{"id":294171,"date":"2024-01-07T17:50:51","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T16:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294171"},"modified":"2024-01-07T17:50:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T16:50:53","slug":"good-riddance-to-chris-skidmore-chinas-useful-idiot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294171","title":{"rendered":"Good riddance to Chris Skidmore \u2013 China\u2019s useful idiot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Ross Clark\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future, according to Chris Skidmore as he\u00a0announced his resignation<\/a>\u00a0as an MP on Friday, \u201cwill judge harshly\u201d anyone who supports the government\u2019s Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. Sorry, but it will be even more severe on Skidmore, as the man who committed Britain to economic suicide and failed miserably to inspire the rest of the world to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Skidmore, lest we forget, who drove the\u00a02050 net zero target<\/a>\u00a0through the House of Commons in 2019 \u2013 without, it now seems, the faintest idea of how it was going to be achieved. All he did appear to know was that it was going to stimulate a huge economic boom for Britain. The Telegraph<\/a> has the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Skidmore\u2019s fantasy world, the net zero target is going to create 480,000 green jobs by 2030 and boost the economy by \u00a31 trillion \u2013 figures he trotted out in his review of his own policy commissioned by Liz Truss. Presumably, if it means homeowners having to pay many thousands for heat pumps and motorists being priced off the road, well that is just tough because \u2013 in that familiar assertion \u2013 the costs of not doing net zero will exceed the costs of doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Net zero is creating \u201cgreen jobs\u201d alright. Skidmore has already landed himself one: professorship at the University of Bath, focussing on, er, net zero policy. But many of these green jobs seem to have one thing in common: being in campaigning, PR or regulation. As for the industrial jobs actually making, inventing and developing things, we don\u2019t seem to be doing quite so well as some might have thought. How many wind turbines do we make in this country \u2013 which is supposed to\u00a0become a \u201cwind superpower\u201d<\/a>\u00a0at some point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we do seem to have stimulated a boom in green jobs elsewhere. China has around 40 per cent of the world\u2019s renewable energy jobs and produced, according to 2021 estimates, 44 per cent of the world\u2019s electric cars. But here is the thing: China doesn\u2019t even have a legally-binding net zero target of its own. Under Western pressure it has set a vague aspiration to eliminate net emissions by 2060, but there isn\u2019t much more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is doing very well out of the commitment to net zero made by Britain and other Western countries without taking the plunge itself. How come? Cheap energy, for one thing. China is building plenty of wind and solar farms itself but not at the cost of trying to live precariously on intermittent green energy alone. Even now, a majority of power generation in China \u2013 perhaps the power being used to manufacture our wind turbines and electric car batteries? \u2013 is from coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world is a far messier place than Skidmore\u2019s student-level politics would have it. Rishi Sunak has opted to\u00a0grant licenses for new oil and gas extraction<\/a>\u00a0in the North Sea because he can see, as can anyone with a clear head, that it will take decades for the world to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Other countries have come to the same conclusion, expanding their oil and gas production even while muttering platitudes about net zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Skidmore\u2019s fantasy world, the net zero target is going to create 480,000 green jobs by 2030 and boost the economy by \u00a31 trillion \u2013 figures he trotted out in his review of his own policy commissioned by Liz Truss. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":294175,"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":"In Skidmore\u2019s fantasy world, the net zero target is going to create 480,000 green jobs by 2030 and boost the economy by \u00a31 trillion \u2013 figures he trotted out in his review of his own policy commissioned by Liz Truss. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"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":[691818341,691826058,691826059,691821028,691818198,691818154],"class_list":{"0":"post-294171","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-chris-skidmore","10":"tag-economic-suicide","11":"tag-green-jobs","12":"tag-heat-pumps","13":"tag-net-zero","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OIG-73.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ewH","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":294162,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294162","url_meta":{"origin":294171,"position":0},"title":"Chris Skidmore quits to leave Rishi Sunak facing another by-election","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/01\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A former energy minister has quit over Rishi Sunak\u2019s plans to boost\u00a0oil and gas fields in the North Sea, ahead of a major Commons battle next week.","rel":"","context":"In \"Chris Skidmore\"","block_context":{"text":"Chris Skidmore","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=chris-skidmore"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Chris-Skidmore.webp?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Chris-Skidmore.webp?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Chris-Skidmore.webp?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Chris-Skidmore.webp?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0Chris-Skidmore.webp?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":240525,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=240525","url_meta":{"origin":294171,"position":1},"title":"When will the Tories realise that Net Zero is a foolish fantasy?-Ross Clark","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"19\/01\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Their enduring commitment to these idiotic targets, regardless of circumstance, bears the imprint of a cult","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-850.png?fit=1024%2C590&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-850.png?fit=1024%2C590&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-850.png?fit=1024%2C590&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-850.png?fit=1024%2C590&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":239461,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=239461","url_meta":{"origin":294171,"position":2},"title":"Chris Skidmore\u2019s Rubber Stamp Of Net Zero","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/01\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Surprise, surprise!! 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