biologist Bryce Stewart of the University of York said there were some large fisheries that had seen benefits from Brexit.

"On the other hand, small scale fishermen, which make up the majority of boats... they've seen basically no benefits at all," he said.

"If you talk to the average fisherman, he would probably tell you that it's left them either no different or worse off."

ved-bcp/rfj/har/cw

Scientists warn next pandemic 'already on the way' and 'we got lucky with Covid'

Matthew Evans
Sun, 24 September 2023 

A virus akin to the Spanish flu could soon be causing havoc among society

 (Image: Getty)

Scientists have revealed fears surrounding the next pandemic that is 'already on the way' and believe we got off lightly with COVID-19.

Disease X - as it has been dubbed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) - is a probability rather than a possibility and could hit at any moment.

It could come from a million undiscovered viruses and it could kill 50 million people globally, 20 times more deadly than coronavirus, which caused 2.5million deaths.

The next pandemic could be on a similar scale to the Spanish flu. From 1918 to 1919, the Spanish flu infected an estimated 500 million people globally and killed 10% of those infected.

WHO believes vaccines will need to be created and delivered in a rapid response to combat the disease.

It adds that its devastating effects are likely to far outweigh that of Covid, which the world was dangerously unprepared for when it hit in early 2020.

Kate Bingham, who chaired the UK's Vaccine Taskforce between May and December of that year says we shouldn't be complacent just because Covid-19 is now "largely regarded as a routine illness".

The 57-year-old Dame warned in the Mail: "Let me put it this way: the 1918–19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I.

"Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that already exist. Today, there are more viruses busily replicating and mutating than all the other life forms on our planet combined. Not all of them pose a threat to humans, of course - but plenty do."

"In a sense, we got lucky with COVID-19"

She revealed that scientists are currently aware of 25 virus families, which each comprise up to thousands of individual viruses that all have the potential to evolve into a pandemic.

On top of that, it is estimated that there could be around a million more undiscovered viruses lingering out there which could leap from species to species and have the capability of killing millions of human beings.

She continued: "In a sense, we got lucky with COVID-19, despite the fact that it caused 20 million or more deaths across the world.

"The point is that the vast majority of people infected with the virus managed to recover. Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola [67%]. Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.

"We need to take the first steps in dealing with the next pandemic right now — and that involves putting money on the table. Yet there’s very little evidence that we’re prepared to spend anything remotely comparable on protecting ourselves from real viruses - the ones that could kill us.

"The monetary cost of inaction is seismic. After all, even Covid-19 - a milder virus than Disease X - managed to leave us holding a bill for $16 trillion in both lost output and public health expenditure."

Kate said it is crucial that we discover a collection of "different prototype vaccines for every threatening virus family" that we know of before the next pandemic begins.

"With that "head start" vaccines could be engineered to "target the very specific features of Disease X", which thankfully is "not impossible at all".

Opinion

Rupert Murdoch may be vacating the chair but his influence over his media empire remains

RIGHTWING TRICONTINETAL 

AUS, UK, U$A

Walter Marsh

Guardian Australia
Sun, 24 September 2023 

Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

On 9 September 1953, a small page-two item in the Adelaide News announced: “Mr Rupert Murdoch, son of the late Sir Keith Murdoch, is to join the staff of News Ltd.” Seventy years later almost to the day, the news of his resignation as chairman of the global media empire that company became arrived to noticeably more fanfare.

When I started writing about the 92-year-old’s early years, the inevitability of his exit presented a poignant vantage point to take stock of how the Murdoch model came to be, when the endpoint — and the damage — is clear.

Like News Corporation’s new chair, Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert was groomed for success by his father, Sir Keith. One of Australia’s most prominent and controversial newspapermen, Murdoch Sr had spent his final years acquiring companies such as News Ltd as part of a small family chain for his occasionally wayward son to inherit — a son he regarded as a “zealous Laborite” with “alarming left-wing views”, but hoped might lead a “useful altruistic and full life” in the media.

