Yesterday the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) proclaimed that there was far too much hype by government ministers in favour of Fracking…the BBC was happy to oblige in giving them plenty of sympathetic coverage.
Jim Naughtie told us that the UKERC was completely independent and had no axe to grind.
That’ll be the UKERC, along with the pro-climate change propaganda organisation, the Grantham Institute, and the UEA’s CRU, that told the government in 2008, in the shape of Ed Miliband, to cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050.
The UK government announced yesterday that it will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.
The Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ed Miliband, stated last night that the assessment was based on an independent scientific report from Lord Turner’s committee on climate change.
The decision comes just nine days after Lord Turner’s committee, which includes Professor Jim Skea, research director at the UK Energy Research Centre and Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College, published its interim advice to government recommending more stringent cuts.
This is not business as usual
The speed of the decision is not a surprise to Turner’s panel. Skea says, ‘The Prime Minister indicated at the Labour Party Conference that he was willing to respond quickly once we made a recommendation.’
But the scale of the changes will be challenging. ‘We have said in our letter to the government that this is not business as usual. The very obvious priority is decarbonising the electricity industry. Buildings and transport are also up there as priorities.’
So, far from being neutral in the debate on CO2, climate and fossil fuel use, the UKERC is deeply involved in agitating against coal and gas…and set us on the road to a ruinous and suicidal extermination of industry.
Bishop Hill takes a look….
Public relations, not research
Nov 12, 2014 Energy: gas Greens
The UK Energy Research Centre – a proud member of the green blob, and a taxpayer funded one to boot – has launched a pair of reports into shale gas today, with a big bash to be held at the Royal Institution. As far as I can see the reports themselves have not been made public, and everybody is reporting the press release. This is usually a sure sign that something dicky is going on.
The headline is that shale gas development in the UK will not make a difference to prices. I assume this meanst that they are just channelling previous reports on the subject, but without the reports it’s hard to say. I very much get the impression this is PR rather than research.
And Delingpole does also [H/T George R]
Another Day, Another Worthless Report Trying to Kill Britain’s Shale Gas Industry
To suggest that the UK Energy Research Centre has an ideologically neutral position on fracking is a bit like saying that the North Korean Communist party remains open-minded on the role of the state in the economy.
There is a concerted effort to kill the UK fracking industry before it has even begun, which is being co-ordinated by a number of vested interests: green activists who think it’s eco-unfriendly; renewables companies who recognise that shale poses a massive threat to their government subsidies; natural gas producers from Russia to Qatar, who would prefer us to carry on importing from them than exploit our abundant native resources.
This report is part of that campaign. It doesn’t belong on the BBC or in our newspapers. It should have gone straight in the bin.