‘It's a vanity project!' Ex-climate adviser tears into Ed Milliband's net zero madness and COP30 'theatre'

Speaking to GB News Originals to coincide with the global climate summit in Belém, Brazil, Professor Hulme said the world’s fixation with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels has drifted from science into belief.

He said: “Changing the world to hit 1.5C is impossible and we are living under fiction that 1.5C can be delivered. It can’t and never will be and never can be. The mantra of 1.5C to survive is no longer effective and it is focusing on the wrong thing and it is arbitrary.”

Professor Hulme — a former lead author for the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and founder of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research — said: “CO2 probably contributes 50 to 70 per cent of global temperatures warming and humans are a large part of that."

However, Professor Hulme argued Britain’s high-cost race to net zero is the wrong answer delivered in the wrong way.

He said: “Whether Britain hits net zero by 2050, 2060 or whenever is irrelevant as far as climate is concerned.”

He warns net zero is being “done in a headlong rush" that will “push policies in a direction that make no economic sense and become deeply unpopular".

The costs, he said, are hitting households, small firms and the public have sparked a “war on cheap energy” as energy prices and green mandates cascade through everything from food to transport and industrial output.

Professor Hulme believes ministers should not attempt to be net zero “world leaders” and start thinking like engineers and economists.

“It is no good trying to squeeze every last petrol car off the street,” he said.

"We need a policy of energy security… what matters is helping poorer countries adapt to climate extremes… not keeping them in energy poverty.”

He said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s push for Britain to be a global standard-bearer was futile. If the goal is simply to be “first", Professor Hulme said, that is “vanity”, not climate realism.

New analysis by political scientist Dr Bjorn Lomberg reveals that if wealthier nations became Net Zero by 2050, global temperatures would only fall by 0.1 degrees celsius at a cost of £75trillion.

Dr Lomberg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus think-tank, also said Britain had become one of the worst examples of “costly climate vanity". He said: "The UK has shown the world how not to do a green transition. You’ve locked in world-record energy prices for decades and achieved nothing for climate.”

Professor Hulme also criticised the catastrophist language that has dominated schools, media and politics: “Young people have been scared into thinking the world is ending in five years and that hype needs to dissipate.

“We used to believe the planet would reach five and six degrees of warming but we now know that this is not true. It’s only likely to be 2 to 3° and most recognise that this is manageable.

“Minimising CO2 is reasonable… but the target of 1.5C by 2030 is very unhelpful,” he said.

“The best thing Britain can do… is innoacte technology to shield people and try to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and increase resilience to weather extremes.

"If anything we should relax net zero dates and reinstate our developmental assistance to enhance the ability of less developed nations to cope.”

Professor Hulme said there was a closing of minds around climate orthodox. He drew a parallel with the coronavirus pandemic, where disagreements over lockdown measures and the vaccine were often branded dangerous and reputations were attacked.

He said there were longstanding concerns about climate research where alarmist framing can be rewarded and where, he claims, “reviewers are sometimes selected to find a way to make climate change sound more urgent or dramatic".

Professor Hulme said the ritual of conferences such as COP30 will not deliver salvation. “We should shape the climate debate into the global context,” Professor Hulme said.

A government spokesman said: "Climate denialism is a threat to our children and grandchildren. We are representing the UK at COP30 to fight for our national interest and protect our way of life. Accelerating to net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century and at the heart of our mission to boost growth, create jobs and tackle the climate crisis”.

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