In 1953, South Australia had been run by a gerrymandered conservative government for decades, and Murdoch’s The News actively catered to the disenfranchised, Labor-voting readership that its rival, The Advertiser, wasn’t speaking to. Rupert’s personal politics at the time happened to align with those readers, but speaking directly to an untapped audience’s grievances while shaking up a complacent establishment would become the Murdoch playbook, from The Sun to Fox News.

These stories go some way to explaining the foundational contradictions evident in Rupert’s folksy parting dig this month at “elites” in “cahoots” with the non-Murdoch media. How he could fashion himself an outsider, sticking it to “elite” establishments all around the world, even as an Oxford-educated heir to a lineage of populist press barons ​from his father, Sir Keith, to Keith’s mentor Lord Northcliffe, to the American “yellow press” moguls Northcliffe emulated.

They show how Rupert has relished challenging systems and smashing norms for short-term profit and muscling his way into a market, with truth and consistency becoming secondary to landing a deal or winning a fight. Which is one thing when running an afternoon paper in 1950s Adelaide or 1960s Sydney, but which has an undeniably corrosive effect when rolled out on an industrial scale across the English-speaking world.

Related: Rupert Murdoch walks off a diminished figure and the media world he ruled is also ebbing away | Margaret Simons

Rupert’s 70 years in the business have been marked by technological disruption and globalisation. The young man who made an awkward, fumbled bid to secure some of Australia’s first commercial television licences in 1958, became the great union-smasher of Wapping in the 1980s, backed by Margaret Thatcher and labour-saving, job-slashing computer technology. He seized these changes to achieve a scale and influence surpassing all his predecessors, to become the last newspaper tycoon.

The media world Rupert leaves behind is almost unrecognisable from the one he inherited. His resignation letter thanked the truck drivers, cleaners, assistants, and camera operators of his modern enterprise, but not the legion of workers once required to report and make the news with hot metal and ink, clattering typewriters, and rumbling presses — now ancient history.

The landscape has changed, but so many of the questions playing out at the start of the Rupert era are still being asked today. Questions about monopoly and polarisation, about how our media and politics are being captured by capital and vested interests. About public discourse being recklessly riled up for profit by outlets that are structurally geared towards sensationalism and conflict. Rupert’s son Lachlan might now have the chair, but there are plenty of disruptor-reactionary capitalists vying to be his father’s spiritual successor.

Related: Former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull says Rupert Murdoch’s ‘anger-tainment’ damaged the democratic world

As for Rupert, his resignation note suggests he might never really leave, promising to remain involved “every day” with “thoughts, ideas, and advice” and even threatening to haunt the office on Friday afternoons. Lachlan is now closer in age to Sir Keith when he died than Rupert when he took over. The son will never enjoy the mix of privilege, freedom, and youthful iconoclasm his father enjoyed as a 22-year-old in the hot seat.

I was reminded of a similar farewell note written in December 1949, when Sir Keith Murdoch announced his resignation as the Herald and Weekly Times’ managing director after a health scare. It was thought to be the beginning of his retirement, but he too stuck around, and as chairman spent the remaining three years white-anting his successor, John Williams, while quietly building up a rival chain for Rupert to inherit. Sir Keith’s final act was to lead a boardroom coup against Williams, defiantly reasserting his control over the company.

For the past century, the story of the Murdochs in the media has been about that endless pursuit of control and power. Even as a self-titled Chairman Emeritus — whatever that means — Rupert’s old habits may yet die hard.

• Walter Marsh is a journalist and the author of Young Rupert: the making of the Murdoch empire (Scribe Publications)

Opinion

Murdoch brainwashed Britain. That’s the comforting tale the left tells itself. But is it true?

Gaby Hinsliff
Sun, 24 September 2023


‘What are you going to do about the Sun?” It was the first question Neil Kinnock asked, when a bunch of eager young political advisers setting up a now long-forgotten campaign for Britain to join the single currency begged his advice. By then an EU commissioner, Kinnock had never forgotten the paper’s devastating 1992 front page asking the last person left in Britain to turn out the lights if Labour won. But for decades now, his question has haunted the liberal left.

