Flooding

How many criminal convictions are overturned? 

Power play The former energy minister Chris Skidmore resigned in protest at a bill to issue more licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. What are other countries doing? – US oil production hit a record 13.3m barrels a day last month, up from 10.8m five years ago. – Qatar is investing $150 billion toincrease oil production by 50% to 5m barrels per day by 2027. – Brazil plans to increase oil production from 3.1m barrels per day in 2022 to5.4m barrels per day by 2029. – Canada increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day between 2021 and last year. Judgment call The Criminal Cases Review

Fact check: what caused the German floods?

As a study in how hysteria develops, the reporting of World Weather Attribution study into last month’s floods in the Rhineland could hardly be bettered. You will no doubt have heard or seen headlines over the past couple of days claiming that climate change made the floods ‘up to nine times’ more likely. Some even ran without the ‘up to’ — such as the Times, which reported with apparent confidence: ‘Deadly floods nine times likelier in warmer climate’. What ordinary readers are less likely to have done is to have read the study itself. Needless to say, it paints a very different picture of the event and any causal link

Can London’s floods be explained by climate change?

It’s climate change again, innit. It didn’t take long for Sunday’s flooding in London to be put together with Canada’s recent heatwave and the floods in Germany and China to be used as ‘evidence’ of ever-accelerating climate change – giving us even less time to save the world than previously thought. ‘More rain as Londoners call out climate change,’ screamed a headline on City A.M., alongside pictures of water pouring through Stratford DLR station and cars stuck on the North Circular. Sunday’s flash floods have also brought an old favourite out of the closet: a map purporting to show large parts of London which will be underwater by 2030 –

Could Germany’s flood disaster have been prevented?

As the floods which have devastated homes and caused over 150 deaths recede in the Rhineland, three types of political implications have already emerged. People are talking about climate change – for the first time during the campaign. Armin Laschet, Merkel’s successor, failed to rise to the occasion when he was caught laughing as the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier addressed grieving families in the Rhineland. And it also emerged that flood warnings were issued, but were not passed on to the population. Germany is still in shock, especially because other parts of the country have since flooded. South-eastern Bavaria has now suffered the worst floods ever recorded, with massive destruction

Is climate change to blame for Germany’s flooding?

Greta Thunberg has declared the floods in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands to be the product of man-made climate change, adding ‘We’re at the very beginning of a climate and ecological emergency, and extreme weather events will only become more and more frequent.’ Well, that’s sorted out that one, then. We hardly need Angela Merkel or the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, to confirm it for us. Nor, indeed, do we need to hear from Michael Mann – aka Mr Hockey Stick – to tell us that the floods are the living embodiment of what climate scientists have been warning us about for decades. It was climate change

Corbyn’s PMQs virtue signalling ended badly

The floods got Jeremy Corbyn into a pickle at PMQs. The Labour leader started off by out-virtuing Boris. The PM had expressed sympathy with the victims of Storms Chiara and Dennis. Corbyn stood up. ‘My thoughts are with those suffering across the world with the corona-virus,’ he said tartly. He accused the PM of responding sluggishly to the inundations. Referring to an earlier crisis, he said, ‘I demanded that a Cobra meeting be called and [the Prime Minister] very reluctantly agreed.’ With the latest floods, Corbyn went on, he had once again ordered Boris to summon Cobra. But the PM had ignored the call. Why? Corbyn had his answer: ‘He