The Spectator’s Energy Summit 2019

In association with National Grid.

Brendan O’Neill

Channel 4’s climate change debate was a sham

I’ve seen some mad political debates in my time, but none as bonkers as last night’s climate debate on Channel 4. It summed up beautifully how unhinged climate-change alarmism has become. It wasn’t a debate at all, in fact. Everyone in the studio agreed that the end of the world is nigh, that mankind is

Isabel Hardman

Tories go to war with Channel 4 over climate debate ice sculpture

Why did Boris Johnson refuse to attend tonight’s Channel 4 leaders’ debate on the climate? His party has gone to war with the broadcaster, writing to Ofcom before the programme even started to complain about the way the prime Minister had been ’empty-chaired’, a slowly-melting ice sculpture replacing him (and another for Nigel Farage). According

The state of UK energy: Where do we go from here?

On the evening of Monday 3rd June, The Spectator gathered a group of experts together for a dinner to discuss the challenge of bringing the UK’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. The dinner was held the night before the Spectator Energy Summit, with both events being chaired by Andrew Neil. With the permission

How do we cut carbon and how fast can we go?

The 2019 Spectator Energy Summit opened with the chairman, Andrew Neil, listing the UK’s considerable achievements in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon emissions are 43 per cent lower today than they were in 1990 and Britain’s energy supply recently functioned without coal for over a fortnight – something it had not done for well over

Move over Brexit, low-carbon energy system is the challenge

While Brexit may feel like the only game in town, president and COO of Global Transmission for National Grid Ventures, Jon Butterworth, says its most pressing challenge is how to cost-effectively accelerate the transition to a more dynamic low-carbon energy system, while maintaining a robust security of supply As someone who is responsible for a

Is the UK really ready to decarbonise?

With the Extinction Rebellion protests and the arrival of Greta Thunberg, climate change dominates the political agenda in a way it hasn’t done in years. The news that the UK went a whole week without using coal went viral around the world after Leonardo Di Caprio posted National Grid statistics on his Instagram. Meanwhile, the