The Murdoch press has earned a fearsome reputation among progressives as a kind of giant toad squatting in the road, blocking the way to everything from higher taxes to gay rights and, above all, closer relations with Europe. Few did more to pave the way for Brexit than the immigrant-bashing, Brussels-baiting Sun, whose once cheeky Euroscepticism had descended by 2015 to the nadir of a Katie Hopkins column describing migrants drowning at sea as cockroaches. “Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in the water … I still don’t care,” she wrote. Across the Atlantic, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel offered a similarly shrill platform for the angry, increasingly paranoid voices who would propel Donald Trump to power. Though he eventually came to regret enabling Trump, when the 92-year-old Murdoch finally relinquished the reins of his empire to his son Lachlan last week, it was with one last defiant populist attack on the “elites” supposedly setting the political narrative.

The comforting story the left tells itself after every lost election is that without Murdoch or the Mail it could have won

There’s not enough salt in the world to take with that sentence, coming from a billionaire treated by world leaders like an angry god to be appeased. Murdoch told the Leveson inquiry into press misconduct that he’d “never asked a prime minister for anything”, but if so that was perhaps because so many prime ministers scrambled to find out what he wanted without him having to ask. (Fear of Murdoch helped persuade Tony Blair not to call that promised referendum on joining the euro, one of his former spin doctors told me; the Sun’s then political editor, Trevor Kavanagh, was known, only half-jokingly, in Whitehall as “the real Europe minister”.)

But if the right is too easily sold on silly populist conspiracy theories about a woke liberal elite controlling everything, the left has its own version. The comforting story it tells itself after every lost election is that without Murdoch or the Mail it could have won, as if Britain would be a liberal utopia if only the tabloids hadn’t somehow brainwashed everyone. To see Murdoch as a wizard of such supernatural gifts is to misunderstand the origins of his power: put simply, people.

Wondering what would happen in British politics if Murdoch’s iron grip lessened? Just look around: it’s already happened. Power has been quietly ebbing for years away from his titles, alongside the rest of the mainstream media, towards Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, platforms founded primarily by liberal tech bros and now swamped by white supremacists, Russian propogandists, haters and cranks. It’s new, not old, media increasingly driving the political volatility that has so destabilised western democracies, by taking what Murdoch did – giving the punters what they seem to want – to new extremes. His genius lay in a gut feeling for what angered or moved or titillated millions, long before algorithms made that easy to work out. He grasped the desire to be entertained, and to feel as if you mattered. (Both the serious investigations into matters of high public importance that his Sunday Times pursued and the tub-thumping at the Sun made their respective readers, in different ways, feel powerful and influential by association.) He confirmed his audience’s prejudices but hardly invented them, growing stronger the more politicians avoided confronting him, and by association, them.

His Sun backed Blair over John Major in 1997 at least partly because it could see its readers had already made the leap

Ironically, one of his executives once told me, Murdoch was privately scathing about politicians who kowtowed too much to him: he admired guts and conviction. He was also a businessman first and an ideologue only second, lobbying harder on commercial issues – media regulation, or funding of his rival, the BBC – than on purely political ends, and responding surprisingly pragmatically to shifting times. His Sun backed Blair over John Major in 1997 at least partly because it could see its readers had already made the leap, so why lose face by trying and publicly failing to convince them? Better to extract whatever concessions it could from Labour, in return for Murdoch’s blessing. Keir Starmer’s invitation to the annual Murdoch summer party this year suggests a similar willingness to at least run the rule over the Labour leader, despite lingering anger over his role in News UK’s public humiliation over phone hacking. (As director of public prosecutions, Starmer brought charges that ended in the jailing of the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, by then David Cameron’s director of communications.)

