{"id":337892,"date":"2024-07-29T17:06:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T15:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=337892"},"modified":"2024-07-29T17:06:37","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T15:06:37","slug":"desnz-has-net-zero-competence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=337892","title":{"rendered":"DESNZ Has Net Zero Competence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0David Turver<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election is over and we all know Labour has won with a massive majority. New ministers have been appointed to the Department of Energy and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the hard job of Government has begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour has appointed six ministers to DESNZ. However, analysis of their background and experience (see below) reveals two with PPE degrees, one with a degree in history, another with a degree in political studies and one with a degree in history and politics. There\u2019s also one minister gaining a degree in Russian studies before studying law. Not one of them has a background in science, engineering or maths. Almost all of them have worked in the public sector for their whole lives, so between them, there is precious little experience of the commercial world and no experience of the energy sector. Ed Miliband and Miatta Fahnbulleh have qualifications in economics, but the latter describes herself <\/a>as a \u201cheterodox economist\u201d and she has advocated<\/a> \u201cflooding the market with cheaper renewables\u201d and introducing \u201cfree basic energy\u201d. It can only be \u2018heterodox economists\u2019 who think more expensive<\/a>, intermittent renewables are cheap and think energy is free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are three spads listed<\/a> for Ed Miliband. Jonty Leibowitz<\/a> studied history at Cambridge. Tobias Garnett<\/a> studied law at City and then went to study at the Harvard Kennedy School where his thesis was entitled \u2018A Just Transition to a Fairer Economy: Labour\u2019s plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.\u2019 Eleanor Salter is the final spad, shared with DEFRA, and it is unclear what her degree subject was but she writes for the Guardian<\/em><\/a> and apparently she is particularly focused<\/a> on \u201cintegrating nature into the climate offer\u201d. No evidence of STEM backgrounds amongst the spads either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might think this does not matter, because ministers simply oversee the department and it is civil servants that really run the show. There are seven senior civil servants listed on the DESNZ website. But when you look at their background a similar picture emerges (see below). There are degrees in modern history, geography and modern languages, but precious little evidence of a STEM background anywhere. Only the Chief Scientific Advisor has any sort of science background and that is in chemistry, with a special focus on astrochemistry. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the senior civil servants have any significant experience outside the public sector. There is no evidence of experience in proper commercial businesses in any sector, let alone energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rot does not stop in DESNZ. The department might turn to advisors like the National Grid Electricity System Operator, who have recently published their future energy pathways<\/a>. Their Strategy and Policy Director, Claire Dykta<\/a>, oversaw the work and wrote the foreword to the new document. Claire describes herself as a \u201cleading influencer in the energy industry\u201d, as though she was running a TikTok channel. Claire graduated from Aston with a degree in management, business and law, so no evidence of a STEM background either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DESNZ ministers might look to the Climate Change Committee for advice or instructions. The CCC is currently without a chairman and CEO, but former chairman Lord Deben has a degree in history<\/a> and former CEO Chris Stark studied finance and law<\/a>. Despite never delivering anything more taxing than pizza, Stark has been drafted in to lead mission control to deliver a decarbonised grid by 2030. It is thought that<\/a> Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of renewables cheerleader Energy U.K., is going to take over as CEO of the CCC. Emma has a classics degree<\/a> from Oxford and began her career as a climate campaigner for WWF. Again, we find no evidence of any STEM expertise or proper commercial experience. The CCC does have some engineers and scientists on the board, but many of them have drunk the Kool-Aid, have interests<\/a> in renewable energy or get their funding from billionaire climate activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only does Mad Emperor Miliband have no clothes, his entire entourage have Net Zero garments. We have the blind leading the blind, advised by clueless cronies who do not have the faintest idea about energy, engineering or the commercial world. They simply don\u2019t know what they don\u2019t know and are totally ill-equipped to challenge the tendentious twaddle put before them. Their idea of delivery is drawing boxes and triangles on PowerPoint presentations. Some of them might even be numerate enough to plug numbers into spreadsheets, but they do not have the faintest idea what their models mean in the real world. This is how we get plans for energy that halve per capita energy use by 2050, and nobody bats an eyelid. The entire energy policy establishment is broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The biographies of DESNZ ministers and senior civil servants are reproduced below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DESNZ Labour Ministers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Labour has appointed six ministers<\/a> to DESNZ:<\/p>\n\n\n\n