{"id":270214,"date":"2023-07-29T19:10:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T17:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=270214"},"modified":"2023-07-29T19:10:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T17:10:18","slug":"tony-blairs-climate-pragmatism-is-a-welcome-intervention-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=270214","title":{"rendered":"Tony Blair\u2019s climate pragmatism is a welcome\u00a0intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"375\" data-attachment-id=\"270220\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?attachment_id=270220\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?fit=1920%2C995&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1920,995\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"image-920\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?fit=723%2C375&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?resize=723%2C375&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-270220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?resize=1024%2C531&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?resize=300%2C155&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?resize=768%2C398&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?resize=1536%2C796&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?resize=1200%2C622&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?w=1446&amp;ssl=1 1446w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com\/\">NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Paul Homewood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"381\" data-attachment-id=\"270215\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?attachment_id=270215\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?fit=1500%2C790&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1500,790\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"image-919\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?fit=723%2C381&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?resize=723%2C381&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-270215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?resize=1024%2C539&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?resize=300%2C158&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?resize=768%2C404&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?resize=1200%2C632&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?w=1500&amp;ssl=1 1500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-919.png?w=1446&amp;ssl=1 1446w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/netzerowatch.us4.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&amp;id=4eb0d49324&amp;e=4961da7cb1\"><u><em>London, 28 July<\/em><\/u><\/a><em>\u00a0\u2013 Net Zero Watch has welcomed Tony Blair\u2019s hard-headed intervention in the climate policy debate.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>With mounting public concern and political divisions about the rising cost of the Net Zero agenda, the former prime minister has warned that it was not worth imposing even higher costs on consumers.<br>Sir Tony Blair warned against asking the public to do a \u201chuge amount\u201d to tackle climate change, saying Britain\u2019s unilateral policies have no real impact in light of China\u2019s rising CO2 emissions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/netzerowatch.us4.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&amp;id=00c8e4edbe&amp;e=4961da7cb1\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ecp.yusercontent.com\/mail?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmcusercontent.com%2Fc920274f2a364603849bbb505%2Fimages%2F12e3c6cc-dd5f-8288-01d0-59d1e2fc3db8.png&amp;t=1690537326&amp;ymreqid=a37f8392-87ac-14a2-1c8d-e400cb013f00&amp;sig=TwkEeCQ_6ozX5PcAkLW.Vw--~D\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>In a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/netzerowatch.us4.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&amp;id=a37231a047&amp;e=4961da7cb1\"><em>recent interview<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0he said:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>&#8220;Don\u2019t ask us to do a huge amount when frankly whatever we do in Britain is not really going to impact climate change.&#8221;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Tony Blair also acknowledged what Net Zero Watch has been arguing for years: Britain\u2019s unilateral decarbonisation targets make no sense in the absence of the world\u2019s major economies adopting equally binding caps.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>While he insisted that climate change was \u201cthe single biggest global challenge\u201d and that \u201cBritain should play its part\u201d, he cautioned: \u201cOne year\u2019s rise in China\u2019s emissions would outscore the whole of Britain\u2019s emissions for a year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The former prime minister rightly argues that the UK is now a minor greenhouse gas emitter which has no significant impact on global emissions because the world\u2019s major emitters have no intention of adopting binding caps.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sir Tony\u2019s warning is a timely reminder that Britain\u2019s Net Zero plans are dangerously expensive and will result in painful reductions in living standards for all but the richest. They now threaten Britain with economic decline, societal instability and the eventual failure of the decarbonisation effort.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><br>Instead of extremely costly policies that are both unaffordable and unattractive to the poorer countries, Tony Blair advocates that Britain should focus on helping the developing world shift to alternative energy technologies.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Net Zero Watch welcomes Blair\u2019s intervention and hopes his pragmatic approach will open the door for a fresh debate that, for too long, has been seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist and depressingly intolerant.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With mounting public concern and political divisions about the rising cost of the Net Zero agenda, the former prime minister has warned that it was not worth imposing even higher costs on consumers.<br \/>\nSir Tony Blair warned against asking the public to do a \u201chuge amount\u201d to tackle climate change, saying Britain\u2019s unilateral policies have no real impact in light of China\u2019s rising CO2 emissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":270220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818341,691818076,691821444,691818154,691821445,691821401],"class_list":{"0":"post-270214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-co2","10":"tag-economic-decline","11":"tag-net-zero","12":"tag-societal-instability","13":"tag-tony-blair","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-920.png?fit=1920%2C995&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-18ii","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":269872,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=269872","url_meta":{"origin":270214,"position":0},"title":"Tony 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(EVs)","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=electric-vehicles-evs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/00hmRXqB5p.jpg?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/00hmRXqB5p.jpg?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/00hmRXqB5p.jpg?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/00hmRXqB5p.jpg?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/00hmRXqB5p.jpg?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":376994,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=376994","url_meta":{"origin":270214,"position":2},"title":"Blair Slams Starmer\u2019s Net Zero Plans\u2013\u201dDoomed 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If the open battle ends, as long as believers believe, the science is corrupted, and the Big Bankers meet for Skiing Trips in Davos, the climate battles will just go underground, or morph into a slightly different version of Grifter-Gravy. It has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate Wars\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate Wars","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-wars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-231.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-231.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-231.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-231.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270214"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270221,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270214\/revisions\/270221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/270220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}