Since that scandal, Murdoch’s involvement in British public life has palpably receded. For all the talk of launching a British Fox News, here it’s GB News, owned by the hedge funder Sir Paul Marshall, that has become the shrill, shameless voice of British populism and the most pressing challenge for regulators.

That’s no excuse for complacency over the legacy of a man once described as a cancer on democracy. But it is a reminder, perhaps, of the risks of personifying evil in one man. The problem wasn’t Murdoch so much as the human instincts he tapped into, and politicians’ fear of challenging him. Whatever the next Labour leader chooses to do about the Sun, what matters is not being blinded by it.

• Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

UK

Rishi Sunak’s popularity sinks to lowest ever after climate U-turns

Jon Stone
Sat, 23 September 2023 

The prime minister has become more unpopular

 (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Rishi Sunak's popularity has sunk to its lowest ever level after the prime minister scrapped a series of climate pledges.

The prime minister's net favourability rating has plunged to a record -45, according to a YouGov poll carried out in the days after his speech on net zero policy.

The poll, conducted on 21 and 22 September, shows 68 per cent of voters have a negative view of Mr Sunak, up from 67 per cent in late August.

By comparison just 23 per cent now have a positive view, down from 26 per cent at the last poll.

It comes after research by another pollster, Survation, found that large majorities of voters support climate action – especially in so-called "Blue Wall" seats Mr Sunak wants to hang on to at the next election.

The latest YouGov poll looking at Mr Sunak's popularity found that the PM's popularity has taken a particular hit among Lib Dems voters who the Tories are competing for in these marginal seats.

Just 12 per cent of Lib Dem voters now say they have a favourable view - down from 25 per cent in August.

The public's impression of Labour leader Keir Starmer is also poor. just 30 per cent of the public have a favourable view of him, down from 35 per cent at the end of August.

47 per cent of voters said Mr Sunak was right to make the changes to his climate policies, while 46 per cent said he was wrong.

Matthew Smith, head of data journalism at YouGov wrote: "While the prime minister will have been hoping to receive some benefit from his net zero announcements, his reputation among Tory voters remains effectively unchanged ."

The prime minister this week insisted he is “absolutely not slowing down” efforts to combat climate change despite delaying or watering down a slate of policies.

The PM has pushed back the ban on new petrol and diesel cars, watered down the plan to phase out gas boilers by 2035 and scrapped the requirement of energy efficiency upgrades to homes.

How Sunak's back-pedaling on net zero could damage efforts to decarbonize Britain's homes

by Ludovica Gazze, The Conversation

Credit: Clare Louise Jackson/Shutterstock

Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, has announced his government will scrap or delay a number of measures designed to help the UK reach net zero by 2050, with a particular focus on housing. This includes getting rid of impending requirements for landlords and property owners to upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes with insulation and other measures. And the ban on installing gas boilers in new homes will be pushed from 2025 until 2035.

Instead, the government will rely more heavily on schemes to encourage people to make energy-efficiency improvements, such as grants to replace boilers have increased by 50% to £7,500 alongside other. But what effect is this likely to have on efforts to decarbonize Britain's housing stock?

Several reviews of the government's net zero strategy have already highlighted that continuous policy changes and U-turns, such as discontinuing subsidies after only a year or so, are counterproductive. These include reports by government advisers the Climate Change Committee and one chaired by the former Conservative energy minister, Chris Skidmore, which was published in January 2023.

All these sources emphasize that frequent program changes reduce both the demand for energy-efficiency investments among property owners and the ability of firms to meet it. On the demand side, this announcement seemingly rewards those landlords who have been waiting to upgrade their property by the original deadline of 2025. In the future, others might similarly put off making changes to comply with incoming regulations and requirements.

This wait-and-see approach affects the supply side too. If firms can less reliably predict demand they might hold off on investing, for instance, in hiring or training skilled workers or by securing contracts for parts.

Requirements to upgrade homes to make them more energy-efficient could act as a catalyst by creating a clear goal towards which UK firms and the public can work, enabling the market to shift towards greener options. Eliminating these requirements is a missed opportunity for property owners and firms alike.

