Mr Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that when he became chancellor, he worked closely with Mr Skidmore on climate change issues.
He said: “The independent panel for climate change that we have in this country are very clear that even when we reach net zero in 2050, we will still get a significant proportion of our energy from fossil fuels, and domestic oil and gas is four times cleaner than imported oil and gas.”
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dizzy: four times cleaner is just total BS, isn’t it?
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer reacts to the resignation of Tory environment champion Chris Skidmore:
“As the world burns, the Tories turn in on themselves. The government’s green credentials are truly in tatters.
“The climate crisis is here and now and being experienced by people across the country, but the Prime Minister can’t hold on to anyone who has any good intentions toward the environment.
“Labour has to be held to account as well – it refused to block Rosebank and other new oil and gas licences. How long before Labour’s own green champions feel their principles are too compromised to continue?”
A Tory MP has launched a spectacular attack on Rishi Sunak’s climate record as he announced he was quitting.
Former energy minister Chris Kingswood, who led a Government review of net zero, warned: “I can no longer stand by.”
His decision creates another by-election nightmare for the Prime Minister. Mr Kingswood has resigned with immediate effect from the Conservative Party and will formally stand down as an MP when Parliament returns after the Christmas break on Monday.
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In a statement posted on X, the Tory who signed the UK’s net zero commitment by 2050 into law said he was resigning as he could not support proposed new legislation that “clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas” by handing out more North Sea drilling licence.
He said the “future will judge harshly” anyone who backs the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which is due to be voted on by MPs on Monday.
“I can… no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of action that I know is wrong and will cause future harm,” he wrote in the excoriating statement. “To fail to act, rather than merely speak out, is to tolerate a status quo that cannot be sustained. I am therefore resigning my party whip and instead intend to be free from any party-political allegiance.”
He added: “I can no longer stand by. The climate crisis that we face is too important to politicise or to ignore.”
Mr Skidmore said the Bill that will be debated next week “achieves nothing apart from to send a global signal that the UK is rowing ever further back from its climate commitments”
… In September 2022, he was appointed by the Truss government to chair the Independent Government Review on Net Zero.[5] On 5 January 2024, Skidmore announced that he would resign his party whip and his Parliamentary seat in protest at the introduction of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill.[6]
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On 27 June 2019, as Interim Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, Skidmore signed the UK’s Net Zero Pledge into law, becoming the first major economy to do so.
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Net zero
On 26 September 2022 Skidmore launched the Net Zero Review, pledging to use the review to focus on the UK’s fight against climate change while maximising economic growth to ensure energy security and affordability for consumers and businesses.[28]
On 19 October 2022, Skidmore put out a statement on Twitter, in advance of a debate on fracking, saying that “[a]s the former Energy Minister who signed Net Zero into law”, he could not vote “to support fracking and undermine the pledges I made at the 2019 General Election”. The government was reportedly treating this vote as a confidence vote, putting Skidmore at risk of losing the Conservative Party whip.[29][30]
On 16 January 2023, Skidmore published “Mission Zero”,[31] the final report of the Net Zero Review. The 340 page report, containing 129 recommendations on how to deliver the UK’s net zero commitments, has been widely welcomed by the energy and climate sector.[32][33]
In June 2023, it was announced that Skidmore had been appointed to a professorship at the University of Bath to undertake research on sustainability and climate change.[34][35]
Although in November 2022 he had declared he would not stand again, in January 2024 Skidmore stated he would leave Parliament “as soon as possible”, stating that the relaxation of net zero targets was “the greatest mistake of [Rishi Sunak’s] premiership”.[36]
Resignation
On 26 November 2022, Skidmore announced that he would be standing down at the next general election, later stating in Parliament that ‘my constituency of Kingswood is being formally abolished in the boundary changes and there is nowhere for me to go.’[37][38][39]
However, on 5 January 2024 Skidmore announced that he would resign his party whip and his Parliamentary seat in protest at the introduction of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill.[40]
dizzy: From the Resignation section immediately above, by resigning Skidmore is forcing a by-election in a seat that will cease to exist at the next general election expected this year. From his statement and the rest of the Wikipedia entry, it’s clear that he’s doing it because he’s opposed to Rishi Sunak’s energy policy. Part of his resignation statement reads “I cannot vote for a bill that clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas. While no one is denying that there is a role for existing oil and gas in the transition to net zero, the International Energy Agency, the UNCCC and the Committee on Climate Change have all stated that there must be no new additional oil and gas production on top of what has already been committed, if we are to both reach net area carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and keep the chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees.”
He ends his statement “I can no longer stand by. The climate crisis that we face is too important to politicise or to ignore. We all have a responsibility to act when and where we can to protect the future: I look forward to devoting my time in 2024 and beyond to making the future a better place, in whatever capacity I can.”
A Conservative MP has said delaying climate action risks damaging the UK’s economic prospects, in a major review of the government’s net zero plans.
The report by Chris Skidmore says the government’s climate policies need to be more consistent and ambitious.
The UK is “falling behind” on some targets and needs a “new approach”, the report says.
It calls for 25 actions within two years, including food eco-labelling, and phasing out gas boilers by 2033.
Mr Skidmore – the Tory MP who wrote the report – was commissioned by former prime minister Liz Truss to review the government’s delivery of net zero, to ensure it was “pro-growth and pro-business”.
Some green campaign groups praised the report for focusing on the economic opportunities of net zero and urged the government to heed its recommendations.
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In his conclusion, Mr Skidmore said the UK was in a “net-zero race” and delaying decisions risked losing jobs, infrastructure and investments to other countries.
The UK, he said, had “reached a tipping point” where the “risks of ‘not zero’ are now greater than the associated risks of taking decisive action on net zero now”.
THE UK Government will launch its net-zero strategy in Aberdeen next week, signalling plans to extend drilling for oil and gas.
The revamped Conservative proposals will see what was being referred to as “green day” by Whitehall staff rebranded to “energy security day”, with more of a focus on fossil fuels.
The proposals will also fail to bring in a 2025 flaring ban for oil and gas firms despite it being one of the 130 recommendations made by Tory MP Chris Skidmore earlier this year.
There will be no office for net zero – also one of Skidmore’s calls – and no compulsion for solar panels on new housing. Plans for a UK-wide programme of home insultation improvements, campaigned for by groups like Insulate Britain, will not be included.
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[and the BS continues … an expansion of oil and gas destroying the planet spun as it’s exact opposite.]
