Author Michael Scellenberger, known for his criticism of ‘environmental alarmism’ in his book Apocalypse Never, has joined GB News’ Darren Grimes at the ARC conference in London to discuss the UK’s net zero goals and climate policy.
When asked whether the conversation on energy has changed significantly in recent years, Scellenberger responded: “There's been a huge change. I mean, I think we've seen here in Britain, the Prime Minister has recently walked back some of the commitments they wanted to make on the net zero.
“The biggest change of all has been on nuclear power. We've seen Japan, South Korea, France all step up and make bigger commitments to nuclear and also on natural gas. I think that what we saw with the campaigns against oil and gas extraction, we saw the impacts of that in terms of the energy crisis.
Michael Scellenburger speaks with GB News' Darren Grimes
GB News
Darren also asked how national security concerns tie into the debate on energy supplies, with Russia controlling much of the supply of natural gas.
“Many of us were critical of the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Western Europe,” said Scellenberger. “We thought that was a huge mistake. You may know, President Trump was lambasted for criticising that pipeline. His criticisms proved to be spot on.
“There was a huge crisis there trying to figure out how to power Europe. It lucked out last year with a with an unseasonably warm winter that helped quite a bit, and you see a significant ramping up of LNG - liquefied natural gas - production worldwide.
“I think that's a great thing in, in general, gas is cheaper when it's piped than when it has to be frozen or cooled. It's just such a significantly better fuel than coal. It's hard not to see this as part of a broader transition away from solid fuels.”
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Environmental campaigners are demanding an end to fossil fuel emissionsPADarren asked whether Britain was acting as “the canary in the coal mines” in rolling back on net zero pledges, and whether other countries may see the UK as “a world leader”.
Scellenberger replied, “I think that people recognise that while we've seen some promising developments in terms of electric vehicles, we remain an oil powered economy. Oil remains the dominant fuel for transportation and will be for decades to come.
“There's no reason for us to be stifling production. I always point out that we never run out of the incumbent fuel. We didn't run out of wood before we moved to coal and oil. We didn't run out of coal to move to natural gas. The new technology becomes much cheaper. The new fuel becomes much cheaper.”
“Britain doesn't have a lot of options. You've already done almost all the wind you can do. Now you've really maxed out your wind. This is a terrible country, as everybody knows, to do solar. So you're really left with gas and nuclear as your main two technologies or fuels to power the economy.
People are protesting across the world about the challenges climate change bringsREUTERS“Energy prices are the one thing that we actually can control. You can make energy more abundant to bring down prices. I think that needs to be a big part of both Labour and Conservative Party platforms going forward.
“I came from the left and as a young man, the left achieved much of what it wanted to achieve. It achieved equal rights for same sex couples. It achieved a huge agenda on climate change. Massive amounts of money are being spent on renewables.
“It's really run out of an agenda and it's become quite nihilistic. You see it in groups like ExtinctionRebellion or Just Stop Oil, where they're really turning against the pillars of civilisation, of which there's just really fundamentally three: Cheap energy, law and order, and meritocracy.
“If you want liberal democracy, then you need equal justice under the law, free speech and free trade. All six of those pillars are under attack by the radical left.”