The cost of policy U-turns

In general, subsidies for retrofitting homes and upgrading boilers don't appear to have worked well so far.

The green homes grant, introduced in October 2020, gave homeowners vouchers to cover much of the cost of energy-efficiency improvements using accredited suppliers. However, this scheme ended with most of the funding unspent, as accreditation proved costly and complex for firms and businesses did not scale up their operations and train new staff for a program that was only designed to last a few months.

To this day, when I speak with builders they lament the paperwork required to access the most recent boiler upgrade scheme, as well as the delays they face in getting reimbursed. It will be hard to judge the newly promised funds until the details are unveiled.

The argument made by landlord associations (and parroted by the government) that the requirement to upgrade the efficiency of rental properties would have raised rents for tenants is flawed.

When homes are sold or leased today, the must have an energy performance certificate (EPC) that rates their energy efficiency on a scale of A-G, with A being the most efficient. This also includes recommendations on how to improve the energy efficiency of the property.

While it is true that properties with higher EPC ratings demand higher rents on average compared to similar neighboring properties, it is hard to know what other improvements will also have increased the rental price.

Retrofitting homes would also boost their resale values, allowing landlords to recoup costs. And as many others have already pointed out, it would also lower energy bills and improve the comfort and well-being of those living in them, with knock-on benefits for public health among the many net positive effects.

The government's announcement creates a lose-lose-lose situation. It jeopardizes the UK's ability to meet its net zero targets while leaving vulnerable families in potentially outdated and drafty houses.

The effects of this backpedaling are not restricted to housing either. They are likely to undermine the credibility of net zero policies across the board, discouraging UK businesses from investing in green jobs and technologies.

If there is a legitimate concern that net zero policies will burden low-income families, then this could be addressed with more direct intervention by the government to ease the cost-of-living with lump-sum transfers and other measures that do not blunt incentives to invest in energy efficiency for everyone.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia won't meet net zero goals without a national approach to home thermal efficiency: Report

Harvie: Sunak has ‘damn nerve’ to blame climate rollback on household burden

Rebecca McCurdy, PA Scotland Political Reporter
Sun, 24 September 2023 

Rishi Sunak has a “damn nerve” to claim delays to key climate pledges were for the benefit of households, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie has said.

Mr Harvie, who is zero carbon buildings minister for the Scottish Government, said the Prime Minister’s pledge to delay the ban on sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by five years – to 2035 – will have a knock-on effect on Scotland’s net zero ambitions.

Last week, Mr Sunak also weakened the plan to phase out gas boilers from 2035 to require households struggling the most to refrain from the change, with Scottish ministers now “urgently” assessing how the news will impact targets north of the border.

The Prime Minister said the moves were made to prevent the cost burden being placed on ordinary families.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivered a speech on the plans for net-zero commitments (Justin Tallis/PA)

Speaking on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show, Mr Harvie said the announcement was “profoundly worrying” and deeply irresponsible” as he condemned the lack of communication with devolved administrations.

“Some of the irresponsibility of this is about their unwillingness even to talk to Scottish or Welsh governments in advance,” he said.

“We’ve been trying (to work together) and yet at the last minute you get this bizarre announcement saying we’re going to put a wrecking ball through a lot of the existing climate commitments. There’s a problem with leadership here.”

He said the plans will have a “direct impact” on Scottish climate targets but that it would not “change our determination to go as far as we can”, although “it does make a lot of this really, really difficult”.

His comments come as Scottish Tory figures showed the Scottish Government’s target to install 30,000 electric car-charging stations could be missed by 12 years, with the party urging the Scottish Government to follow in the footsteps of the Prime Minister.

Figures revealed by the Tories from ChargePlace Scotland showed just 169 chargers had been added between October 2022 and August 2023.

Scottish Government figures estimated there were almost 4,000 charging points as of June 2023, with the Tories estimating it could be 2042 before the target is reached.

