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Reply | Trumps 100 Days
at 20:13 30 Apr 2025
A war crime is a war crime.
As it it, I don't recall the US or UK governments saying Israel is the aggressor, and they have throughout emphasised Israel's right of self-defence. Nor has either, to my knowledge, accused Israel of war crimes or breaches of international humanitarian law. [Post edited 30 Apr 20:15]
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Reply | Ben Johnson
at 17:54 30 Apr 2025
My comment was tongue in cheek. |
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Reply | Net Zero and Tony Blair.
at 17:40 30 Apr 2025
'Muddled and misleading' - Blair's net zero report criticised by his government's former climate guru Lord Stern
When Tony Blair was PM, he commissioned Nicholas Stern (now Lord Stern), a former chief economist at the World Bank, to write a report on the economics of climate change. It was published in 2006, it was vast and it was highly influential – seen as helping to persuade policy makers around the world not just that there was an environmental/humanitarian case for tackling climate change, but an unarguable economic case too.
So what does Stern think of the Blair report? Not much. Stern is now chair of the Grantham Research institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE and he has issued this comment.
"This new report is muddled and misleading. There is far more progress being made around the world to decarbonise the global economy than it suggests. For instance, China is the world’s leading producer and domestic deployer of renewables and electric vehicles. Its power generating capacity from renewables has now exceeded that of fossil fuels and its emissions are likely to peak in the next two years.
The UK’s leadership on climate change, particularly the elimination of coal from its power sector, is providing an influential example to other countries. So, too, its climate change legislation and its Climate Change Committee. If the UK wobbles on its route to net zero, other countries may become less committed. The UK matters.
The transition to clean domestic energy offers British consumers the prospect of lower bills, and greater energy security by not being dependent on volatile international markets for fossil fuels.
And the report downplays the science in its absence of a sense of urgency and the lack of appreciation of the need for the world to achieve net zero as soon as possible, in order to manage the growth in climate change impacts that are already hurting households and businesses across the world and in the UK. Delay is dangerous." |
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Reply | Net Zero and Tony Blair.
at 17:38 30 Apr 2025
He searched the document for the expression "45 minutes", couldn't find it, and so concluded that climate change wasn't a threat. |
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Reply | Trumps 100 Days
at 17:04 30 Apr 2025
For me it is a case of US/UK double standards in the sense that we call out what China or Russia gets up to*, but we are prepared to support, and at the same time turn a blind eye, to what is going on in Yemen on the part of the anti-Houthi coalition.
I suppose it's a bit like Gaza.
*Pre-Trump [Post edited 30 Apr 17:05]
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Reply | Net Zero and Tony Blair.
at 15:57 30 Apr 2025
I think the doom mongering is justified but Trump's election is certainly a big step back. This from yesterday's Amnesty International report.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL MEETS BURN, BABY, BURN
In 2024, no region was left unscathed by the climate crisis. An intense
heatwave in South Asia was followed by devastating floods affecting
millions and forcing the displacement of thousands. Record wildfires in
South America destroyed Amazon rainforests and imperilled
ecosystems stretching across entire countries. In Somalia, droughts
and woods destroyed communities, collapsed local economies, and
displaced families and communities.
2024 was the first calendar year in which the global average
temperature rose to more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.
Blazing temperatures demand trail-blazing climate action. Yet on top
of states' failures to phase out use of fossil fuels, COP29 negotiations
delivered a miserly financing agreement that risks trapping lower
income countries in a cycle of indebtedness.
President Trump's mantra of "drill, baby, drill" merely echoed what
was already underway, with his 2025 decision to withdraw the USA
from the Paris Climate Agreement welcomed by other fossil-fuel
dependent states.
And so, across the world, communities will keep burning, drowning,
dying. [Post edited 30 Apr 15:59]
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Reply | I see Tony has finally found his natural political suit colour..
at 14:34 30 Apr 2025
Badenoch missed the opportunity to ask about something much more topical and arguably much more important. This is the verdict on her performance from Henry Hill, deputy editor of the ConservativeHome website.
So Tony Blair puts out a report basically agreeing with Kemi Badenoch about Net Zero... and she doesn’t mention it once at PMQs? [Post edited 30 Apr 14:35]
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Reply | I see Tony has finally found his natural political suit colour..
at 14:29 30 Apr 2025
White man speaks with forked tongue?
Blair's thinktank issues statement clarifying former PM's position, and saying Labour's climate policy 'the right one'
The Tony Blair Institute has issued a statement saying that the UK government’s approach to the climate crisis is “the right one” and saying that it supports the 2050 net zero target.
Here is the clarification is full.
"The TBI report is clear: we must prioritise technologies which capture carbon, place a bigger emphasis on protecting and enhancing nature, and develop new nuclear power, smart grids, and a new system of financing existing renewable solutions in developing economies. The UK government is already pursuing these, and their approach is the right one.
The report also makes a plea for a different international policy approach which focuses on the global sources of emissions and the additional solutions we are likely to need to meet climate goals. It notes that ongoing domestic decarbonisation efforts in all countries remain vital for reducing emissions and delivering a sustainable future. In the short term - and we emphasise short term - fossil fuels will continue to be a large part of the global energy supply, particularly in developing countries who need to meet the immediate and increasing energy demands of their people as their economies develop.