Scottish Tory analysis suggests the Scottish Government will miss its electric car charging station target (John Walton/PA)

Mr Harvie told the BBC programme businesses would be put off investing in the required infrastructure because of Mr Sunak’s comments, saying: “I think they’ve got a damn nerve, to be honest.

“What we need if we’re going to see not just public charging points, which we have been rolling out, but you need all sorts of other organisations to start installing their own charging points as well.

“Without that sense of when policy changes are coming, when regulatory changes are coming, why would they bother investing in the UK given that lack of clarity?”

Transport Scotland said £65 million had been invested in the electric charging network since 2011, where Scotland had the greatest number of rapid or ultra-rapid charging points per head of population outside of London.

A spokesperson said: “In addition to funding over 2,600 charge points on the public CPS network, the Scottish Government has increased charging capacity across Scotland by also funding the installation of over 20,000 home and workplace charge points.

“Last year ministers also introduced legislation requiring car parks of new buildings to install charge points.

“To meet Scotland’s statutory climate change targets, the pace and scale of investment in the public network will need to increase over the coming years and it will be unsustainable for the public sector to deliver this alone.”

The UK Government has been approached for comment.

UK
‘The worst kind of culture war’: Tories attack Rishi Sunak’s reversal on net zero

Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
Sat, 23 September 2023 

Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/EPA

Rishi Sunak’s decision to drive a “green wedge” between the Conservatives and Labour will take the UK into dangerous new political territory and “the worst kind of culture wars”, not seen for more than 30 years, senior Tory figures and political observers have warned.

Reversals and delays to net zero policy announced last week will be just the start of a general election campaign in which the UK’s longstanding cross-party political consensus on climate will be increasingly at stake. Emails sent to journalists from the Conservative campaign headquarters revealed lines of attack on targets including the independent Climate Change Committee and Labour’s proposed £28bn investment in a low-carbon economy.

Sunak, announcing a five-year delay to the ban on new petrol and diesel cars, and a watering-down of the phase-out of gas boilers, also claimed to scrap nonexistent taxes on meat and flying, the imposition of seven bins and forced car-sharing – and the CCHQ emails encouraged the media to target Labour over these phantom policies.

For veteran champions of climate policy, these attacks are a novel and threatening development – since the late 1980s, measures to tackle the climate crisis have had common backing across the political spectrum.

Lord Goldsmith, a former Tory minister, told the Observer: “It’s not so much the individual measures he’s announced. It’s more about the language and politics. This is a clear attempt to turn the environment into a wedge issue, as it is in the US. We have managed to avoid that until now, with disagreements mostly being about means, not ends. Sacrificing the environment to culture wars is cynical, devastating and wildly irresponsible.”

Sunak repeated many times that he was still committed to the UK’s legally binding target of reaching net zero by 2050, though experts said the policy changes were more likely to hamper than help. But Chris Skidmore, the Conservative ex-minister and author of the government’s net zero review, accused the prime minister of misleading voters. “It’s especially worrying that false claims and disinformation are being made about meat taxes that have never existed, or compulsory car sharing, or having seven bins. This is completely untrue, and is the worst kind of culture war politics, attempting to deliberately mislead,” he told the Observer.

Some political observers said there was still time for the government to pull back from the brink. “It’s too soon to say the cross-party consensus is cracking, but it is in danger,” said Tom Burke, a former government adviser and co-founder of the green thinktank E3G. “This is a big mistake by the Tories, it will not help them much, and it’s desperate.”

Shaun Spiers, executive director of the Green Alliance thinktank, added that it was possible the PM’s blows against net zero policy were “more sound and fury than anything substantial” but warned they should stop. “If this is the way the Conservative party is going to work, it will fracture the consensus on the climate,” he said. “If Sunak wants to go further, then the consensus will be in deep trouble.”

Attempts to create divisions over the climate contrast sharply with the last general election, in December 2019, when all major parties had commitments to the target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The main green point of contention in their manifestos was over which could cut carbon fastest.

This cross-party approach has been a feature of British politics since the days of Margaret Thatcher. A chemist by training, she grasped the potential impacts of burgeoning carbon emissions on global heating. After the success of signing a global UN treaty to save the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol in 1987, she moved quickly to attempt the same for greenhouse gases, making a landmark speech at the UN general assembly in 1989, calling for concerted action.

Sunak, by contrast, did not even attend the UN gathering this month. Just hours after the UN secretary general António Guterres warned world leaders that humanity had “opened the gates of hell”, Sunak made his speech watering down UK policy.

Other self-identified “green Tories” are less concerned about the change of direction. One told the Observer the announced changes on electric vehicles and boilers, and scrapping proposals to force landlords to make their tenants’ homes more energy efficient, were “not going to slow the dial that much [on cutting emissions]. This is why I have been broadly supportive of the pragmatic approach.”

When it comes to voters, the signs are that the UK public values the cross-party consensus, with more than two-thirds in most polls putting climate action as a top priority. Polling for the Guardian yesterday shows the danger for Sunak: just over one in five voters now trust Sunak on the climate, according to research carried out by Omnisis.

Goldsmith said: “This [culture war over the climate] is not what voters want, and I’m confident they will put an end to this.”

Major Tory donor threatens to back Labour over ‘madness’ of Sunak’s net zero U-turn

Eleanor Noyce
Sun, 24 September 2023

A major Conservative Party donor has threatened to switch his allegiance to Labour over the “madness” of Rishi Sunak’s net zero U-turn.

Billionaire John Caudwell was the Tory party’s largest donor before the last election, but he has now said there is “no chance whatsoever” that he will support Mr Sunak after the changes the prime minister made on an array of green policies earlier this week.

In 2019, the founder of mobile phone retailer Phones4U, which went into administration in 2014, gave £500,000 to the party. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2022, Mr Caudwell is worth £1.58bn, and he was ranked 984th on the Forbes 2022 list of the world’s billionaires, which listed his net worth as $2.8bn.

John Caudwell, the billionaire founder of Phones 4U, says he was ‘beyond shocked’ at the PM’s reversal on green reforms (Getty)

This week, Mr Sunak jettisoned an extensive list of net zero pledges, delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars until 2035 and diluting targets for the phasing out of gas boilers.

He announced that the UK will stick by its net zero commitment, but rolled back planned measures designed to keep the country on track to meet its climate goals by 2050. Mr Sunak argued that the policies imposed “unacceptable costs” on ordinary people, though climate experts have strongly rejected that claim.

The prime minister was widely mocked for axeing policies that did not actually exist – such as a theoretical new tax on meat and “compulsory” car-sharing.

In The Sunday Times, Mr Caudwell said he was “beyond shocked” at the “madness” of Mr Sunak’s reversal on green reforms that had been introduced by former prime minister Boris Johnson.

“If Rishi sticks to this, would I donate to the Conservative Party? Absolutely not,” he said. “No chance whatsoever with the decisions they are making at the moment.

“Would I switch to Labour? The answer to that is very simple: I will support any party that I believe will do the right thing for Britain going forward.”

Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak jettisoned an extensive list of net zero pledges 

The billionaire said he was “horrified” by the changes Mr Sunak has made to the Tory party’s green policies, remarking that the decision “moves the Conservatives back a long way”.

“Whatever chance they had of winning the next election, this moves them backwards,” he said. “It shows inconsistency. It shows lack of determination. It’s depressing.”

Mr Caudwell said he had been “extremely disappointed” by the management of the Conservative Party over the past four years, but had been prompted to speak out following Mr Sunak’s net zero statement.

“The biggest problem that we face is the environment and climate change,” he told Sky News. He said that delaying the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars to 2035 meant there was a risk that it would already be too late.

“It is a devastating mistake, because we might already be past the tipping point,” he said.