The report is clear that we support the government’s 2050 net zero targets, to give certainty to the investors and innovators who can develop these new solutions and make them deployable. People support climate action, and it is vital that we keep the public’s support for how we do it."
This statement does not mention Tony Blair directly, or the foreword that he wrote to the report published yesterday that has generated a considerable backlash, from environmentalists and from people in the Labour party.
It is true, as the TBI statement says today, that Blair did not directly refer to UK government policy. But many of the general points he was making were clearly applicable to the UK. The foreword, and the report itself, did not directly defend the 2050 net zero target. And Blair in his foreword said:
"Though action by the developed world is still vital, by 2030 almost two-thirds of global emissions will come from China, India and South-East Asia. Yet the global financial flows for renewable energy in the developing world have fallen and not risen in the past few years.
These are the inconvenient facts, which mean that any strategy based on either “phasing out” fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail."
Now the TBI is suggesting that this statement referred mainly to policy in the developing world, and that he was only referring only to the short term. That is not quite what he said yesterday. [Post edited 30 Apr 14:32]
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Reply | Trumps 100 Days
at 14:26 30 Apr 2025
Without wishing to detract from the Houthi's role in the humanitarian crisis, it is difficult to argue that Western involvement in Yemen (whether direct or through Saudi Arabia and the UEA) has ever been motivated by humanitarian reasons. [Post edited 30 Apr 14:36]
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Reply | Ben Johnson
at 11:39 30 Apr 2025
What the hell do Fulham know about football? |
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Reply | Trumps 100 Days
at 08:45 30 Apr 2025
As Lou Reed put it, paraphrasing the sonnet which was written to raise funds for the pedestal for the Statute of Liberty.
Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses
Let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard [Post edited 30 Apr 8:46]
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Reply | I see Tony has finally found his natural political suit colour..
at 20:56 29 Apr 2025
And you want to drill, baby, drill.
Even if people don't care about the climate, the earth's resources are finite (and the UK no longer has much in the way of gas or oil reserves), but that isn't the case with wind or solar. [Post edited 29 Apr 20:58]
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Reply | Trumps 100 Days
at 20:45 29 Apr 2025
Interesting that the Guardian is reporting that, despite all the toadying, the UK is not at the front of the queue when it comes to a trade deal.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/29/trump-makes-trade-deal-with-uk-
Incidentally, I heard Malcolm Turnbull (former Australian PM) interviewed on the World Service. He said he had a very big row with Trump early on and stood his ground, with the result that Trump backed down and didn't cause him too many problems thereafter.
Maybe a bit more of the Carney approach is what we need, rather than the suggestion that government officials are exploring ways of getting the Open to be held at Trump's Turnberry. |
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Reply | Trumps 100 Days
at 20:36 29 Apr 2025
The Amnesty report published today is pretty damning.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-29/amnesty-international-says-t
The deterioration of human rights and the international order worldwide predates Donald Trump’s term in office. But with the Republican’s return to the White House “and significant corporate capture of his administration, we are turbo-thrusted into a brutal era where military and economic power trumps human rights and diplomacy; where gendered and racial hierarchies and zero-sum thinking shape policy, where nihilistic nationalism drives international relations,” warns Amnesty International in its latest State of the World’s Human Rights report, in which it calls on democracies to resist these attacks against the multilateral order.
“One hundred days into his second term, President Trump has shown only utter contempt for universal human rights. His government has swiftly and deliberately targeted vital U.S. and international institutions and initiatives that were designed to make ours a safer and fairer world,” said Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard, presenting the latest global report on the situation of human rights around the world in Brussels.
“The U.S. government is leading a global assault on gender and racial justice, has adopted sweeping gag rules on abortion rights, is relentlessly attacking diversity and inclusion, the rights of trans people, and is brutally stripping away the rights of migrants and refugees,” the former UN human rights rapporteur stated. She also denounced the U.S. administration’s attacks on the fight against climate change and on institutions that act as a check on the executive branch, from the judiciary to universities and the media.
The report, which reviews the state of human rights throughout 2024, denounces the “genocide” of the Palestinian population in Gaza. It also accuses Russia of killing more Ukrainian civilians in 2024 than the previous year, continuing to attack civilian infrastructure, and subjecting detainees to torture and enforced disappearance. It also highlights the “widespread sexual violence” against women and girls in Sudan and the continued attacks on the Rohingya community in Myanmar, as well as the “cruel and widespread repression of dissent” in many parts of the world, “insufficient efforts to address climate breakdown,” and a “growing global rollback of the rights of migrants and refugees, women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people,” among others. |
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Reply | I see Tony has finally found his natural political suit colour..
at 20:26 29 Apr 2025
What has the Tony Blair Institute actually ever achieved, apart from turnover of nearly $145 million?
He, and it, are guns for hire with some very dodgy donors and business partners, such as donations from Amazon, the US State Department, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
The contrast with Gordon Brown couldn't be greater with the charitable Gordon and Sarah Brown Foundation and his role as UN Special Envoy for Education and WHO Ambassador for Global Health Financing. [Post edited 29 Apr 20:30]
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